I'm just about finished laying all of the ties for the yard, maintenance tracks etc...whew. The speed was made possible due to some very helpful jigs (once again courtesy of Fast Tracks) which allowed me to laydown 2ft of ties at a time in the straight and curved portions of the yard trackwork. I would have made my own, but purchasing these saved me some time and aggrevation of attempting to do so.
So far I've laid close to 2000 individual wood ties, including the ones for the turnouts. Then I will turn my attention to the west end of the yard where the # 6 curved cross over t.o.'s are located. Once that's done, I'll place down the roadbed for the yard lead and the ties for it.
Then I'm going to sand the tops of the ties to level the whole lot of them. I can then turn my attention to getting the ties stained, ballasting, electrical work and finally the rails can get spiked down.
Saying I have lots to do is an understatement.
On a personal note, there is also a purpose to this flurry of activity to at least have some sembalance of a working "layout" in the next few weeks. Not just me working my arse off and saying, "Hey look at what I can do!" and showing off.
I normally wouldn't even mention something like this cause I'm mostly private personal life wise. This has been weighing heavily on me though. My younger brother (21) is going to Afganistan to serve with his artillery unit in February and will be visiting for a couple of days in December. He told me on the phone a couple of weeks ago, that when he visits he wants to see some trains running before he goes back to his base after the holidays prior to shipping out. Thus the motivation to keep this moving get it done. I figure if I can get the yard done, and the lead constructed, he can at least see some switching done in the yard and try out a couple of my Gp's. So as much as this is for me...I'd like to give him something to think about while he is over there and the anticipation of seeing more work down when he comes home. He is coming home too.
NCE Power Cab is on its way, as well as some Caboose manual ground throws with contacts to power the frog, lumber and rail.
So I need some support to stay motivated folks. Don't afraid to post up.
I could really use some advice on what to use to colour or stain the wood ties. I was thinking a simple wash of india ink with water to darken them a bit, not make them black though. Any suggestions???