The Story So Far

In the beginning, the basement was dark. Eight legged monsters moved to and fro and four legged scavengers scurried about in the corners. And, a voice said, "Let there be light." When that had little effect, with the snap of a lightswitch, the landscape took form.

Suffice it to say, the first impulse was to turn the light back OFF. Her stuff would have been enough, but then you add MY stuff to it, which we did when I moved in, and the result was a nightmarish scene that would probably have made for a whole new series on HGTV had the producers been around to get a decent look at it. Unfortunately, the small army of production assistants that would have arrived to help sort, organize, discard, and dispose of the pile of junk showed no signs of making an appearance, so it fell to us to start digging. SEVEN truckloads to the local landfill later, and countless trips to the local Goodwill dropoff, and we found that where the white elephant jungle had been, there was now an approximately 40x40 foot room that was suitable for the construction of model railroad benchwork!
I should probably point out at this junction that my wife, Caroline, is entitled to awards and accolades for supporting a hobby that many women don't understand a bit. She agreed to turn over the entire basement (well, almost) for the railroad, and has always been willing to help clean out, clean up, and help adjust family finance to make the project possible. And she's actually into the whole railroad mystique, something I hear not a lot of wives go for. I'm sure she'll turn up as the topic of a future post ... but the story of the early Slate Creek would be incomplete without discussion of how she helped make it all possible.

At this point it was time for benchwork, and this brought in a new set of indispensible help, my brother Nathan, and his friend J-Me (see photo, left) who made the trip all the way from Wisconsin to build open frame benches for my train. The project took place in a couple of chunks, as we had to relocate a water heater, and remove an old oil furnace that were effectively blocking the ROW, and re-organize the remaining stuff in the basement to accomodate the new benchwork build over and around it. Slowly, though, the benchwork took shape, and the subroadbed, and then it fell to me to lay track.

I decided that I would use Llagas Creek code 250 track, using narrow gauge ties, and code 250 nickel silver rail. While my locomotives are slowly being converted to battery power, I'm still reasonably happy with this choice, as I plan to have a working signal system at some point, and therefore need some good electrical properties on the track, even if eventually the engines won't need it for power. I decided to save a few bucks, and order the rail and tie strips seperately and assemble my own track ... this was a MISTAKE. Eventually, I bought a track tool from the folks at California and Oregon Coast that holds a tie strip with a series of short fingers, and got good at using Armorall and some elbow grease to slide the rail into the tie strips ... but for all that work, pay the extra few bucks and have the track shipped assembled! I bought some carpet padding from the local carpet store, and laid it down on the subroadbed before laying the track, primarily to minimize noise between the train and the benchwork.
Llagas provides a screw tab every six inches or so, and so far I've not had any major vibration or noise problems with the screw going directly into the subroadbed using those tabs. The Slate Creek has a pier area, a yard, and a main line all of which are in place and operational at this point. The switches have been added at Midway, and the sidings roughed in there, and there are plans for sidings at the mine, and the crusher/concentrator plant. The yard's enginehouse area will be completed as soon as I can manage to install the turntable, which is already on hand, and just awaiting the bench modification to put it in place.

I'll be back with a more in depth tour soon.