Rail on siding spiked

All the rail on the siding has been spiked, and rail joiners have been fitted.

So now a car can roll all the way down to the poor man's bumper.

Lengthening the stock rails

When I started out to spike the rails on the other (left) side of the turnout I remembered that I had made simulated rail joints in both stock rails of the turnout, close to their ends. I had notched the rail heads and added rail joiners for added visual interest. This was when the turnout was just supposed to be a display item. You can see this in the picture below.

When laying the next pieces of rail I would either get a new joint just a few scale feet further away, or have to make that joint invisible. I did not want either of that. So I decided to make those fake cuts real cuts and lay the new rail starting from there.

So the rail joiners were pried loose and the rails cut. But once I had removed the spikes from the now loose pieces of rail, they were still stuck.

Bugger! I had forgot that it was here that I had soldered the feeder wires to the rails! And I had managed to hide theme so well that even I missed them. Well, the feeders were cut off easily enough and the rail pieces finally came off. Like here (you can see the copper colored feeders coming up between the ties).

But now I had a new problem. I had to get the stock rails electrically connected again. I did not want to attempt getting new feeders in from below at this point, so I instead decided to solder the next pieces of rails to the stock rails. Any ugly looking soldering would be hidden by the rail joiners.

Here new rails have been soldered in place.

Not that bad after all. I should have tried for a new invisible joint to begin with, rather than going this tedious route!

With rail joiners and tie plates in place we are ready and can proceed with the rail spiking proper.

Adding hardware

No work done on the layout for a long time, mainly due to a lack of parts. One parcel with tie plates, spikes and other things never turned up, and apparently got lost somewhere in transit. It took me some time to realize and accept that, order new stuff and wait for the second parcel to come through. It eventually did, and now I can continue spiking track!

But first I added some more hardware to the turnout. Not because it actually needed any, but since I could not resist the heftier look.

First I replaced the simple gauge plate I had made out of plain styrene strip with a properly bolted plate from Right-O-Way.

Then I added a second throw bar, also from RoW. The throw bar is a two piece assembly, which you CA together, with a piece of paper or tissue between the pieces to make them electrically insulated from each other. Here are the two pieces before the excess CA-soaked paper has been cut away.

And here the throw bar has been put in place.

  

Next I painted the new parts with grimy black...

 

... and applied some weathering powder.

 

Spiking rail

Finally it was time to spike some rail. But as always, just one more thing to do first - soldering feeder wires. Here I have soldered feeders to the first two rails, and then just laid them down in about the right position.

Next I wanted to mark the position of one of the rails, in reference to the ties. So I pinned down some loose rail, all at about the same position from the end of the ties all along. I tried to get a nice an smooth flow.

Once I was satisfied I marked the position of the rail, on the ties, with a pencil. Now I can lift the rails for feeder soldering as I go along, but still easily get them back in position with help of the marks.

The rail will not sit directly on the ties but on tie plates. I use Grandt Line code 125 tie plates, and Micro Engineering small (1/4") spikes.

Keeping the rail on the previously done pencil marks, the spikes are pushed or driven in with a pair of pliers.

 

 

Here are the first few plates and spikes in place - two spikes per plate - one on each side of the rail.

 

 

Once the first rail was done, I continued with the opposite rail. Its position determined with an NMRA standards gauge.

 

Ballasting the Siding

Once the main was all ballasted I turned to the siding. When I did the turnout I ballasted the diverging route with Arizina Rock and Mineral's steam era yard mix, which is supposed to be some kind of cinders I assume. Anyway, I continued with the same ballast along the siding. With some N scale cinder ballast mixed in for good measure.

Where the siding ends I also constructed a poor man's bumber out of two ties.

More Hoppers

The lone hopper I have is no longer that lonely. It now enjoys the company of two more hoppers of the same kind. One of the guys on the Railwire forum was kind enough to offer them at a good price.

So here is the entire fleet:

The rails which the BN car sits on are just loose rails temporary laid there for this photo.

Ballasting, part 2

Not much progress since last, but I have done some more ballasting. When doing that I reached two of the ties which I had weathered to look like new ties, recently replaced. I wanted the ballast around those ties to also look new and fresh. The problem was I did not have any such ballast, suitable for O scale.

Then I thought I should test to do some ballast from what I had at hand. So I took some of the rubble I mentioned in the previous post, the stuff I collected when they where laying the slabs for our patio. It is some kind of crushed rock, of all possible sizes, ranging from dust to pebbles about 1/4 inch. I put some of it in a strainer, like this,

...and sifted it. Everything that could get through the mesh was gone. That left me we just the larger pieces...

...which I then poured into a colander, with holes slightly larger than the holes in the strainer mesh.

  

Shaking the colander made the smallest pebbles fall through and into the bowl below.

Voilá, my O scale ballast of crushed stones!

I applied that ballast, directly from the quarry, around the new ties.

Looking rather good, if I may say so myself.

P.S. The strainer and the colander were taken from the kitchen. Washed after use, with no one the wiser.