It’s been a while since we’ve posted an update, and a lot of people are wondering how we are doing. The photo above should give you some idea: That’s an F7 at speed through Midway! (And yes, it’s running on DCC!)
We’re a long way from being done, but all of the smaller pieces we’ve been preparing are starting to come together into a whole. Most of the pods are built and in place, as are the Tortoise switch machines. We’ve wired track power to a large section of the mainline and we’re stringing our LocoNet cable.
Now, on a typical model railroad, we’d be in the final stretch… but this is the Sierra Pacific Lines. Although we’ve pulled some 800 lbs of wire out from under the railroad, there’s still a lot of wire that needs stay in place, and tracing the right ones (and the wrong ones), particularly in our three main yards, is a time-consuming task. Some of our old switch machines are staying in place, and that complicates things quite a bit. Still, we are now able to run DCC locomotives (and, theoretically, entire trains) over large sections of the main line — and that’s progress!
While the electrical crew works under the railroad, the scenery crew are working up top, building new scenes (like the mine we talked about earlier) and re-doing some old ones. We’re sure frequent visitors will notice the changes when we have our next open house.
We’ll try to update the site more frequently; as you can imagine, we have quite a lot of work to do. For now, it’s back to the layout floor…