Sugarwood Blog

I have finished the backdrop prep and it is painted!

Prep complete

Backdrop done

And the earth coat

My plan? My track plan is on my website Sugarwood.Info and I am happy with my track plan. There is a small yard, seven industries, staging and a town scene. I have added the track plan to JMRI Operations and run many virtual trains, I think it will work.

The Sugarwood is a regional privately owned railroad. I originally planned on running 2 trains.
• The Transfer – This train runs from a nearby Union Pacific yard (Storage Yard) to the Sugarwood yard and back to the Union Pacific yard, bring in cars for the local industries and returning with outbound cars. In practice I would build the train on the staging track and the train would run from staging to Sugarwood yard and back to staging. This train is usually 4 to 6 cars.

• The Local - Starts from the Sugarwood yard and builds a train the switch the industries on the layout. This train’s size depends on the industries to be switched but no more than 5 cars.

Using JMRI Operations I noticed some things with the way cars flow on and off the layout.
1. I notice cars going from Storage yard to Sugarwood yard and back to Storage yard with out going to an industry.

2. Cars that do not have any business coming to Sugarwood

3. Several car types I have and would like to see on the layout.
I will read up on JMRI Operations and report on items 1 and 2 when I start operating.

Item 3 however I have figured how to handle. I created a virtual city with virtual industries and virtual train, The Greenville Turn.

Greenville is a city east from Sugarwood. I currently have three industries there that handle the cars I want to see on the layout. Part of the “Locals” job is the assemble the Greenville Turn on Sugarwood Yard 1 track. Also break down the Greenville Turn. So in a way the Yard 1 track is like a visible staging track. I will give more details in a later post.

So now, on to track and my technique.

In my second post Bright sunny days then rain! I showed some hand laid track section I started in preparation for this weekend, even though I did not know the actual I would be installing them on the layout. Well here are the first two pieces fixed to the layout. Next step is to tie them together.

Sugarwood siding and Yard entry.

Sugarwood Yard.

The rest of the siding and the two industries, McFoods and Olie’s Cold Storage.

I hand lay the code 70 rail on 1/8 inch sub-roadbed (basswood or birch plywood the yard piece can be seen in the above photo) this way in can work at the work bench and not standing against the layout.

Once I get this section’s track installed and tested, I can move on to the other three modules. That will be a little while, for now I have several things to do and see if this technique works or if I have to start over.

Until next week.

For information about me check out the About page on this blog.