The Golden Spike

    They say good things come to those who wait. Well, we have waited 34 months for this. In the wee hours of March 20, 2023 the golden "spike" was set. The mainline has finally been completed. There have been countless long nights, leaking fingers and obscenities uttered to get here but I can honestly say it was worth it.

    

    From what started as an idea in my head when I first bought the house in 2018 to now has been at times frustrating, especially when our sewer line failed halfway through the building process. Even that was a blessing in disguise. It forced us to dispose of some items we didn't need that were just taking up space, which made room to continue the build. 

    Toward the end of the track laying we inched closer and closer to the removable bridge which had been the Achilles heel of the whole project. How would we make that work? How can we make it easily removable without damaging the track structure? After measuring, re-measuring and then remeasuring again along with countless trips to the hardware store we found a solution that worked. From there it was relatively easy going.

    Unfortunately, we didn't take nearly as many photos of the build process as we originally intended. We did however take a few photos and a video of the "golden spike ceremony" just east of the bridge.

Finishing Springdale Siding and MOW Yard

 A few weeks ago I finally got around to laying for foam for the MOW yard. The MOW yard would be located where the present day PVRR yard is in Westfield, MA. This weekend I laid the cork for the MOW Yard. 

The next morning, I laid the track to give me an idea where to drill the holes for the feeder wires. In addition, the track on the left would double as a programming track. This requires the use of a pair of DPDT switches a well as completely isolating the track from the rest of the layout. I built a crude control panel into a scrap piece of hardboard with the two DPDT switches. One controls whether the track is set to main or programming mode. The other determines if the programming track will use Digitrax or ESU hardware.

Once I finished the MOW yard, I moved onto Springdale Siding. The MOW branches off the siding. Springdale continues on a bit before reconnecting to Track 2 at a hand operated switch. I also extended the cork to the end of the benchwork, just short of where the removable bridge will be located.

 

After letting the glue set overnight, I returned to lay the rest of the siding and Track 2 upto the end of the benchwork. This would allow a pair of engines to come off the siding and run back West on Track 2. SD45-2 6664 and SD60M 5518 were used to test the siding and Track 2 once completed.