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
