I haven't made the repair yet. Instead the kids were here yesterday. The younger was working on a clay stone wall that will be in front of Serpent Gulch. It was over this wall that my wife lost her cell phone.
Older grandson glued the remaining three pieces of the topo stack next to the station parking lot, and then made a barren ground-covered area into a nice meadow.
He's good at this, and I don't necessarily enjoy it. Good deal!
I was putting up the train shelves. It was a great use for lots of Atlas track that I had since Germany. I used it for my train shelves there before I had a layout. I had enough to fill 4, eight foot shelves. For the last shelf I used lots of little chunks of Ross straight track that were taking up space in a box. I didn't use any of the intact 29" straights that I had since I have future use for them when the coal mine goes in.
This clearly isn't a fancy train room project. I mean the wall's not even paneled, but it is pragmatic and utilitarian. the Masonite keeps things from falling into the space under the stairs. In a different world, I might have had the basement finished before building the trains, but since this project was done as I was entering retirement, pragmatic had to lead the way.
The track doesn't have end bumpers. While I could have gone pragmatic, in this case, I'm going a little goofy; building bumpers out of Ross railroad ties, and making them sort of scale like. I'm not sure this decision is making any sense since I have so much other stuff to do, but... I like building stuff.
The bumper has 8 parts.
Ross ties are basswood. Half the cuts are done with a razor saw and miter box, the others are done on the scroll saw. After cutting I true up the edges with a sanding stick and/or the NWSL precision sander. Tight fits make gluing much easier.
Here're the assembly just hanging together. After gluing, I think I'll use some brass rod on any critical joints to make sure they stay together. Engines can roll due to non-reversible worm gear drive and traction tires, but cars are different story.
I'm not sure if this design is even prototypical, but it has to fit between the track and the edge of the shelf, especially the one with the Ross track. I extended that track a little closer to the end then the other ones.
BTW: I found Atlas track a real pain to cut. Ross track is much easier to make custom cuts, IMHO.
Since there's 5 tracks I'm going to need 10 bumpers. At 8 pieces per, I need to cut and shape 80 pieces of basswood. Like I said, this is a goofy project. I'm setting up a mass production approach, cutting the entire needed quantity of each piece in one go, and then assembling the whole lot of them. There's no rush...I may do some each day and take a break doing some plastering, landscaping or whatever.
If these work out well, I might substitute those Lionel plastic ones currently on the layout. In the engine house, the bumpers may be concrete or structural steel affairs.
