The Bay Line?

Put together a bit of a table for 2X8' extension of the Blacktop Crossing in hopes of developing a connecting railway that serviced Panama City, FL, paper mill -- The Bay Line.

Used legs from moving the Knowledge Park Shortline to its new display home for the table.  The legs plus a little lauan plywood and the pink foam (1") should make a reasonable foundation.  May have to add a couple of cross braces, but will wait to attach more permanently to the existing layout -- just to see if things stiffen up a bit.

The legs had adjustments for height, so lining up the connection should be pretty straightforward.  Did have to "hollow out" some of the connecting side to allow for the heads of a couple of carriage bolts!

Had thought there were two 8' 1X4's left over from another project.  One 8-footer ended up being more like 6 feet. . . .  Just pieced it together with other scraps. Added cross supports roughly at 2-foot distances.

Next, transfer the track plan to the pink foam and rough out some track to see if it will work. . . .

Handcar

What?!  Maybe something for the Blacktop Crossing and not KP Shortline?!  How's this for a model of a handcar that has seen some use?

Don't know where it will go on the layout, but a friend had two kits and gave me one.  What's a guy to do?  Put it together but found my plastic glue was aging.  Did the best with what I had. . . .

Let there Be Light

 Added about a foot of lead to the street light that wasn't working.  That did the trick -- long enough to put a couple of wire nuts on wires underneath.  Maybe a little bit of work is needed where the hole was enlarged to feed the wire through, but that's no big deal.  First light on the right of White Street. . . .

Even got the Cotton Factory owner to do a little scenicking.  Adding a few trees and flowers in a couple of spots.

Gives a bit of a finished or purposeful look to the far end!

Got a little daring and added a box car and caboose. . . .

Adjustments on the Plateau

 A couple of details to address while resting on the "plateau".  

The display case builders had left a piece of a wedge under the Knowledge Park Shortline Railroad layout which was a bit of an eyesore. A little flat black paint did the trick (before and after):

Remembered that some Haint Blue paint was left over from the Southern Dynasty dollhouse finally completed for a granddaughter -- Haint Blue is supposed to scare away anything that might haunt (haint) your house, so you paint the ceilings of the porches Haint Blue.  Anyway, that shade of blue came pretty close to the sky blue on Section I's modified Oakland Avenue corner.  Painted the top of the wall from tan to Haint Blue!

One of the street lights was not working (first one on cemetery side of White Street).  Could not work with the extremely small wire under that table, so pulled the street light out and brought it home to add leads.

A Plateau. . . of Sorts

 Good progress with Knowledge Park Shortline; might just be a plateau to rest on for a while.

Flat black small control box to help blend in and not stand out:

A couple of trees for the triangular corner:

Lower panel on large control box for protection; needed a small slot for the electrical cord:

Some track cleaning, retrieval of locomotive that works with limit switches from layout builder and connection of Section 2 to a timer (set for Dr. Pepper time, 10, 2, and 4) and we can watch it run every 45 seconds or so (oops, 2 minute movie is too large to upload so some of the 45 second "wait time" has been removed).

A little rest and we'll tackle the two loops in downtown section!

The Distraction

 OK, one reason progress on paper mill section has been slow is the distraction caused by quick notice to move Knowledge Park Shortline to its display case.  Got the notice last Friday, removed legs and disconnected two sections and some wires on Monday, moved the two sections yesterday, and did some detail work today.

Pretty pleased with progress; yet to finish cleaning track and locomotive wheels and some details of scenicking.

Door bell transformers being used for lighting on the "downtown" section were "blowing out" previously.  Our Electrical Engineering "consultant" recommended beefier replacement transformer.  That's why some wiring was disconnected until new transformers arrived.  Crawled into base of cabinet today to connect transformers.  Tried hard to label wires to help reconnections.  EE consultant recommended using wire nuts.  Done:

All lights are working; time will tell if new transformers were good choice:

What Next?

 So, track, turnouts (including my first WYE), roadbed, and pink foam are here.  Now what?