El Paso Yard

Over the past several months I have been taking on the task of getting the bench work prep for El Paso Yard, and El Paso Yard installed so the mainline could be continued. I also modified an unused automotive creeper to be an under the layout creeper.

 

 

 The first step was getting the subroad bed installed and painted so track and turnouts for El Paso Yard could be installed.

After painting was finished, track and turnout laying took place. I realized that I had run out of Kadee  under the track uncoupling magnets (the black squares) so the yard sat partly finished in the photo above as I waited for those to arrive. 

Here is El Paso Yard completed. The 4 yard tracks curving to the left are for roadbed supports and in the future bridge supports for the mainline to curve over the yard.

 

 

 

The next weekend after completing the yard I was able to cutout the curved sub-roadbed for the mainline and install. The picture above shows the cuved portion of the mainline and the mainline decent, to the right, being held down with a few weighted objects to hold things in place as the glue sets up.

After the glue had set up, I was able to continue installation of the cork roadbed and mainline track. Both the approach and decent from the bridge were made easy with Woodland Scenics 2% riser sets. The above photo shows the main line approaching the bridge to span over the yard.

 

 

The above 2 photos shows the curved mainline roadbed support. Which someday in the future will have a scratch built bridge to replace the plywood support shown here. It may be some time before this is completed for the fact that I have never scratch built anything and don't have a clue as how to accomplish it.

The completed yard with the mainline decent to the right. Next project will be to clear off the misc. building materials on the other lower peninsula so the mainline can be completed with the reverse loop, the city of Orogrande, and connections to El Paso yard. After all this is completed, the tedious task of wiring will have to be done. Ugh!

 

 

I took and an unused automotive creeper and turned it into and under the layout creeper. I needed one of these or something close to it to make it easier to wire and perform other activities that will need to be attended to under the layout on the lower level with out having to crawl around on the floor. This is what I came up with.

 

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