Frisco River Division - Cape Girardeau Southwestern

Thanks for the kind words, Paul and Tim. I have a lot of mentors here in KC and have learned a lot in the past six years. There are a bunch of guys here just chomping at the bit to assist in building my layout.

I took a mental inventory of things I have done on other layouts in the past six years and I can't believe all that I have done;
1) Framed up walls, mount, tape and joint sheet rock
2) built bench work, stabilized other bench work using triangular framing techniques
3) installed roadbed, laid track and turnouts, and built some hand-laid turnouts using Fasttracks jigs, and installed ballast
4) built curved backdrop using 1/4" sheet rock, dampened so it will bend to make curves down to 24" radius.
5) wired DCC bus wires, installed and soldered feeders, installed Command Stations, Boosters, throttle panels on fascia and radio receivers
6) designed and installed three phone systems and updated two
7) painted walls and backdrop, installed webbing and craft paper for basic landforms, applied ground goop for landscaping, applied flocking for grass, and ground foam and lichens for scrub brush
8) built a dispatch panel and modified another for two different layouts
9) assisted in installation and maintenance of an ABS semaphore system
10) installed grade crossing lights, detection and control circuitry and a street traffic light system
11) scratch-built and installed a wooden road overpass
12) assembled rolling stock kits and installed a bunch of sound decoders
About the only thing I haven't done is paint or decal any models.

 

You are indeed a whizkid! I can't wait to see your layout develop.

 

Yea, he a busy dude looks like.

 

As of tonight, thanks to Rick McClellan and Stephen Priest, the ceiling grid is 100% complete, and thanks to Mike Porter, the lighting is 98% complete. I have a small area under some duct work in a corner above the MoP spur that I will have to deal with separately as no trough light fixture will fit (Chris and Tim this would be directly above Energy Coal Company on the MoP just after it crosses William St northbound.) Pictures of the lighted layout area are attached. The ceiling is 82" off the floor; I did not want to have to box in duct work and I beams. Most of the light fixtures are 4 bulb fixtures, but there are a couple of 2 bulb fixtures to fill in at two points. The fixtures at the very end of the long space above south staging are two 3 bulb fixtures and then two 2 bulb fixtures. All of the fixtures were converted to 4 ft no ballast 4000K LED bulbs from GreenLightDepot.

Now it's time to pack for my trip to SoundTraxx & Durango again this year.

 

As you can see from the previous post, I have quite a few ceiling tiles to cut to fit around the edges, some by very small amount.

 

Impressive. This layout is destined to grace the pages of a model railroad magazine.

 

All the ceiling tiles were up by the first of September. The space is in turmoil as benchwork preparation begins. The views here are looking north from Marquette, South from the north end of the yard toward Marquette, south from Marquette toward the staging area and finally from the far end of the staging area toward Marquett.

 

Looking good, Keith. Sigh, I wish I'd had the foresight to put in a drop ceiling in my land grant before starting construction. As it is, I'm doing well to paint the walls prior to finishing significant scenery/construction. Keep up the good work.

Best Regards,

 

Man, you and Greg have me thinking about completely rebuilding the Zalma Branch. Everything is so clean and solid.

 

So, I am making some progress; I have begun building my turnouts using FastTracks Jigs and Tools. On the MoP spur, I am using Micro Engineering Code 83 Rail for the turnouts and building #4.5 turnouts. The track on this spur was originally laid at the turn of the century so everything was a little tight. Pictures attached show some of the tools and a couple of turnouts. Note the FastTracks QuickSticks which are the tie bed for the rails once the turnout is built using PC board ties. Pliobond Contact Cement adheres the turnout to the QuickSticks. Wheelsets on trucks glide through these turnouts like glass and they can't be beat electrically. The TieBreaker is a jig that makes cutting the PC board ties to correct length very simple and quick.

 

I am being pretty meticulous so it takes me about 30 minutes. Some guys here claim they can build one in 15 minutes.

 

Beautiful work, Keith. Nice photography as well.

 

I have about 56 turnouts to build. But it is fun and very fulfilling.