
On vacation this week, and have been busy around the hose doing some clean up projects, and my wife and I have had the kayaks out on the Cumberland river a couple times. Tonday, after some furnature moving, and some extrior trim repair, I got enough out of the way I was able to work on the layout.
I am considering a major rebuild, so work in my Southern staging area, Harlow, Camp 6, Montgomery Furnace, Terrapin, Perry's Gizzard, or Ridgemont, is not on my short list, as those areas may be removed and replaced; Leaving only Crooked Creek TN., Murray, TN., State Line, GA . and Gegokayoossa, NC.
of those areas the biggest unfinished project is my attempts to add a return loop to the narrow gauge @ Georgia staging. Since I have a narrow gauge return loop in Gegokayoosa , this will allow me to have loop to loop operation on the narrow gauge. The narrow gauge main between them is currently too steep for my tastes. Most of my locomotives can pull appropriate trains up the steep grade, but the Blackstone C-19 W sound isn't stout enough to get much up that 6% grade with 18 inch radius curves. So if I do a rebuild, the narrowgauge main will be lenghtened considerably, giving me a much longer run, and the ability to get the great sounding C-19 up the hill with a respectable train.
I had put off putting down the flex track up against the ceiling because there wasn't much room. When I had built the Georgia staging I put the last track, an Ho standard gauge track, close to the ceiling, with just enough room to get my fingers between the car and the ceiling to retail a car if needed. Later I realized this gave me just barely enough room to sneak a narrow gauge track between the standard gauge track and the sloped ceiling. It was a bear putting that track in, but now I have it hooked up to the other side of the loop, witch peels off the outside track of the Georgia staging yard, which happens to be a narrow gauge track.
The Georgia staging return loop has a 17 inch radius, unlike the Gegokayoosa loop, which has a 16 inch radius. My Keystone/NWSL shay cant negotiate the Gegokayoosa loop, and I'm hoping it can deal with the Georgia staging loop.
Most of the loop is in place, I do have two Narrow gauge switches I have to get the ground throws and wiring in order for, and then I have to cut out a section of dual gauge track, and rebuild it with a switch to split the narrow gauge out, for the back side of the return loop. I'll have to build in the polarity reversing circuit as well. It is always a challenge to build switches in dual gauge track, and I'll have to be sure the polarity reversing for the Georgia staging loop doesn't **** up the Georgia staging staging tracks too much.
great fun; I have had so much fun with the return loop in Gegokayoosa, having another will be nice. The hollowed out space allows acess to the back track to be merely difficult instead of impossible, I am working on a Styrofoam mountain filler, that will ma ke a big chunk of lift out scenery that will extend all the way up to the iron mine A gegokayoosa.
over in the work area, Sir Toppum Hatt is busy elsewhere, and so Taz, The pink Panther, and Crang the evil brain are supervising the work in progress .