Wiring!

Well, it's my least favorite model railroad necessity: wiring. I dislike wiring even more than ballasting. That's why I kept my Marceline Sub simple. I've gotten most of the wiring run at Medill. I still need to drop the feeder wires tho. Also, the blue point turnout controls just dont work well with foam. So I've decided to go with Pecos despite not looking very prototypical. They look ok after ballasting tho. So, that will be my next purchase. I got to peel the protective film off the Medill control panel. It's not perfect; since when I painted it the temperature was a little under the manufacturer's minimum use at 50 degrees, so some wrinkle-age occurred. Oh well, gives it some character.
I've been preparing to get back into locomotive detailing and painting again. I got four GP7's awaiting Topeka cabs. Also, I'm hoping to order some Mark4Design GP50's soon. Mark is going the extra mile and will make them as close as he can to Santa Fe prototype without me having to do all the modifications. I's excited. GP50's were on almost every intermodal train, and were common in most normal freight consists. Can't have a 90's layout without GP50's. The other cool thing about modeling these is they dont need their fuel tanks shortened. Big plus.
Anyway, the panel for Gorin is drawn out and is ready for masking and paint. Not sure when I'll get to it. It's been raining quite a bit recently. April showers I suppose.
I've decided to eventually add three more staging tracks along the back of the yard. These will enhance westbound operation, because if I dont add them trains will have to crossover if running on the north main causing a bottleneck. I'm also going to use two Peco double slip crossovers on the yet-to-be-built locomotive staging benchwork. These aren't really prototypical, but it's in the staging room and they're major space savers.
Maybe this month if I'm able to order the new turnouts I'll update with pictures. After I get those it'll be really straight forward. The new turnouts will be thrown with choke wires and tiny collets. I'm planing to use NZT Models motorized dual control switch castings to really enhance the scenes and look really realistic.
So close yet so far to being able to switch Medill. But I'll let you guys know probably on TrainBoard when I start doing operations and ready for scenery. Laters.

Progress and Last Changes

Here's a updated final version of the track plan. Changes are the changed east staging yard leads, three additional staging tracks that will improve the operation of westbounds, and the final town will be Floyd, MO (looks like I forgot to delete the "Mendon" tags). On google maps, it looks like the track that served 5 spouts and an Amoco hose was torn out off the south main and a new track was added to the north main. But on my layout set in 93, I'm keeping the south main double ended spur. Just a lot more industry spots that way. The final change is the inclusion of the Frisco! This road really has grown on me, and I'm going to have them operated under the Santa Fe, although still seemingly functioning as a separate railway, instead of being absorbed by BN. It'll kind of be like how SP was under DRGW, but it seemed they weren't merger at all, lol. Thinking of doing C40-8's in red and white; maybe even some bought power from other roads like CN SD40-2's etc.



All benchwork for the rec room is done. Now waiting on some Sweepsticks from Fast Tracks. In a couple weeks I'll order a sheet from Backdrop Junction and get started on the Medill scene. Installing the bluepoint manual throws for the turnouts will be interesting. They're not designed for material over like 1/2" and ours is 2'' thick foam. So we're gonna try using a big spade bit or hole cutter drill attachment and going in half an inch from underneath. They should work pretty slick tho if it works. Hope the tension will hold the points over enough so nothing derails. Some of the ME turnouts I got don't close enough.
Train show the 11th. I'm scouting out Frisco power right now till stuff starts showing up in the mail. And there wont be major progress for a few weeks to order and receive backdrops and Arizona Rock and Mineral ATSF ballast.

Haven't Been Goofing Around Too Much

Hi everyone. Welcome to my new blog for my model railroad. My old blog had an outdated title, because I now model a small part of the ATSF railroad's Marceline Subdivision.

The final towns in the trackplan are set in stone. They are Medill, Gorin, and Mendon Missouri. I was able to travel to Mendon. I was sad to see the six small grain bins at the elevator there were torn out, along with a large bin.

Benchwork is nearing completion! Only two modules left; a swinging gate module, and the last small module in the staging room. Also a magnetic lift out bridge for the last module to the east end of the staging yard.

I plan to actually update this blog regularly on weekends, or every other weekend. In the next post, I'll post a picture tour of the benchwork and links or photos of the locations.

See ya next time!