Not quite as long a recovery as hip or knee replacement, but getting myself prepared for the task took a little longer than expected. You see, the doctors at the Piedmont Division (PD) first identified the ailment and planned some time ago, as I recall about fourteen months ago (10/2007) that the layout track scheme needed a pair of turnouts to aid in a more direct path between the freight/staging/fiddle yard and the classification yard. The answer to the illness was to add a pair of turnouts, but it also meant that two sections of existing track would have to be replaced. At that time the PD intern was not quite up for doing the delicate operation.
More than a year later, after much consternation, and some kidding aside, I got up the courage and tackled the task at hand with vim and vigor and completing 95% of the project operation in two days this past weekend. The only remaining items on the punch list is to add some ties and then wire the two turnouts to the DCC buss. Ballasting and weathering are considered a whole other project outside the realm of this particular endeavor. (Click on thumbnail images for a larger view.)
Alignment means rising to the occasion
With the two Atlas #4 turnouts and a short 3-inch connecting piece of flex track between them I measured the area of the two separated tracks for the optimum location. This area was chosen as a prime candidate because the two