After host David Popp cleans up a few foibles around the cork roadbed, he turns to the task of modifying turnouts to accommodate Tortoise switch motors. And then his full focus goes to laying down the trackwork! Follow his fastidious process for aligning the main line and gluing into place…to perfection!
And be sure to explore this model railroad’s initial path to resurgence upon landing in David’s basement!
David,
This is more of a layout planning question than anything else. Perhaps Tony Gerry needs to weigh in too. When I was in the service I built a layout as a series of shadow boxes much as you have. Made it real easy to move when I had to. The issue/question: Have you considered how to design around a corner? I experimented with a couple of concepts. One was simply to connect two shadowboxes and hid the whole 90 curve behind a panel. Sort of the train has left “X” and is somewhere on the line to “Y”. The other was to build a corner shadowbox of basic scenery (those spaces between places). Be interesting how those who think deeply about layout design would view these options?
Thanks for the note, Jim. Yes, one way to do it would be to make a corner module that didn’t open out to the aisle. You could slip the curve between the two visible sections of the layout as you suggested. I’d come up with a corner module idea for Olympia in the 2020 issue of Model Railroading the Ultimate Guide and called it the “football” because of its shape. It did open outward and it also had one open end that would connect to the Sand Creek module, making for a larger vista. – D. Popp
What did you have for Lunch David?
Stopped and McDonalds while running to the hobby shop.
Nice to see the trackwork in place. Have you ever used the bread clips (aka “occlupanids” ) to fill the gaps in the track made when you cut them with a Dremel tool?
Hi Artie, I’ve not tried bread clips for that, but I’ve used styrene before, and you can shape it with a file. Andy Speradeo liked to use gray ABS Plastruct for that, as you didn’t need to paint it. Thanks for the suggestion. – D. Popp