Work has picked up on the Louisiana Central these past weeks.\u00a0 Mainline trackage is going down through Willis yard and will be heading west beyond Willis within a few weeks.\u00a0 This represents the first trackage of the Louisiana Central beyond the staging areas onto the visible portion of the layout.\u00a0 In addition, the first industrial spur track on the layout has been installed.<\/p>\n
The initial 8 feet of sub-roadbed (tabletop) has been installed in West Monterey.\u00a0 This will be the area with the large plywood and paper mill complexes that will be the basis for the loads in\/empties out scenario.\u00a0 I’ll be starting with the sub-roadbed at the east end of Monterey soon, building toward the center of the Monterey area.\u00a0 I’d like to get a little more work done and will then update the website with a few more photos showing the latest progress.<\/p>\n
I’ve made the decision to ban my belt sander from the layout.\u00a0 Three times I’ve tried using it to sand Homasote panel joints to even the ends and the results weren’t very good, requiring a judicious application of drywall mud to even and level out the area afterward.\u00a0 My most recent effort was trying to sand a taper into the cork roadbed where it butted up to some Homabed roadbed of a lesser thickness.\u00a0 Despite partially supporting the sander above the work and just applying a few “bumps” of the trigger, I still managed to gouge everything badly.\u00a0 I’ll try to use the drywall mud again to fill and level the area.\u00a0 If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to scrape out about 16″ of roadbed and start over.\u00a0 When will I learn?<\/p>\n
We’ve had an unusually cold winter thus far, but the train room has remained warm and cozy through it all.\u00a0 Having worked through both hot, humid summers and cold winters in the room, I can say the heavy insulation and weatherproofing of the building has paid off.\u00a0 It’s a pleasure working in it’s comfortable environment.<\/p>\n
Again, I extend the invitation to anyone interested in seeing the layout to come by for a visit…just give me a buzz or drop me an email and we’ll set something up.<\/p>\n
-Jack<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Work has picked up on the Louisiana Central these past weeks.\u00a0 Mainline trackage is going down through Willis yard and will be heading west beyond Willis within a few weeks.\u00a0 This represents the first trackage of the Louisiana Central beyond … Continue reading