Monday, January 27, 2014

Completing the mainline

After the inactivity on the railway of the last few months I have been fortunate to have some time to relax and work on the layout. I have been wanting to complete laying the track on the layout for some time. Late last year I got organised and ordered the Micro Engineering code 83 flex track & points I needed from The Railcar. I got enough Trackrite underlay and more then enough Masonite strips from Bunnings to build the spline roadbed. It was all sitting there waiting for me to find the time.

It only took me about a week to get the roadbed built around New Year and I have been laying track since. I had a big push this past weekend and yesterday I completed the mainline and the yard at Mt Bogong. This means that track laying is complete except for a couple spurs and maybe some revision of the yard at Geehi. It also means that I can run a train the entire length of the layout, and that is just what we did!
 
My youngest daughter Georgia had the honour of driving the first train into Mt Bogong. Without a stop it takes around 6 minutes to travel from one end to the other. With stops for water, shunting, etc, a round trip should easily fill an hour or more. I am keen to get some more rolling stock built so that I can give an operating session a try