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Reply to "Building the Riverdale, Pittsburgh, & Western 10x11.5+ Layout (Updated 11/19/23: Welcome to Western PA!)"

Hey everyone! Happy Thanksgiving. I wanted to give some updates on how the layout is coming along.

First off, I've got a name change for the layout. I'm going to be calling this version the Riverdale, Pittsburgh, & Western (RDP&W). I feel like its a good mash-up of my life now, where I grew up, and everything in between. As I mentioned back in my first post, I want to focus on the P&LE where my great-grandfather worked for 49.5 years; the Union Railroad, where my grandfather worked for 33 years; the B&O who my paternal grandfather was the time keeper for in Connellsville, PA; the Chessie System, and CSX.

So welcome to the rechristened RDP&W!

After a mad dash last week, I'm FINALLY able to run trains on the pike! All of the track is officially wired in and I've got trains running, with only 2 issues (which I'll get to in a minute). The goal was to be able to run trains by Thanksgiving since we were hosting all of our friends with some of their kids. The train room was a BIG hit, and I'm pretty sure our friend's son did not want to leave. haha

Here are some pics:

Building out the P&LE coal consist while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

All 12 coal cars on, pulled by the new GP38-2. In the background you'll see a B&O Railking Passenger excursion train.

Just posing with some cars in the yard. A lot of Pittsburgh tributes here with the P&LE consist, the US Steel bridge and the URR coil car. The Tropicana car is for the juice train that runs by our house every day.

Just a cool shot I took this morning when I went into the basement.

And a short video!

Now, onto the issues I'm having. I outlined them in this thread, but the tl;dr is my O-60 switches on the outerloop are causing passing trains to ride up on their front trucks, and then the switch triggers and the rest of the train comes onto the inner loop. I've also had the front truck go through, and then the back truck ride up on the switch making a really fun drifting scenario. I've tested this with my Railking RDC Budd cars and a Lionel Alco engine. Here are some pics and a video of whats happening. I pulled them off the layout for guests, but I want to get these fixed ASAP and to start scenery and work on the mess that where my switch throws are hanging down.

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