Have been really making some great progress on the layout these last few weeks and it feels great. I last updated that I had got my DCC system up and running and after a little tweaking it is working flawlessly. I power up the system, turn the layout power on, open WiThrottle on my phone, acquire a loco and away I go! And on that note…
I’ve completed the Junction area as well as nearly all the trackage in the first section of the layout. Bus wires and feeders are in place and trains are running! There are a few trouble areas that I am working on- the biggest being the sharp curve leading from the Junction on to the branch. Not sure how I’m going to solve this but I’ll work on the major issues when I get closer to them. I can see my steam engines having a hard time negotiating that tight turnout. In the meantime, here’s more…
I created the temporary bridge from some plywood with an old 2×2 screwed to the bottom for rigidity. The bridge is easily removable with two wood screws. Feeder wires are screwed into a terminal block for easy removal. Right now track is laid semi-permanently on top of the bridge for operational purposes. Once I have the trestle model complete, I will “cut out” the old bridge and replace it with the model. Since that is far off, the temporary bridge is solid.
The drop down area is where the creek bed will be located. The trestle will be built to scale, an exact representation of the prototype as it stood in the 1940s.
In this wide view you can make out the approximate location of the long coal trestle which will branch off from the main right after the junction. I really like how the re-worked grades turned out for the junction area. Originally I had the mainline up very high and it presented some real challenges down grade. My friend Matt helped to re-work the Junction completely. We spent a few hours looking at photos and studying maps to come up with the existing layout, which more realistically follows the prototype, where the Branch drops off quickly from the Metropolitan Branch mainline and is sunken between sidings. (E.C. Keys and the coal trestle) So far, everything is working smoothly. It feels great to make real progress. It feels even better to be able to run a locomotive on the layout! 🙂
Next up I’m going to continue track laying into Chevy Chase and on into Bethesda. If I stay on track, I should make my goal of completing all of the upper-deck track work before Christmas. 🙂
Amazing work Ben! Can’t wait to see some steam on that railroad.
Thanks, Jack! 🙂 I just need to get one of my steam engines equipped with a DCC decoder and I’ll be in business. Thanks for viewing!
NICE work! Happy to see a B&O engine doing its work! But, I got a question yo might be able to help me with. I got this same Life-Like Proto-2000 B&O GP7 #730, however bought used, and with that, I’m creating a “database” for my collection on my computer, and I add all the item numbers to the database so I KNOW what it was and all as with that, I do undecorated, items and custom paint them and all so I keep track of whats done and or what I did, and even when I paint, what paint, color and paint item number used for each train!
So do you have the box to the B&O GP7 with the item number on it? And if so, can you let me know what that number is just so I can add it to my database? Thanks for the time, and effort, and KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! ~John
John – happy to help. I, too, maintain a database of all of my locos and rolling stock. I have done lots of research online for these old, out-of-production products and found that there is info out there if you know where to look. For the old Life Like P2K stuff, the Wayback machine is very helpful – here is an instance of the old LL website: https://web.archive.org/web/20050313033842/http://www.lifelikeproducts.com/proto/archivedcars/archivedcars.htm If you poke around, you can find the product listings for various items they made. It may not be 100% complete, but it will often be enough. The loco you are looking for is item number 23051 B&O 730. Hope this helps!