It's Rising, It's Rising...

Well, now there is some definite progress. I fixed all of the track feeders, resoldering them as necessary. In some cases, I only needed to trim the insulation back to avoid an issue.

After my problems with the turnouts, I tried some more troubleshooting and found that if I clipped the tip off one of the turnout switch points, it wouldn't drag and then short out the turnout when my larger (4-8-2) engine went through. What - a 4-8-2 Mountain you ask? Yep, I just wanted to see if I could run something bigger around the track. Normally, I probably won't go larger than a 4-6-2, but I wanted to try. :) I'm going to try something else next week when I have more time but this gave me some hope.

Now, what happened in the photo? Well, I was able to get my friend Mike to cut a piece of masonite for me into 7/8" strips, yielding 46 usable and 2 useful pieces. The 2 useful ones are for fill-in or whatever. In fact, I cut up the worst one into 2-inch long pieces for shims. Along with some cardboard shims, I was able to create the first two supports for the elevated track (not visible on the right).

The remainder of the supports are from a 2x2, cut to the required height minus 7/8". All of them are glued with full-strength yellow glue (TiteBond II). I allowed them to set overnight, and they are solidly attached.

I determined that I needed ten strips for the width of the subroadbed to allow the track to fit, as well as a little for an edge to attach scenery. Since this is just a little over 1.5 inches and the HO-scale cork is about 1-3/4 inches, I had to buy some N-scale cork.

With the supports installed, let's install masonite! So I did. So far, I have 3 strips at the far right to about where the blue clamp is in the upper left of the photo. Then I have one strip just clamped to see the overall rise and whether there is any impact to adding the backdrop that still needs to be painted (in the spring). The backdrop supports are located but not installed yet. I probably will do that after the Open House since the car boxes are in the way of the last ones.

One thing I need to determine is where that final track support is going to be (it's located but not glued down yet due to those pesky boxes). I also need to develop a temporary (?) platform for me to interface the track at the next level. Depending on what I determine, it may be the actual base or maybe just a placeholder. I don't yet know.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to identify structure kits that I already own to install on the layout in places where we identified only a type of structure. I seem to have almost everything, but I will need to build some mockups (I had to get some mat board for this) to see about spacing. I also need to start building some more turnouts. If I want to try the elevated track, I need three more (2 #6, 1 #5).

More next time!