Changes since March 2008

Hard to describe the number of changes on the railroad. Several buildings are now glued in place, the downtown streets are finished, all the street lights are glued in place and operational, the River Street bridge is complete and most of the streets are done on the hill up to the bridge.

The Car Shop, Roundhouse, and the Boiler Shops are all in place with all tracks secured to the turntable. The tracks are all indexed on the turntable so that it stops at each track automatically. The tracks to all these buildings are not yet powered but are ready to be. I need to move everything stored under the railroad to get under it so I can solder the track bus extension to the main bus and then solder each individual track to the track bus extensions. It is a lot of upside down work in a tight dark space. Oh, well - what is done in the name of progress!

The last trackage on the main layout table - the spur to the freight house and the Swift Premium Plant has been laid and is operational. The next step is to construct the Swift's building. Thus far I have painted all of the pieces in preparation for assembly. This building kit is a laser cut wooden structure. It is my second laser cut wooden structure - the first being the dairy barn I built a couple years ago. I am looking forward to constructing this building. It is the American Model Builders, Inc. kit "F. Bruckner Woodworking" shop but it is a very good representation of the Swift Premium building that was just south (like 10 yards!) of the depot in Rutland for many years.

I have begun to add the ballast (the stone used for drainage and to support the wooden ties upon which the rails are spiked) to the track. I have put a heavy coat of fine cinders in the area of the ash conveyor, a combination of fine mixed gray ballast and fine cinders around the coal dock and a light coat of fine light grey ballast on the passing track behind the Car Shop. I have also used some course grey ballast on the tracks leading from the turntable to the Car Shop and the roundhouse. It is meant to be a base to fill some very big spaces below the tracks as they come off the turntable. Course ballast is inappropriate for regular ballast in HO scale modelling but i happened to have a bunch around so I used it to fill the voids. I will cover it with the more appropriate fine ballast in the near future. Much of the yard and shop areas in steam railroading were ballasted with cinders from the coal burned in the locomotives. A suitable product for drainage and support of the tracks in these areas as they were not high speed mainline trackage. Best part was that the cinders were a free byproduct of the steam locomotives! Railroads - especially one as poor as the Rutland used everything until is was well past "used up'! Mostly I am experimenting with how to spread and attach the ballast. It has been years since I have had track that was worthy of being ballasted so it's all new - seems to be like riding a bike - you never forget, you just need to start riding it again!