New Tier 4 Locomotive Power Arrives At Grafton Yard.

The first of two new tier 4 locos to arrive at Grafton Yard check them out HERE.

New Passenger cars added to the fleet

The Shops at Grafton yard have been working hard to complete several outstanding projects. Lets take a peek at what they have been up to.

Flooding on Maine Central's Grafton Branch

Do not worry though federal State and Local authorities are on the scene assessing the damage now.....

A few weeks back I came home from work to find the ice maker supply line to our fridge had busted and leaked about 2 inches of water all over the kitchen. I immediately ran down stairs to shut off the supply to the fridge and found that I had about 6 inches of standing water in the train room. Oh no disaster! Well it wasn't as bad as I thought I'll explain. Yes the layout did suffer water damage however most of the water had ran off the layout and onto the floor in the room this was short work for our trusty wet vac. The kitchen you ask, fine other than some minor damage on the kick boards we cleaned the whole mess up in about an hour or so. The damage that had me concerned on the layout was on the junction and town modules, a complete loss. I had used plaster on these modules as these where the first ones I made and had not yet transferred to foam. I was able to save most of the saw mill portion of the junction module once it dried out however the town was a total loss along with the track work leading up to the town and the Wye. Long story short I demoed the module and replaced it with a new one only this time I used foam and added a helix in the module the following pics will explain thing a little more. I took these photos while construction was on going the photos do not go in order but give you an idea of how we built the helix and constructed things.

Another view of the first rings

Start of helix from staging

First three rings started

Currently I have the helix complete I still need to work out some kinks in the track work and finalize all the temporary supports. I am just impressed it works! The helix has a single track at a 22" radius with the last ring a 18"-19" radius ( miss judged my measuring). The first three rings are a 2.75 +/- grade with the fourth a 4% grade. Some will argue too steep of grades however the helix is coming from staging to the main level of the layout and since the biggest piece of rolling stock that will likely travel the helix will be a 50' box car and the trains are only going to be about 5-10 cars long I'm not to concerned with the grade.

 The final part of construction will be to enclose the top of the helix with the new town bench work. This will get completed once I finish all the rock formation and finalize the new track plan. One other item to note is I lost my MRC prodigy advance2 to the incident. So I have not ran trains on the layout for a month or so just limited runs testing track with my Sprog programmer. That will soon change though I ordered a new NCE system the other day!

Phase 2 of the build is to layout and construct the lower level of the layout. Yup you heard right a three level layout in a 12' x 17' room. I was forced to go this route because what I had planned for additional space for trains has now become the new family media room.

New additions to the engine roster

The guys in the engine shops have done it again. This time they unveiled three new engine to be added to the fleet. Vermont Railway locos 201,603 and 006. Check out the pictures here.

New engine shops at Grafton yard

The new shops at Grafton are almost done. 

I have been working on the new shop portion of the layout for the last few months or so.

I still have to touch up a few things and add weathering to the building but over all the project is mostly complete.

 I detailed the interior of the shops with tool boxes and machines. I also added safety markings on the poles.

Here is a few more pictures of the exterior. I used a Walther's kit to create the scene I still have to scenic the area and hope to have that done soon.

03/31/2016

UPDATE:

I have been working on the bridge area of the layout and have completed the plastering and fitment of the piers and abutments. Also I have started the scenery. Once I am finished with this section I plan to move on to the mill area where I have been laying out the track work. Check out the pictures here or click on the updates link on the left side of the page.

02/08/2016

I have done a lot of  work on the improvements to the truss bridge check them out here or navigate to the layout updates page.

A new start

Happy NEW YEAR!!!

Well it's been several months since I have done anything on the layout or even thought about running trains. I have been either too busy or have had no ambition to work on the layout. This is all going to change. I have several tasks lined up in front of me. The first is a major cleaning in the train room and workbench areas they are, well lets say a F5 tornado would be child's play compared to the current state things are in. Once I get the mess organized and clean its down to business. First order is out standing projects I have several loco projects that are unfinished or in near completion states. I will be doing my best to get these completed so that I can have the room and focus on the next issue I have been meaning to tackle which is the bridge spanning the junction and the "mill/brewery" scene. I built this section in a hurry to get trains up and running and well frankly I hate the current design so back to the drawing board. I will keep the bridge layout and track plan more or less but totally redo the scenery and bridge supports.

 Another item on my list is to finally go through and edit all the videos I have been making for the YouTube channel I have a lot of material to edit and it will take some time to compile it all.

Please bear with me as I get things organized and moving forward. I will be making a more proactive approach to post something every month at least for the you tube channel and this blog. The over all plan for the layout this year is to finish the major scenery and track work so I can start planning the second part of the layout. A helix to a lower level about 30" or so off the ground. It is undetermined if this will be solely for staging or scenic-ed yet. Please stay tuned for further updates