Nobody Gonna Break'a My Stride, Nobody Gonna Slow Me Down!

Yup, another productive afternoon in Johnstown. About two thirds of the rails are painted, including all of the industrial track except the turnouts. I've found Peco turnouts can be funny, and I don't mean "ha ha" funny. You have to be super careful painting an ballasting near them or their performance goes straight to hell.

I use Peco "Electrofrog" turnouts, which have powered frogs. These have the advantage of allowing you to run locomotives with a small pickup footprint. However, the frogs must change polarity depending on which way the turnout is thrown. To do this, the point rails (the ones that move) are connected to the frog and draw power from the outside rails. Therefore, the point rails must make perfect contact with the outside rails or you're going to have some very squirly locomotive performance. So, when painting the turnouts, I always to a few precautions.

To whit:

1. Use a foam microbrush for maximum paint control

2. No paint anywhere near the point rails. Looks may suffer, but I'll gladly trade aesthetics for operational reliability.

3. No ballast between the rails near the moving parts. Again, choosing function over form.

4. When done ballasting, blow out the gap between the point rails and the outside rails with a computer duster.

With the rails painted, I set about ballasting some track. The full length of the Industrial Track is ballasted and a portion of the main line is too. Now of course, no sooner did I ballast the main line then I realized I hadn't installed the sensors for the NJI crossing signals yet! Oops.

As you can see from the above photos, I finished plastering up the road from the industrial area to the edge of the layout. I'll name the nascent thoroughfare Water Street for the freight terminal. Kind of ironic and maybe a bit tasteless considering certain historical events in Johnstown. But hey, I didn't name the freight terminal; Walthers did.

Lastly, I got some more turf put down. I really do love how the scene is coming together. Other than wiring, most of the messy work is finished in Johnstown. Just a few more feet of rail to paint and ballast, a little more plaster work and then it's just turf, trees and detailing.

In other news, I decided I am going to the train show in Easley this weekend. My parents care coming up from Hilton Head and it will be a nice opportunity for my father, my son and I to get out of the house.

In past years, the show has been kind of a disappointment with very little in the way of N Scale. But I still found a few things there. One of the biggest lessons I've learned about train shows is not to be afraid of leaving empty handed. Sometimes the best deal at the show is leaving with the money in your pocket.