I decided to go ahead and make all of my industrial siding turnouts manual controlled, mainly for cost reasons. No sense in spending, for example, almost $80 on turnouts and mounts for the 3 GERN turnouts that won’t see as much action as the mainline turnouts will. I also feel manual control will just be easier to operate for quicker switching maneuvers, etc.. So I opted to use Humpyard throws. I already had two on had and got them installed on the GERN industry.

First I drilled a whole underneath the layout and ran up the two guide cables.

Since the lower level is mostly on 1.5″ of foam, I needed to mount the cable above the plywood bench top, so I made some trenches to lay the cable in, and then assembled the throw mechanism.

I then used some hot glue and some Liquid Nails to fill in the gaps to secure the cable.

Well, now I needed someplace to mount the throws, so I finished up the lower fascia.

And then finally mounted the turnout throw to the fascia.

And tada!

Shaun Previous Layout

Ordered a new kit from Pikestuff today to expand the GERN plant.

I’ll build it up so it’s about half as deep as normally intended so it’ll be more of a backdrop building, and it’ll go to the left of the kraft mill with an interconnecting pipe bridge. Not sure if I want to paint it to match the color of the mill building or go with some other color yet.

Shaun Previous Layout

Made some more progress this afternoon:

First I secured all the track down for the GERN plant.

Then I cut and attached the fascia for the lower level lights.

Here’s another shot of the corner tunnel I’m going to add. Couldn’t really decide what to do with this area, so I thought a little tunnel cutting through the edge of a cliff would look good.

And lastly just a shot of how the wiring panel looks today with the turnout wiring RJ-11 Boxes.

Shaun Previous Layout

I typically don’t get much time to work on the layout during the week anymore as I’m on baby duty from when I get home from work until I go to bed, so most of my hobby time is on the weekend now. Here’s what’ve I worked on since the last update.

The Dixie River bridge now has track on it. I used Micro Engineering Bridge Flex Track. ME track is pretty darn cool. Flex track can bent to the curve you want and it’ll hold it’s shape on it’s own. Track looks real nice. Temped to do the upper level in ME track, and if I like it redo the lower level. We’ll see. But here’s two shots of the bridge.

The crossing in the background will be a BNSF mainline crossing.

I need to get a wider shot of this, but on the corner just before the bridge I decided to add a tunnel here. This is the west side entrance (On the lower level, West is going to the right)

And lastly I marked out the track location for the GERN plant and will probably glue this down later today or possibly sneak it in during naptime during the week.

Shaun Previous Layout