Sunday, May 22, 2011

Mainline Golden Spike!

It seems that it's getting longer & longer between my posts; I didn't realize that the last update was April 9.  Well, be that as it may, the big news for today is that the mainline is complete & operational from east staging (New Haven Cedar Hill Yard) to west staging (Phillipsburg/Allentown).  I've made some other progress, too, including installing the New Haven line from Maybrook to Campbell Hall, which serves as E/L staging, and I've gotten started laying track on the long delayed Ogdensburg branch.  I've also installed slide switches on all mainline and yard turnouts & have installed linkages on all but 4 or 5 of them.  I think now that the mainline is essentially complete I can actually start running some significant test trains, which should reveal where fine tuning is needed--at least I hope that only fine tuning will be needed! 

For what it's worth, this coming Thursday is 6 months since construction began.  It seems longer ago than that, but it's not.