Building the Alabama Central Railway
Construction has finally started. Plywood supports the yards and industrial areas. Subroadbed will consist of splines made from 1x4 cut on a table saw and hot glued together with 1/2 inch blocks between the splines. The roadbed will consist of brown board (insulated sheathing), cut to fit on top of the spline. I would like to use homasote but it is unavailable in this area at a price I can afford. Minimum radius is 29" on the mainline and 28" on the branchlines. There will be working interchanges with the GM&O, L&N, and the Frisco. The main layout fits in my basement garage, in an area 17' x 23'. One of the holdups to getting anything done was a flood I suffered. The hot water tank sprang a leak and put over 6" of water in the layout area and about that much over the rest of the basement. We had to replace all the carpeting in the downstairs den. I lost well over 20 years of model railroad magazines. I use these alot for reference, as there is great information going all the way back to the 40's. Just because the magazine is old doesn't mean the info or the technique is outdated at all. I can't get over modelers who say they wouldn't find the information useful because it doesn't cover their era.
The spline method that I talked about earlier, has been in place since 2005. I have one area where the glue has separated from the spline, but that is due to the fact that the roadbed has been bumped and pulled so the glues joints with the supports have separated from the spline. The spline is still intact.
All the track except the staging yards and hidden tracks will be handlaid code 83 track and switches for the main and code 70 for the sidings, main yard, branchline and spurs. Rail is a combination of Railcraft, Proto87, and Microengineering products and while I started using Campbell’s Profile ties, their price had gotten too much for me,plus the company is out of business. So, I’ve been cutting my own! I use knotless white pine 1x4’s as my basic material. I cut the pine into approx 1/16 thick strips, on a table saw. I then cut the ties on a 4” table saw using some basic jigs. I have one jig that I cut the basic ties with, then another to cut the ties to length. I have to date cut approximately 25,000 ties.
The layout is operated with Digitrax DCC, and and using their PM-42’s the layout is designed with 4 power districts, although I may make it 6 or 8, depending on the means to purchase more PM-42’s. The PM-42's are finally beginning to fail, so it's time to find replacements. The current version of the multiple auto-reversing modules, the PM-74 doesn't do what Digitrax says it does. On a friends layout, their are two of the PM 74's and they have never worked!
Here are some early construction pictures.
Construction has finally started. Plywood supports the yards and industrial areas. Subroadbed will consist of splines made from 1x4 cut on a table saw and hot glued together with 1/2 inch blocks between the splines. The roadbed will consist of brown board (insulated sheathing), cut to fit on top of the spline. I would like to use homasote but it is unavailable in this area at a price I can afford. Minimum radius is 29" on the mainline and 28" on the branchlines. There will be working interchanges with the GM&O, L&N, and the Frisco. The main layout fits in my basement garage, in an area 17' x 23'. One of the holdups to getting anything done was a flood I suffered. The hot water tank sprang a leak and put over 6" of water in the layout area and about that much over the rest of the basement. We had to replace all the carpeting in the downstairs den. I lost well over 20 years of model railroad magazines. I use these alot for reference, as there is great information going all the way back to the 40's. Just because the magazine is old doesn't mean the info or the technique is outdated at all. I can't get over modelers who say they wouldn't find the information useful because it doesn't cover their era.
The spline method that I talked about earlier, has been in place since 2005. I have one area where the glue has separated from the spline, but that is due to the fact that the roadbed has been bumped and pulled so the glues joints with the supports have separated from the spline. The spline is still intact.
All the track except the staging yards and hidden tracks will be handlaid code 83 track and switches for the main and code 70 for the sidings, main yard, branchline and spurs. Rail is a combination of Railcraft, Proto87, and Microengineering products and while I started using Campbell’s Profile ties, their price had gotten too much for me,plus the company is out of business. So, I’ve been cutting my own! I use knotless white pine 1x4’s as my basic material. I cut the pine into approx 1/16 thick strips, on a table saw. I then cut the ties on a 4” table saw using some basic jigs. I have one jig that I cut the basic ties with, then another to cut the ties to length. I have to date cut approximately 25,000 ties.
The layout is operated with Digitrax DCC, and and using their PM-42’s the layout is designed with 4 power districts, although I may make it 6 or 8, depending on the means to purchase more PM-42’s. The PM-42's are finally beginning to fail, so it's time to find replacements. The current version of the multiple auto-reversing modules, the PM-74 doesn't do what Digitrax says it does. On a friends layout, their are two of the PM 74's and they have never worked!
Here are some early construction pictures.
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