Mainline is DONE! Controls coming together!

Since the last few posts were focused on LCC, thought it would be good to do a show-and-tell on how the layout itself is coming along.  To do this, let's follow along heading eastbound out of Valley Gate.

Valley Gate remains pretty much the same.  With the Armstrong Yard at Pinion, Valley Gate will be relegated to building only local trains.

The lead on the east end of Valley Gate now includes a cross-over, creatively called East Valley Gate.  No passenger station here - it was relocated to Pinion.  On the upper shelf, we can see the branch to Warm Springs.  Functionally the layout is pretty much the same as it was - a shorter main with a longer branch.  Just adding some yeast and stretching the runs!

Looking to the east of Valley Gate East, we see Coyote siding.  Upper shelf we see the branch rising up.  The branch has the stiffest grade on the layout - 3.5%.  More than what I wanted to end up with, but very doable.
 
East end of Coyote, and the lead to Armstrong on the far left.  Above is Wren Canyon.  Wren Canyon is where the branch to Black Water Falls and the Unobtainim plant starts.

Looking west along the grade,we see Wren Canyon in the foreground; Coyote Siding below.  Slightly visible below is the lead to staging.  Scenery will cover a lot of this area. 

Looking east again, the lead to Armstrong Yard is to the far left.  Center is the main.  To the right is the future lead to the refinery.  This will be a major switching area.

Armstrong Yard at Pinion!  All track laid, with the exception of the passenger siding to the back.  Feels good to have this powered and running!

East end of Armstrong Yard.  Engine terminal leads being laid out in the right foreground.

A feature in Armstrong is a crossover leading to the arrival-departure tracks.  This will add considerable flexibility to yard ops as the yard can received and send out trains off the A/D tracks while the switcher can continue to work in the classification tracks.  The crossover is 100% remote controlled by dispatch.

The east end of Armstrong provides a pretty good drill lead, each on 36"-42" radius so drilling long cuts of cars should not be a problem.  To the east of Armstrong we get to Turay, a set of control point crossovers to allow trains to be routed either on the main or in/out of Armstrong.  Again, all mainline switches are powered and remotely controlled.  To the right is the lead to the future branch leading up to the cement factory.  That will also be a major switching area.  Far right is going to be MoW storage... I cannot seem to help but collect that kind of stuff!

Heading east out of Turay, the main will pass through the backdrop and into the helix.  It's a double-track helix to allow trains to pass and be staged as required.  Thanks to Dave and the CR&P RR for donating this helix to the GNW!

Bottom end of the helix includes another crossover.  This allows trains from staging to run up or down the helix on either track, hopefully reducing delays in getting trains in and out of staging.  Note the snazzy and bright LED lighting!  


On the upper deck, on the way to Warm Springs, is Rosita.  Nancy is working on scenery ideas for this siding and interchange with a mining railroad.

West end of Rosita.  The fabric art store survived the reconstruction!

As mentioned, there will be a mining railroad interchange.  Here we see their service track.  The lead will hide behind the backdrop.  Wren Canyon siding is to the right.

Black Water Falls is still in operation, and they put up the tree for the holidays!  

All the new track needed additional LCC nodes.  They continue to multiply!  More on that later.

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