Re-laying track

Well I can’t believe it’s 12 months since my last post. I just never seemed to get around to posting anything.

One of the biggest tasks undertaken was to re-glue the rails to the CV ties all the way from Kankool to Ardglen. I had discovered that the rail had started to lift in quite a few locations. I am still unsure what the cause was, but I’m putting it down to my initial glue mixture of contact cement and MEK.

I had been very apprehensive about doing it, but realised I had to just bite the bullet. Subsequently over about a six week period, I lifted 38 metres of rail, cleaned the old glue of the base and also off the CV ties, and using Pliobond straight from the tube, applied it to both rail and ties and re-laid the rail back in place. The process wasn’t too bad, as it was still all pre-curved.

During the process, I also increased the gap between lengths of rail from virtually nothing to around the thickness of a piece of paper.

The next biggest task had been to install more scenery foam nearly all the way to where Ardglen quarry is located. This was roughed in using previous techniques and is yet to be carved to shape.

More backscene board was installed, again, up to where the quarry is located.

Tracklaying, turnouts, weathering & sound …

Hi all,

Well, it’s been quite a while since my last post, and since then, quite a bit has been achieved.

I have now got CV track and rail laid from the Sydney end of Kankool up to the approximate location of the Up Home signal at Ardglen, which is shown by the red line in the image below.  A total length of around 38 metres (125 feet).  This was achieved over about a six week period.

I continued with the rail laying process as described previously here.

Work has also commenced on the first of the Ardglen turnouts at the Kankool end.

During the last few months, I also spent some time finishing up the weathering on three more 45 class locomotives and the fitting of Loksound Select DCC decoders and sugar cube speakers.

I fabricated my own speaker enclosures to fit two 8 ohm, 11 x 15mm ‘sugar cube’ speakers, wired in parallel.

Below are some shots of the weathering on the 45’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers.

More track laid & scenery continues at Kankool …

Hi all,

Since the last post, I have continued with the laying of rail from Kankool towards the bridge at Chilcott’s Creek and also for a couple of metres towards Ardglen.

This had come to a bit of a standstill due to me running out of the 3D printed fishplates a couple of months ago, but I have since come up with a new plan to allow tracklaying to progress independent of my stocks of fishplates.

I have started to paint the non-viewable side of each rail with the Krylon camo brown prior to fixing to the CV ties.  There is no need to have fishplates on the non-visible side of the rail.  That being said, I did fix them to both sides of the rail on the main and loop roads at Kankool, but only realised it was a waste after the fact!  Once the half-painted rail is fixed down, I will then go along and glue the fishplates to the viewable side of the rail and then spray the whole track, including the CV ties, with the Krylon.  I think this will aid in colouring and weathering the CV ties later on.

Over the last few months, in between other jobs, I started to glue down copious amounts of the XPS yellow foam in readiness to begin shaping the landform in the section from Chilcott’s Creek and through Kankool.

Cheers.

Kankool trackwork – Part IV …

Hi all,

Apologies for the long time between posts.

Since the last post, I have completed the trackwork at Kankool, which included completing laying of the CV tie bases, fixing down the two turnout assemblies and gluing rail to the CV ties.

The above pictures show both the Willow Tree end and Murrurundi end turnout assemblies now fixed in place.  Prior to fixing down, they were carefully washed in soapy water to remove any solder and flux residues, then painted with the Krylon flat brown paint.  I’m hoping it will provide the same flat base to allow for weathering later on.

Once the turnouts were in place, I could start laying the rail on the plain track sections.  The process is the same as was used when I laid the first section of CV ties and rail in the Temple Court section.  Refer to this post as a reminder.  The only difference now is that I am painting the rail with the Krylon prior to fixing in place.

Another extra task that is being done prior to painting the rail, is to add cosmetic fishplates.  I did not do this in the Temple Court section, but they will be added to the rail later and touched up with paint.

I am using 3D printed 6-bolt fishplates from Ray Pilgrim.  There are superglued every 40 scale feet along the rails.

They are a bit hard to see in the picture above, but I am hoping once the rail is weathered, they will stand out more.

To finish this post, below are a couple of shots of the finished trackwork looking from each turnout.

Cheers.

More foam roadbed & CV track installation …

Hi all,

I have completed installation of the foam roadbed all the way from Chilcott’s Ck almost to Ardglen.  I have also laid quite a bit more CV track base from Chilcott’s Ck through Kankool to just before the first peninsula.

The process was the same as outlined here when I did the Temple Court section.

Under where the turnouts are located at Kankool, I laid 3mm cork down instead of the foam.  This was done to make it easier cutting out a hole for the future throwbar rather than trying to cut it out of the soft foam.  In hindsight, I probably only needed a small section of cork directly under the toe of each turnout rather than under the whole turnout.  That is what I will do on future turnouts.

 

Taking on board an idea from Andrew, I also commenced installing strips of the high density yellow foam to the sides of the spline.  The idea here is to lay continuous foam strips along the spline to not only allow for shaping the trackbed, ballast profile and drainage, but to also make it easier to install the main scenery foam later on, rather than trying to cut many small irregularly shaped foam pieces to try and fit against the spline.

 

Cheers.

Backdrop & upper deck supports for Temple Court section …

Hi all,

Since my last post, I have completed the painting of the CV track in the Temple Court section.  I pretty much continued with the same colours and techniques as described in the previous post, and am pretty happy with it all.  The section is now ready for ballasting but this won’t happen until I have the scenery in place.

 

I had also started fitting some styrofoam in place for the scenery base, but realised I couldn’t do much more until I had the backdrop supports installed.  At this point I was unsure of how much scene depth I was going to have in this area.

 

The upper deck that will carry the track coming into Ardglen will be fully supported on the main benchwork in this area.  There will be no anchoring of benchwork to the ceiling.  Supports were made from 70×19 DAR pine and cantilevered off the existing joists supporting the Temple Court roadbed.

 

Even though the cantilevered joist length was short, I decided to install angle braces back to the main beams.  The whole weight of the upper deck and fascias will be supported by these timbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, it’s probably over-engineered,  but better to do it now than have problems later on.

To finish off, a couple of shots of the section with some masonite temporarily clamped in place so I could get an idea of how it will look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am thinking the next stage will be to actually fit the backdrop sheeting in place so I will have something to fill with foam to begin scenery shaping.

Cheers.