…But First…

Way back when, in my “‘Scuse Me While I Paint the Sky“ post, I talked about trying to do things in order. By keeping notes and such, I’m made some progress, but I still slip from time to time.

In my last post, when talking about upcoming work, I said: “The first step is to paint the track. ” Well, I lied. Or forgot. Or something.

After finishing that post (about 3.26 seconds after pressing “Publish”) the light bulb went on that I needed to do some additional work at the Cambridge Iron & Metal spur before painting.

Here’s the way the spur looked before modifications.

What you see here is Code 100 track transitioning to Code 83 track. Replete with many, perfectly aligned ties. But, on the layout, this is industrial and will be buried in the dirt, so it wouldn’t be the most well-maintained piece of track on the system. And it certainly wouldn’t have the volume of ties that mainline track would. To get that effect, I decided to remove a bunch of ties. I also decided to shorten the length of the track. As shown, it would hold four gondolas and a locomotive, way more than I needed. So I cut it down to hold a locomotive and two gondolas, which will increase scenic possibilities in this little semicircle.

Step 0: Music. I went with this. I highly recommend it, but I won’t hold it against you if you choose something different.

Step 1: Cut off and remove the excess track. I do this using a Dremel with a cut-off disc (and wearing safety glasses).

Step 2: Carefully pull up the track. I say “carefully” because, of course, it was already wired.

Step 3: Cut the ties and start to pull the unneeded ones off. I use a Craftsman Handi-Cut tool for this. I bought this tool a long time ago and somewhere along the line discovered it was perfect for this task (and not much else, to be honest).

Step 4: Once the appropriate number of ties are removed, carefully push the track back down flat and check alignment.

In this case, the alignment where the Code 100 track meets the Code 83 was… well… bad. But again, this is industrial track that wouldn’t have the best maintenance. I fiddled with it to try to improve it, with only moderate success. But as long as it didn’t cause derailments, I’d be okay with it.

Step 5: Test.

Good enough, in my opinion.

Step 6: Tack down the track to ensure final alignment. I added a lot of new holes for track nails in the ties that remained to make sure things would stay put.

Done! Final result:

Okay. Now I can paint track…

Teaser: here’s the spot after painting a base coat.

Is this blog helpful? Informative?
Let me know in the comments. And don’t forget to subscribe!