Trackwork and wiring

I finished off the trackwork leading to the two industries on the east side of the layout, the brewery complex and the printers.  A few feeder wires soldered on and attached to the track bus and we're good to go.  The only trackwork I can think of that remains is what to do on the west side for the spur along the backdrop.  I have an old Walthers grain elevator that I'll put along there, not sure what else.  Maybe some more silos along the backdrop, maybe some kind of flat steel mill-looking building to fit in with the rest.  I got in a couple more packets of Caboose Industries ground throws so I'll be busy fitting them to the remaining switches.  I obtained another photo backdrop for the steel mill scene so I can finally put that together.  Maybe on to some ballasting and painting of track, we'll see.  Summer tends to get busy though it's just a rumor here when there's snow forecast for tonight.

Lessons learned:

1. When I was advised to glue the track down rather than nail it, I didn't realize how difficult that might make changing anything later.  If you try to pry up that Peco track it just pops the rails out of the ties, it's almost a write-off.  Which is one thing for a $5 piece of flex track, another for a $25 switch.  In hindsight I don't know if I would've glued it all down.
2. I've said it before - it's hard to appreciate how much room you're going to need to fit in all the lead tracks heading towards industries.  I used #6 switches throughout - I wonder if #4 switches would've allowed for more room.  I did notice this as I planned, using printouts of switches to realize where they'd all lead to. 

Ground throws

Since the last post, I had to have some plumbing work done, right above the layout.  Many thanks to Northtowns Remodeling for doing a great job working around the layout.  Hopefully those PVC pipes will not leak again and I am free to proceed forward with this project.

One of the many, many, MANY things I had to learn while constructing the layout was how to move the switches.  I wanted to be better than just moving the actual rails by hand.  Electrical switches looked clunky, and I didn't feel ready to jump into figuring out Tortoise switch machines (nor the added $25 or whatever per switch).  Caboose Industries ground throws looked look a good option.  Affordable, unobtrusive, and widely used.  I bought a couple packages to start, but these were the basic ones without the brand-specific mounting pins.  Rookie mistake.  I bought a set of them with the mounting options (I have Peco switches), and today took the plunge to figure out how to install these.  As you can see in the photos, once you did this once correctly and once incorrectly, you got the hang of it.

Lessons learned:

1. Make sure you're buying the correct ground throws for the brand of switches you have.  Also, I wasn't able to find much useful guidance on installing these online (which was a bit surprising).
2. If your track is on cork roadbed, use another little piece of roadbed to get the ground throw to the right level.  Or if it isn't, they include a little piece that snaps on underneath to bring it level.
3. Hopefully you saved some track nails from trackwork because those are perfect for nailing these in place.
4. Make sure that the placement of the ground throw correctly throws the switch all the way to either side.  I had to disassemble these a few times to get it right.  Otherwise you'll find that it leaves it short of where it's supposed to end up.
5. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to fit in the ground throws in some tight spaces, but that's a problem for another day.  I installed five of these today, three on the mainline and two in the steel mill area. 

I have also made progress in the industrial area on the other side of the layout by laying the tracks for the brewery and the printing press.  They're mostly wired, but I found out I have a dead spot in there, so I have a little more wiring to do.  I haven't figured out how to arrange the coke ovens and the grain elevator on the other side, which will determine the placement of the track to them.  I picked up some photo backdrops of steel mill buildings at a train show in Boston last month, cut them out and I've been trying various placements for them.  That's for another day and another post.