After the downsizing of the N&F RR last year, I had given serious thought to removing the Northview Wye, too. The west leg has always had alignment issues as well as kinks in the rail joints. Although I rebuilt the switch on the tail track last fall - helping the alignment issue but not completely correcting it - I was still on the fence about trying to fix the west leg, or just replace the wye with a turntable. There are pros and cons for each.
Today, I made my decision - the wye stays. I pulled up all of the rail on the west leg, replacing it with rail from the track that was removed last year. The "new" rail has full capture rail joiners, which eliminated the kinks at the rail joints. The middle part of the curve was moved out a few inches, which got it in proper alignment with the rebuilt switch.
I have a little surfacing to do on the mainline east of Redbud, and a few ties to replace as well. Other than that, the track is in good shape for the year.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
I hope winter is over!
Nearly 70 degrees today with sunshine and clear skies! To celebrate, I rolled the International steam locomotive out of the shop and finished alignment on the right hand crosshead and guide bar. Of course, I went to find the wrist pins so I could machine new bushings for the connecting rods... and discovered that one of them is gone. One of the crossheads was disassembled when the locomotive arrived, and today was the first time I looked for the wrist pin in the box of parts that accompanied the locomotive. So, the locomotive will now get new wrist pins - no sense in making one new one and using one old one, might as well make both of them new to match the bushings. You might remember that the bushings for that crosshead was also missing. At least the rest of the parts are there. Maybe I'll get this thing running eventually:
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