N Scale Layout Galleries > Gallery: Mitchyburg and Natalieville Railroad (9)
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Elevator spur
The elevator can take a couple of cars at the loading spot. The spur track was laid with some old pre-painted flex track.
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Elevator spur
View along elevator spur which is accessed is from the yard. An additional track branches from the elevator spur to the mill. All secondary track uses Peco medium code 55 electrofrog turnouts.
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Mill spur
This short track makes a sharp left hand turn from the elevator spur. The entry curve is too sharp causing problems in both tracking and coupling. I'll re-lay it with hand laid track eventually.
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Mill spur
Track level view of the Mill spur. It currently can hold two cars but when I re-lay it to lessen the entry curve, it will probably only take one.
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West siding switch
Santa Fe Dash8-40B 7412 eases out of the siding onto the main at the west switch. This is a Peco long (#8) Electrofrog code 55 turnout. It is pretty smooth but you can see the unsightly wide gap between the point and stock rail.
The yard only has one track at this point. I'll hand lay the others. Yard switches are all Peco medium (#6) Electorfrog code 55 turnouts.
This is also a good view of the raised edge which protects the track when the layout is being moved to or from the garage. It also serves to keep trains on the layout and away from the tiled floor - a must with 4- and 7-year old operators!
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Yard diamond
Overhead view of the yard diamond crossing. This will be hand laid eventually. Both legs are slightly curved.
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Collecting empties
SF 7412 backs down to the covered hopper on the Elevator spur. You can see the sharp left-hander on the Mill spur.
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Pickups at the Mill spur
With the covered hopper collected, 7412 backs into the Mill spur to collect the two empties. The covered hopper has truck mounted couplers and functions as a handle, making coupling easier.
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On the main
With all three cars collected, 7412 has moved back to the main to cover some miles. The train is approaching east siding switch.
My seven year old daughter Natalie likes to switch occasionally. I make a short switchlist using drawings of the cars and the spurs to make car assigments easy. She calls it a mission and takes it pretty seriously. I work as switchman and help out when she has trouble with strategy. Both Natalie and Mitchel (aged 4) have steady enough control to uncouple truck mounted cars with a bamboo skewer.
Note the simple station made from foam core. It took about 10 minutes to make. The kids interest went up 10-fold once buildings appeared on the layout.
