The best laid plans.............

Hi Everybody,

Saturday afternoon I started putting down roadbed. I started by locating the end of track. You can see the pencil marks across the sub roadbed.

Next I started laying down a bead of caulk on far inside three stringer the length of the roadbed.

Then I line up the center edge of one piece of roadbed. I'm keeping the saw cuts, which by the way appear to be made by a thin knife blade of some kind as there isn't much of a gap in the cuts, on the inside. That way the solid edge is on the outside of the roadbed.

Once the piece is located, I just started pressing down on the roadbed, letting the caulk get a hold of it. When I was satisfied with the first piece, I then began to continue with the next piece. But as I was moving along the stringer into the switch area something didn't look right at all. The stringers had pull themselves into a bent shape right in the middle of the intersection of stringers. Plus, the spacer blocks that are glued between the stringers popped apart. I repaired it by getting the stringers in line again and as I was gluing everything together again, I also drove in some additional nails to help in holding the stringers together against the forces to pull them apart. After I got the gluing done I went ahead and started with the other siding.

So today I went down to the railroad and finished up the roadbed. The pieces I glued down the day before where glued down good. I began with the inside piece and continued up the grade. Then came back and filled in the outside pieces. And finished by filling in the rest of the sidings and the switch.

Tomorrow I'll come back and fill in the cuts with drywall mud and sand the top of the roadbed smooth and make it ready for ties. Before I start laying rail, I believe I'll start filling in the area between the backdrop and roadbed with the pink extruded foam to begin the ground base. Will also be able to use it to hold supplies while I'm spiking. When I do put in the ground base, I will have to make a support structure under it to support the mill buildings. Already got that one figured out.

See ya next time.