Camp 6 in Operation

The past few weeks have been productive ones.  The Spencer Lumber Company’s high line into the woods terminating at Camp 6 (the re-load point) has been completed.  Trackwork is down, the Tortoise switch motors have been installed, wiring is complete, and I even sprayed a coat of Rust-Oleum Camouflage Brown onto the trackwork.

Next up was the double switchback.  The sub-roadbed for that has been installed, along with a nice section of the lower mainline.  This mainline will bring the trains to the mill in Oneida, two townships away.  The mainline sub-roadbed has progressed to the middle of Whitcomb (the first township).  The photo below shows the current state of construction in the area.  I’ve posted about a half dozen photos in the photo section of the website; you can -click here- to go there if you’re interested.

Spencer Lumber Co. Camp 6

This photo was taken while standing on a stool in order to show the track layout better.  The high line roadbed is 60″ above the floor down where the Shay locomotive is sitting.  The mainline at the point where it leaves the photo at lower left, has descended to about 54″.  It will drop to under 52″ by the time it reaches the west side of Whitcomb.  Those three tracks down in the “valley” are some of the staging tracks that will be hidden from normal view by the scenery.

Trackwork will commence on all of this sub-roadbed this coming weekend.  As a side note, all of the sub-roadbed here was cut from the salvaged sub-roadbed of a layout built back in the late 1980s.  The Homasote then was of a much higher quality than that being sold today.  Very little surface prep will be necessary before laying track.

The good news with all of this is that the re-load point at Camp 6 is now operational.  And even better, the Louisiana Central mainline can now proceed westward out of Maynard (that area down at the far end), and on to Whitcomb.

Some electrical work has also been accomplished.  My ace building compadre Wayne came over last Saturday and we twisted and pulled all of the remaining track power buses.  All remaining trackwork can be immediately connected to the bus and powered up as it is laid.

July and August continue to be great!

-Jack