Work on the High Line commences

[Keith Hayes]

The cassette is in place, but I seem to have a short.

[Bill Uffelman]

Looks great. Go dead rail/battery and shorts will be a thing of the past!

Bill Uffelman

On Sunday, September 16, 2018, 11:34:16 AM PDT, Keith Hayes [via C&Sng Discussion Forum] <[hidden email]> wrote:

The cassette is in place, but I seem to have a short.

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NAML

[Keith Hayes]

After a six month lag, my friend, Chris McKenna came over and we went over the staging cassette with a fine tooth comb and discovered the one spot where I had not filed a joint in a PC tie. Now the staging functions and I only need to make a roadbed adjustment at the joint and we can start running trains!!

Thanks Chris!

[Jim Courtney]

Happened to me, too, on my now aborted Sn3 generic yard.

A short because I didn't file all the way through one PC tie. Took weeks before I found it.

[Keith Hayes]

First train in staging!

[Keith Hayes]

The crossing I purchased about 2016 started to self-destruct a few months back. Repeated filing, tweaking and adjusting finally took their combined toll. Since I needed to build another piece of track work for my Civil AP, I got the files and the rail nippers out and got to work. First I did a tracking of the existing track geometry. Then I made a template and laid out the crossing and the ties using FastTracks templates for a similar HO crossing.

I figured if I built each section and then lapped them together,  the results would be stronger. Slow, work, checking twice and hand filing and re-checking is the key here.

The crossing is more dimensionally stable but a 60 degree crossing has some tiny parts compared to, say a 15 degree crossing,  which has a much larger diamond. The PC ties are also fragile and the copper foil can delaminate when subjected to repeated heating  One of the interior diamond guards came loose as I sawed the gaps and I opted to epoxy it in place.

Today was the big day: the roadbed got a good water soak and the track crew got to work removing the old diamond.

The new diamond is in the paint shop. I am using my new process of spraying the track with brown enamel, which will not reemulsify when I apply water-based ballast cement. I can stain the ties different colors after. Locomotives tended to bind while traveling through the crossing.  The new one is built to a 36" radius, and the guards are a bit under 12 feet long which corresponds to the wheelbase of most all my 8-coupled locomotives. The end of the guards are also bent away from the stock rail and my hope is this address all the bind issues. There was also something of a sag on either side of the LMB as the roadbed approached the C&S. I will use this opportunity to fix that as well.

[Keith Hayes]

The crossing is in place and only remains to be wired to the bus.

I previously used a Digitrax AR 1 to power the frogs. A friend has recently had issues with his similar mechanical reversing units,  so I stole a dual frog juicer from the cabinet to power this iteration.

Trains can now resume running from Leadville to the end of track. Whew!