Status
All the trackwork is done in Shire Oaks. It is all shown in this photo. Most of the track has been ballasted, but we are not 100% happy with the ballasting job we did in some of the older track. We will either redo the ballast or improve it. Now that Pogo Mountain has been built, we will start to work on scenery in this area. The photo shows 4 #8 turnouts in the two crossovers, and 5 #6 turnouts for feeding a team track, Pogo Mountain reverse loop, and the two tracks going down the Helix. All turnouts were scratchbuilt by us.


Design
Because of the recent addition of the peninsula to our design, Shire Oaks has been modified. The diagram is viewed as if you were standing in our closet. The design shows the double mainline running through the town. The town is actually split into three parts due to the track. There is the area on the left hand side (borders the Allegheny River), the area marked on the diagram, and the area on the other side of the double mainline to the back of our layout. There is a spur to service some of the area near the bottom of the diagram.


Progress
The next collection of photos shows the progress of this part of layout over the duration of the layout.

Today we decided to remove the temporary double mainline flextrack that we had laid. We were also not happy with the subroadbed, so we decided to start over again from just the l-girders as seen on this photo.


The next photo shows the new vertical joists in place.


The next photo shows the new plywood support for the double mainline. To the left and right of this board we will be building bridges.


It is time to focus on the big task ahead to complete the track on Shire Oaks' double mainline, the remaining missing track. A few days ago I took a good hard look at the previous track design for this area. After several hours of work we came up with the new design. Because of this new design, the old plywood boards I had cut were no longer needed. I removed all the pieces, including in the closet. They were just attached with screws so they were easy to remove. What you see in this photo is all the boards removed. There are still vertical spacers attached to the joists of the benchwork, but they will be removed in the future.


For this project I have decided to build all the track offline, so to say. I want to build as much of the track by hand as possible and install the turnouts' switch machines before installing the entire plywood board on the benchwork. We will see how it goes. This photo shows the subroadbed plywood board cut to shape. It fits in between the new Allegheny River, along the back wall to be installed in the closet (top of photo), along the Shire Oaks wall to the Crystal River.


This project is going to take quite some time to complete. I have 8 turnouts and 2 crossings planned for this piece of wood. This photo shows some of the pencil lines I drew on the board. This was done after the board was painted with two layers of our default base color. Two layers were necessary to hide the wood's grain. This particular piece is also the cheap plywood, so I sanded it often to get it to be as smooth as possible. One set of lines are where the double mainline track goes, and the other set of lines represent the joists on the benchwork. Knowing where the joists are allows me to adjust where the turnouts are going to be so that the Tortoise switch machines are not going to be interfered with by the joists.


The last thing I did today was to install the AMI Roadbed material where the double mainline track is going to go. This is where I am going to have to experiment the most. I am thinking about pressing the wood ties and then the PC ties into the AMI Roadbed. After that the rail will be soldered to the PC ties. I have never done this before, so we will have to see how it turns out.


I also printed out turnout templates and placed them on the AMI Roadbed to see where they would have to be.
Update: I have since then placed the rest of the AMI Roadbed where all the track on this plywood section is going to be. I don't have a photo of that yet.


Restart... one more time... A few weeks ago I decided not to build the track offline. Last night I installed the vertical support posts and today I attached the plywood subroadbed. Because the AMI Roadbed I placed on this plywood board no longer matches the location of the track coming from the Crystal River valley and the Allegheny River bridge, I decided to remove it all. The screw holes have been filled with Sculptamold. Tomorrow when they are dry I will sand them and repaint the entire board again. After that I will mark off where the AMI Roadbed needs to go. After that the AMI Roadbed will be re-installed.


This photo shows the plywood subroadbed permanently mounted to the benchwork. The screw holes are plugged with sculptamold (our favorite wood filler these days!). Next comes another coat of our cocoa bean latex paint to clean the board up again. The plywood board in front was cut from the previous board. This will be installed later. I just put it down for the photo. We are waiting with attaching this one so that we can reach the Tortoise installation locations for the turnouts on the double mainline.


Here is the board painted and we have started to lay the AMI Roadbed for the track. We used turnout templates printed with via the computer to lay out where they are going to be. Adding a little extra AMI Roadbed for the crossovers should allow for final adjustments later. The two diverging turnouts near the Fairmont bridge are going to be #6's and the crossovers will be made out of a pair of #8's each. All these turnouts and the two 90-degree crossings are going to be scratchbuild, so it is time to get to work on them...


After a good two-and-a-half weeks of work (with many breaks in between, of course), the first double mainline crossover is in place! For the past year that we have had a double mainline there has never been any trackage that connected the two. All we had was two loops going 'round and 'round.


The two turnouts are scratchbuilt #8's (scratchbuilt number 9 and 10). Here a pair of PA's carrying some passengers is managing the turnout just fine. There is still a bit of tweaking required to this turnout to get it to be more gentle with wheels that aren't quite in gauge, but that is all fixable. We are just happy to finally do a little bit of mainline switching on our layout.


This is a lower-angle view of the just completed double mainline. The track has been weathered and ballasted. Tortoises control the turnouts and everything is running smoothly.


We are preparing to install Masonite front fascias around the layout. To make sure that this fascia matches the overall land shape, we need to complete the basic terra- forming on Shire Oaks. The part shown in the photo below is the only area that has a front fascia. The boards create a more vertical approach to the land. Obviously lots of scenery work will be done here in the future.


Shire Oaks only has a small area that interacts with the open area of the room. We installed a front fascia board made out of Masonite board. It goes all the way down to where the bottom of the Helix fascia board will go. This will hide some of the benchwork underneath the Shire Oaks area, while still allowing access to Altoona Yard.


Today we completed the trackwork in Shire Oaks. There was one last #6 turnout left to build to connect both of the helix tracks to Shire Oaks. This has now been done. The first photo shows the turnout. This is the 17th turnout I've built and it is the best one yet. I built it in one sitting and it performs flawlessly. The turnout is installed and operational, but it still needs to have its ties stained, ties inserted in areas where there is to be no glue, track painted, and ballasted. This will come over the next few days.


The next photo shows the area and more clearly shows how this turnout connects to the helix.


An updated photo with the track fully ballasted. We prefer to ballast before finishing the scenery. The primary reason is that, like the prototype, we depend on the ballasting process to hold the track down.


This is an updated photo to show the front fascia board painted black.