Current Inventory (in progress)

Here is a listing of my railroad locomotives and rolling stock.

Donald Munson's freelance

New Year - New Plan

It is nearly a week into the new year and, as I'm guessing you figured from the title, I changed my mind over the holidays.  As I sat there looking at my layout I realized that I really didn't like the small yard I was confronted with.  Operations notwithstanding, the yard needed more room for my limited rolling stock.

So I went back to the drawing board, talked it over with the Head of Domestic Operations and did some land surveying - the railroad will be breaking ground on a southern yard shortly after operations commence in the near future.  In the meantime the land that was going to be used has been turned back over to the county for improvement and the decisions on what to build there have not been concluded.

Once that decision was made the Road Department begain laying track based on the new format.  So far nearly 75% of the rail has been laid.  Operations are ongoing to surecure the sub-roadbed and build up the mainline to meet standards.  Additionally terraforming operations have taken place and the lake has been fully excavated as well as beginnings of the upper land elevations.

On that note, the company has agreed to extend the upper level to the sourtheast in hopes of a future expansion into the unexplored reagions of the external areas.

Photos will be provided soon

Here is an overview of the new layout.

Land acquisition for layout

I just realized that I did not do my due diligence for public notices of land acquisition for the RR.  Shame on me, but with the right of eminent domain - who cares :)

So, earlier in this notices I did post a plan showing how I would run the railroad.  Double track mainline wiht a crossover near the farm to let trains switch lines.  However, an ongoing conversation with a fellow RR-er provided me with a grain for thought.  After some consideration I agreed and adjusted my plans from a double track main (and subsequent reduction of space) to a single track main withe a viable (albeith smallish) yard for forming trains and storing rolling stock.  I'm sure at some point I'll have to do some more planning and land acquisition for either second yard or a replacement, but in the interim this one should work very well.

Actually if you compare this layout to the pictures in the previuos post you can get a pretty good idea of how things will layout.  Operationally, we'll see :)

Life in a blue land

Christmas was good to the RR.  Kathy and I actually got pretty excited after getting a hint at what the future holds.

Santa indulged my latest hobby and brought me a new locomotive (Amtrak #104 an F-7A), a flat care that works (the ohter one from E-bay is just way too light I think) and a track cleaning car that I wanted.  Also I was surprised with some benches (to match the ones I got for her :)  err him), a water tower and, best of all - a package of trees.

So I went down and tried to imagine what was coming.  Below are the pictures that show the future of the railroad.

Passenger service:

The Farm:

And a hint of the "hidden" details that will end up all over this layout when I get done (whenever that may be)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go place a help wanted sign for railroad laborers to get this track work completed.

Railroad history in my backyard

Today while perusing various videos about trains I cam across a You Tube videographer who has many video's covering railfanning Northern Florida.  Throughout his videos he refers to the "A" line and the "S" line as it travels these areas.  Well I live on the "A" line.  I can literally hear the trains as they travel a couple of hundred yards outslide my backyard.  Unfortunatly the woods are so thick I can't see them.

Well I got curious and was looking for a track map of the "A" line.  Came to find out it is called this since it used to belong to the Atlantic Coastal Railroad which ran from Richmond to Tampa.  The interesting tidbit is this was the turn of the century.  I live next to a railroad trackbed that has been working for over 110 years. 

How cool is that?

Running Trains

Well this weekend has been busy.  And, in a word, satisfying.  I actually have track down and running trains.  Admittedly not all the way around - but they are running.

I begain laying track using the plan and as usual fo rme, it gradually diverted into something that was similar but workable.  I found out that the yard layout didn't quite fit.  So I did some adjustment and viola - working yard.  Laid out the other parts and got it down to where I had most of the track in place and I could see how it would be functioning.

So today, I went back to fill in some spots and actually hooked up my NCE Power Cab.  With relatively easy steps I had power on the track and a running locomotive.  For all of two sections.  Then quiet.  Seems that I had forgotten my lessens of the table.  Always use two track joiners,  otherwise you run out of signal and power.

So I spent a little bit of time fixing thd missing joiners.  Using my locomotive as a sort of inch-by-inch failure indicator.  When the train stopped moving I looked for a gap.  Worked like a charm.

This afternoon I tried to make up a train and function per my plan.  Found out that I could not even get a four car train hooked up and out to the main track.  It was too long and blocked the turnouts.  So I thought and ended up pulling track and relaying a section so that I had a forward moving outlet from the yard to the outside track.  This will let me get a "full size" train out of the yard and onto the moving track.  We'll see how it works out.

I still have about 4 feet of gaps that need to be filled - but I'm much closer than I was yesterday.  Now I can run about 85% of one track without a glitch.

That is great progress!

Dec 6th

Another day, another layout.  I still need to plan structures and such things, but this layout will give me a complete yard as opposed to just some spurs.  I'm hoping this one will work out as I really like this.

On the way home this evening I bought 3/4ths of my crossover.  I created a crossover using #8 turnouts and they had two rights but only 1 left.  So I sort of have to wait till I get the last piece to built it.  But I have most of it.

So at this point I think I have settled on a plan and will start laying the track.  If I get to the crossing then I can simply plug most of what I can and leave that corner alone till I get it.  I'm hoping that by New Year's I'll have enough started to begin running trains along the lines.

The open question is whether I will be laying directly on the plywood or lay down some blue foam and use that as the base.  In all probabilities it will be onto the foam. No matter which way, once I have the track down "for good" I will start the terraforming and begin section by section work to develop the tables into a real world.  I believe I'm  going to start with the freight yard. Then to the Farm, the town and the yards.