The bench work beneath the site of the second reversing loop is finally built:
Couldn’t resist the temptation to jimmie up some track work and wire the balance of the connections to give it a test run.
This is trickier than I thought it would be, but after some trial and error and reworking the phasing between blocks, I got a drive by of the New York Central F3.
Had to run this really fast, as the track is a mess and I was hitting bad spots and cycling the e-unit to neutral. Once I got the speed set, it made it all the way around for a few laps:
The trickier part is running both loops at once. Again, the dirty track was an issue and getting these in sync takes some patience. Here’s the NYC and Santa Fe doing the suicide run::
Two Trains Running In opposite Directions Sharing Top Level Video
I figured out that parts of the run are noisier than others. In front of the abandoned warehouse is pretty quiet, in front of the Lionel factory - loud. I figure I am getting some echo from the factory, which is plastic and has a big empty gap behind it. I am going to pick up some recording studio style foam and place it behind the factory, as well as in the hollow area beneath the top level to cut down on the noise.
Here’s a short freight of post war Sunoco Tankers:
Only took 18 months to get this far - now I can start building that bridge to hold up the loop.