Woops, I hit enter too soon. Now that I have all my pictures attached. The track frame is 1/4 inch angle iron set atop 1/4 inch flat steel formed in the shape of an L lag bolted to the columns. The track sits atop 1/2 inch Styrofoam pads cut from 4x8 sheets. The curves are 1/4 inch steel arcs painstakingly measured and designed by my friend Hunter. Once cut out they were set with clamps, and the mounting pieces, which I showed you in the photos, were measured out and cut, drilled, tapped, and low and behold they worked. Curve 3 got messed up big time so Hunter elongated the holes and solved the problem. Once the curves were on, the Styrofoam went quick, but the booster drops were a pain.
I used Fastrack because I had Fastrack on hand. I promised a picture of the Burger King locomotive, well, there it is. It has a Hershey tanker, a Wheaties box car, a Lobsterville vat car, or as I call it, a mistake buy. Thought it said Red Lobster. A Crayola caboose and my favorite, the Morton Salt hopper.
I added pics of how the wiring was run. Starts at the transformer, feeds the TIU through the Variable 1 in ports, then feeds the track through the variable 1 out ports, by snaking its way down through the floor of the shelf, behind a fake wall at the back of the cabinet, down under the bottom of the last shelf out through the face of the bottom of the cabinet under the porch carpet I used for a floor cover making a noticeable bump, then through the wall of the column, picture shows the outlet cover I used to cover the box. Once there it snakes upward toward another outlet cover and using sticky back Velcro I moved it along the wall, up to the hanger face, and over to the access point I showed you in yet another picture. Once through the Styrofoam, it connects to the 10 inch track piece above it, and then using red and black 18 gauge wire I ran booster drops off this piece to pieces at the beginning and opposite side of each curve.
Once completed, I set the loco on the track, and after some tweeks and a learning curve, it ratcheted around the track forward and backwards with no issues. I kept adding cars one at a time to test its pulling power and settled on the ones mentioned above and shown in the picture.
I added pictures of my DT&I Yardmaster set that I got from Santa in 1971. I also added a picture of my old toy chest, now a storage chest, that my maternal grandfather built for me in 1965. 53 years it finally has a home it can be proud of. A note, if you look at the picture closely, a fishing rod sits to the right of it. This is the rod my paternal grandfather used once before he died. I used it to catch an 8 pound Bass in 1995. Finally I added a picture of 3 of my 5 trains. Just thought you might like to see them. All of you have been so nice to add pictures of your train set ups. I've enjoyed looking at all of them. I hope you enjoyed seeing a small part of mine.
Now I have a question. My SD 70 ACE has suddenly begun to throw sparks from the pickup wheels. None of my other four locomotives do this. I assumed dirty track, dirty wheels, but the other four run the same track, no sparks. They've been dormant for several weeks now since I have been finishing Liam's track. I have a propane heater in the room. Any ideas as to why one would suddenly start sparking and the others don't?
Thanks
John
). Thanks for all the likes and comments on the new box cars.
Wake up guys!
