Posted these in the photo fun thread, but thought I'd post here too for some progress shots.
Over the week I assembled my new Walthers Water Tower. Stills need painting. Super easy to put together, was only like 4 or 5 parts. I may just give it a flat finish and leave it white, so it stands out from the blue background some. I'll have to create a "Welcome to Elmwood" decal for it.
Up next is the helix. It's actually turning out pretty good. I basically screw down some nuts on the rods, place on two metal brackets, and clamp the wood in place to get in positioned correctly. Then I pull the whole thing off, screw the brackets to the wood and put back in place. And 2 cross braces and then the top nuts and screw in place.
Getting everything nice and lined up is a snap using this method. It takes a while (threading a nut down a 20" rod = pita). can't wait till I get to the higher levels, heh.
Track is also super glued in place with feeders going to each level. No soldering is done due to the way I'm building it. The amount of feeders should help keep power flowing throughout. Even now I'm using a single feeder line to power everything and it runs fine. (see video above)
And lastly, I got the basics down for the staging yard. Mainly so I can have some different types of trains to run up the helix with for testing. It'll be a five track yard with various lengths of sidings. A backdrop will eventually go into place right in front that coal train.
In order to see what's going on, I plan on installing a 3 or 4 mini cams back there over the switches so I can make sure I'm stop the train in the right spot so I'm not blocking other tracks.
I thought of just using some panel indicators, but I think I'd like to actuall "see" what's happening back there.
And that's it for now. Over the weekend I went to the Great Train Expo and picked up retired Walther storage tank, another north island refinery kit to kitbash the refinery to a large one, and a chemical plant kit to also mix into the refinery.
I did some shuffling of things around, plan on moving a yard to over the desk on the 1st or 2nd level perhaps, and made room for another yet-to-be-decided major industry. I'll have to get the trackplan updated to show all this.
Okie doke, that's all for now.
And thanks for the kind words madhatter!