Peninsula Construction!
A regular report on the construction
of a 1950s-something layout
I
t’s been a long time since trains rolled on my HO scale Bear
Creek and South Jackson. A year or so ago, I connected the
peninsula and helix table to the walls and realized it was time
for the old South Jackson (scrap box) yard to go. I’d built the old
yard out of plywood, track, turnouts, and wiring recycled frommy
previous layout to permit op sessions while the remainder of the
layout was under construction.
The scrap box yard served well from 2005 to 2012, but I always
knew it was destined for replacement. When I connected the helix
on the peninsula to the wall, the old South Jackson yard was about
an inch too high. I bit the bullet and removed practically all of it in
preparation for the rebuild. As of early January (when I’mwriting
this column) the new roadbed is in place, basic wiring is present
and the track gang is hard at work.
In the December Up the Creek column I explained the wiring
needed to handle the double reverse sections at the top of the he-
Up the Creek column
by Charlie Comstock
First Trains on the new South Jackson
mainline ...
Up the Creek Column - 1
1: I’m watching the first train enter the new South
Jackson trackage. Just ahead of the lead loco is the
scratchbuilt curved turnout. It amazes me (well OK,
I’m not all that surprised) how much stuff accumulates
on all horizontal surfaces in my train room. Maybe I
should rename the layout as the MF&SE (Messy Flats
and Stuff Everywhere) railroad.
1
lix. With track power taken care of it was time for the track gang to
get cracking on installing the mainline through the yard. The track
gang was immediately presented with the challenge of scratch-
building a curved turnout.
The following steps show how I build custom (as opposed to
straight leg) turnouts. Basically, I prepare a full size paper tem-
plate showing the rail head routing, then build the turnout, in
place, on top of the template.
Next up on my layout construction task list is completion of
South Jackson. As I write this in early January I’m mindful of
MRH-Feb 2013
