Summer Vacation Series- Mark Oliviere

We have been very busy over the summer working on my layout. Every Tuesday night we meet between 6:00 and 9:00 PM. The first picture is the beginning of the railroad yard that will be located under a mountain. We used the same technique for the roadbed that we used on the first yard. A piece of 1/4" plywood with a cork border.

The Second shows the yard nearly completed. Once completed the tracks will be adjusted so they are all straight. If you look closely you can see the jumper wires for the tracks.

The third is the beginning of the logging line that will run through the mountain When the initial logging line is built it will have 4 switchbacks.

The fourth is a close up of the approximate location of the trestle bridge for the logging line. The bridge was on my previous layout for the logging line. This bridge was built from a 2x4. The 2x4 was cut down on a large table saw then cut to size on my hobby table saw. The ties on the bridge were leftovers from the large trestle bridge that I built on my previous layout.

This is part of the mountain that is located over the second railroad yard. You can see the location of some of the switchbacks for the logging line and a small river bed next to the 2 main lines. Each section of the mountain is constructed to be modular, with sections overlapping at the joints of each module. Plastic is placed between the overlapping sections so they do not stick together.

Both main lines are up and running. Each has been tested with up to an 80 car freight. The main lines have been wired for half of the layout. On the section that is wires the train runs at a steady pace. Jumpers are places approximately every 6 foot. On the section that is not wired yet the trains slow down due to voltage drop. The section that is wired has been calculated to have a voltage drop of only 1/4 volt with 4 diesel locomotives drawing 1/2 amp each. The wire size I used to achieve this is #10 AWG. That is the same size of wire used for household dryers. The jumpers to the track are #16 AWG stranded wire (speaker wire).The DCC power pack has an output of 3.5 amps at 18 volts AC. We have had up to 5 power units running at the same time without any speed lose on the wired half of the layout. I will send you more photos later. We should have the logging line up and running by October.

Mark