Home Page › Forums › Modeling the Missouri Pacific, Texas & Pacific, etc › Mopac or Texas & Pacific layouts › I’ve bit the bullet, Jan. 15, 2011 › Reply To: I’ve bit the bullet, Jan. 15, 2011
The railroad has coalesced into three disconnected segments, one of about 41 feet of track from the train room door to the entrance to the storage room, one of about 28 feet of track on four modules, and a third one of about forty feet of main track plus sidings plus a mini-mo connecting it to the 16′ storage yard.
Over the weekend I finished another mini-mo of 45 inches long incorporating about an 18 degree curve, connecting modules 3 and 4 and bridging the entrance to the storage room (which happens to be where the construction started, on either side of the storage room door). I used 3/4″ plywood for this, which I ended up splicing with some judicious reinforcement. It’s not the most stable arrangement, but it works. The 18 degree change of direction plus the length allowed me to use 42″ radius in the curve with plenty of tangent at each end.
This mini-mo plus a power wiring jumper has made it possible to run a train through this whole length, albeit with a few derailments, from one end up to module 7 which is still lacking track power on the main. I’m going to put a fakey section of track across the river location soon, so as to be able to claim I can run from one end to the other.
Soon I’ll have more track than the total length of cars that are on the layout, if I persist.
Ron Merrick
