This week needs a good WPF. It’s been a little slow around the forum this week, maybe because of the summer-like heat that’s lingering in the US Midwest. Then there’s that whole Friday the 13th thing going on…[:O]
Tefft is getting to be a busy place with the lengthening of the Cascade Branch.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/219241.aspx
There, like on about a dozen other spots around the layout this week, I did some electrical work to provide more DCC-friendliness. The layout was originally set up for DC cab control, so many of the turnouts were wired to power route sidings so that locos could be shut down. Now I’ve gone back to cut a gap right after the turnout. Since I wired every stick of rail with drops to the power bus, usually it’s just a matter of switching that siding from routing power through the turnout by moving those wires from the green, "hot-frog"switched by the Tortoise to an independent feed so the siding is always hot. Good thing I did all the work and all you have to do is look at the pics illustrating the results[:)]
At Rockwood, the center siding to store loads and MTs was finished to handle the extra traffic at the sawmill coming off the Cascade Branch.
I also finished up a much-needed siding to store standard gauge cars for drops and pickups at Durango. It’s the siding on the far right coming off the curved turnout in front of Durango station in the first pic and on the far left in the second taken from the other end of the yard. Blended in real good now that the ballast is down. Since it’s "close to the e