Track Work On The .A.P.R.R.

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog! Now that I'm back in the Northern Command (NJ) and with the free time I have (as do many of us), I had been contemplating the need for more staging tracks on the railroad. The main reason behind it is the fact that between hosting operating sessions at the house, and doing virtual op sessions in an earlier railroad era, it's tough for me to do the virtual op pics and videos with post - Penn Central cars and locos in the way.

For all of you who have either followed my blog posts and videos, or have seen the layout in person, you must be scratching your head and asking yourself - where is he going to add more track? The railroad has more track on it than Sunnyside Yard!! 

There was one area on the layout that had a blank spot on the lower level. It's on the east end of south staging, with plenty of access to reach and put down some track. South staging on the east end currently has 5 tracks; 4 of which are active. The fifth track was not attached to south staging from the west end to the east end due to new control panels, so the track was severed from the yard. The west end of south staging track 5 is in full use and is an integral part of the engine terminal. The east end of track 5 was used to hold some freight cars that may have been pulled off the layout on operating sessions due to mechanical issues. 

Here's what it looked like prior to changes....

The space in the front of the second image shows the solo track coming to you as well as the 4 staging tracks. 

The goal is to connect track 4 to track 5 and to add 4 additional storage tracks for freight cars not in use during a virtual operating session or when I host an operating session. 

A pair of #6 Atlas LH switches were cut in to place on both track 4 and 5. Once in place, track 5 went east and three #4 switches were added for storage. For the time being, they will be manual switches. 

Now that the crossover is in place, we added the switches and track for the staging tracks.

A pair of left hand #4 switches and one right hand #4 switch and the yard is ready for freight cars.

The freight cars that were moved to these tracks are ones that I didn't want shown when I do my virtual operating sessions on the blog. These tracks will hold anywhere from 12-16 freight cars, depending on car length.

The last part of this will be to incorporate it into an operating session that I host or when I need to move freight cars to and from this area. While Mickey's Five Finger Crane Company made the test to see what would fit, the scenario should go as follows:

Engine and freight cars head down to south staging. Once at the Morris Plains interlocking, the train must be left hand running as I have no intention at the present time to leave an engine sitting on track 5. Since it's left hand running, the engine can cut off from the cars, pull one track at a time and swap out, pick up or drop off cars as needed. The length of track 5 is long enough for an engine and to pull or shove 4 cars to a track. 

Now, if I decide to leave an engine on track 5, the train heading to this area would still proceed as above. However, the yard engine would pull cars out and drop them on the track outside of staging. The arriving engine would pick them up, and both engines would work to swap out the cars. I'll post a video of how this will work down the road, as I'm sure many will want to see what I added into an already jammed packed action layout!!

Since it's not part of actual operations and made for storage (like the rest of the staging tracks), scenery or ballast or painting is needed. 

As a side note, I did count last year the amount of freight cars that were on the layout, both in staging on the lower level as well as on top at industries and the freight yard. The count came a few cars short of 400!! Keeping track of where certain freight cars are located for some virtual operating sessions or when I host is another topic of conversation for another blog post!

Thanks for reading!