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The following are photos from January to March 2008 of the construction of the Windsor & Midwestern layout. Other pages of photos from the W&M layout can be found on the following pages: Ian D. has been taking photos of the progress from day one. You can view his photos here
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 29, 2008
Most of the branch line ties are glued and sanded now. They have also been painted, a little too dark, but
we'll address that with some weathering later on.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 29, 2008
Here we find Curt hand spiking some rail in the cement plant. Almost all of the rails are spiked in the
cement plant.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 29, 2008
The facia board is inplace along the helper pocket. The openings cut into the facia are for access to the
branch line track in case of derailments.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 29, 2008
Here we find Mike and Al working on the coaling tower track for the helper pocket.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 29, 2008
Vic and Geoff work on spiking rails on the coal branch.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 29, 2008
Larry stains ties on the coal branch.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
Part of the bench work committee hard at work. L to R John, Richard and Ron.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
The bench work committee has been installing facia boards along the edges of the layout. With these in place, the
scenery team will be able to move in and get to work. The facia also creates a small lip around the layout to help
prevent cars from visiting the floor!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
After a few weeks of discussion, the coal branch track plan has been finalized and track work has begun. Here we
see some of the ties in place. The two tracks on the left feed the crusher building, the next track to the right is
the arrival/departure track and the right most track is the branchline main. The single track extending up at the
top of the picture is for a flood loader to load coal from the crusher building.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
The first ballast on the layout. This track is the coal branch main where it enters a tunnel and goes to hidden
staging.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
Here we find a rare sight, Ian working! :) He is using our fast-tracks tie laying jig to make strips of ties to
be glued down. Simply put ties into the slots on the jig and run a piece of masking tape along the tops of the
ties and lift the strip out. The jig provides the proper spacing. Run some glue along the track center line on
your benchwork and press the ties into the glue, when the glue dries, just peel the tape off and lightly sand
the tie tops flat.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
More of the coal branch ties in place. The upper right of the picture is the crusher tracks and the switch at the
lower left will lead to a small mine/coal loading track. There will be a road crossing the tracks between the
switches.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
The upper tracks in the picture are the WMRC main line helper pocket. The lower track is the coal branch, it passes
under the helper pocket in a tunnel. Here the support for the back wall of the tunnel is in place.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 25, 2008
Those bench work guys are a hard working bunch! Here we have Richard and Ron cutting masonite for facia boards.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 15, 2008
This is the spline for the branchline return loop on the hidden staging yard. Rather than trying to build this
piece of spline in place, we clamped some wood together to make a jig and made the spline on that. Now we can
sand this mush easier than if it was built in place under the existing staging yards.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 15, 2008
The spline on the corner here has been redone and sanded. Now the new cork is being glued down. Next will be
painting it gray and laying the track back down.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 15, 2008
Here is what the added spline sections look like with the clamps removed. Next step: sanding.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 11, 2008
Construction was put on hold for a month as we focused our attention on getting the modular layout ready for the
Essex Train show. To see photos from the show, look in the Gallery. Now that the modular layout is setup and running
we've again begun to focus on the permanent layout. We will be focusing on getting the scenery base and facias in
place for phase I of the project. Many different methods will be used to create the scenery base, here we are using
a mesh created from cardboard strips.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 11, 2008
Chris is busy hot glueing cardboard strips together to make the scenery base while Geoff and Joe do some hand laid
track work on the coal branch. The cardboard strips will be covered with packing tape to fill the gaps and prevent
a huge drippy mess when the plaster cloth is put over it.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 11, 2008
Out initial test runs raised some concerns about the radius around the end of the fifth leg. It was messured and
found to be egg shaped. To correct this problem and create a smooth curve, we've add spline to both sides of the
curve. This is another benefit to using spline, it is very easy to add to.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
March 11, 2008
Here we see the other side of the curve with the extra spline glued on. This is why testing before adding scenery
is good. Problems are easier to fix if there is no scenery to remove!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 21, 2008
A couple of Tortise switch machines were installed on the stagging yard and loop track switches. They still need
to be powered, but at least they keep those hand made switches lined tighly.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 16, 2008
All members were invited to bring in there stuff to test run on the new layout. We tested some big power and long
cars including this B&O E unit pulling a heavy weight passenger consist.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 16, 2008
We also took this oportunity to test some long trains. This train stretches nearly 40', about the length of one leg
of the layout. The three engines on point needed some help getting this beast over the 2.5% grade to the summit.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 16, 2008
One F40 was all that was needed to pull this 6 car passenger train up the grade. These long cars operated with no
problems around the layout. We discovered a few areas that need improvement during this test session, but the
changes will have to wait until after the Essex Train Show.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 12, 2008
Chessie GP38 4829 passes by the coaling tower on the helper siding about to complete the first ever trip around
phase 1 of the layout. It's taken almost one year to get to this point, but it has been worth it. Seeing the first
train run around the layout is great!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 12, 2008
More cars were added for the second run, but the two C&O geeps stalled on the 2.5% grade on the north side of the
mountain. Luckily, this is what we want to happen, so we can run helpers in this area.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 12, 2008
Here we can see WMRC GP38-2 #100 coupling on the rear of the train to help the C&O geeps get over the hill.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 12, 2008
The helper worked perfectly shoving the train over the crest of the hill. It cut off at the top of the grade and
started coasting back down the hill for its next assignment. This is a shot that we won't be able to get forever,
as we see the C&O train on the down grade temporary connection track in the background. One day that track will
be gone and a back drop will be in its place.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 12, 2008
CP SD90MAC-H II coupled onto the head end for the next run. This unit is sound equipt, and boy did it sound great
roaring up the hill in notch 8. The dynamic brakes on the down grade were almost as cool!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
January 5, 2008
Only one more switch needs to be installed in the cement plant. The number 6 switches off the main line are in
place and all the number 5's except the coal track are done. The clean ties you see need to be sanded and
weathered before the track is put in.
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