Burnham Yard Track Laying 1

Yesterday was spent laying down the first turnouts for the layout. Today, is going to be mostly spent doing Xmas shopping and wrapping presents, so I guess no further progress until after Boxing day, we shall see.

Here I am cutting back the rail so as to get the turnout to sit together more snugly at the junction entry to Burnham Yard.

The turnout nearest to the front is the simulated Chicago South Shore & South Bend interchange point.

I prepared the turnouts by cutting back webbing so that I could solder drop wires to the frog and both of the main rails for each turnout.

In fact I'm soldering dropper wires to every piece of track so as to maintain good electrical feed across the layout.

 The turnouts with droppers soldered on ready for placement.

And here is the junction being prepared with holes punched through the foam board surface.



And the junction completed. The turnout to the right is just laying in the approximate position it will be in when the yard throat has been laid. The junction is the first track laid on Burnham Yard.

Here is an action shot of me feeding the leads into the board, and you can see the double-sided tape I'm using to temporarily hold the track in position until such time as I ballast it.

And finally an overall view of the afternoons work. I laid a total of seven turnout and three yards of track. Unfortunately, my soldering iron went kaput, fixable, but not this side of the New Year, so I will need to go out and buy something to tide me over until them.



Edit: A quick shot showing an eight car freight train sitting on the arrival departure yard.

So may I wish all my readers a very Merry Xmas, and more updates to come before the New Year.