Wow, it's been awhile since an update on the Cascade Branch. Interesting that I did this last year. This wet summer led to some additional issues. This section of the layout is hung between two basement walls, one outside and one inside wall, and things seem to have further shifted. I was having difficulties running a full tonnage train with the C-19s. They can be a little lightfooted, but oif you weighed less than 1/2 pound, you would, too. I started a thread about adding weight to the C-19 that some may find useful:
Figuring that would fix things when I got around to it, plus plenty of other projects and still saving for more track, well, the Cascadde Branch became somewhat weed-grown. Given it's just a single long spur past Purgatory, site of the stone mill that serves the quarry at the end of the line, the minimal service levels didn't evince much complaint from shippers.
When I finally got back to looking over the branch carefully for the next project, it was with the goal of locating a place for another spur to serve a second customer in Purgatory a week ago. I have one more BK wye turnout kit, but where to use it wasn't obvious. I was doing more experimental way freight to get a better handle on what was needed when I discovered my assigned loco there could no longer handle its tonnage rating consistently. Blackstone cars are very consistent because of the trucks, but I have quite a number of lesser pieces of rolling stock whose rolling resistance varies considerably. I wanted to consistently handle at least three cars, tow revenue, plus caboose or combine. That's when I got interested in adding weight to my C-19s and the thread I cited above. But even that has limitations, the extra oz or so helped a lot, but not always overcoming the somewhat questionable hi-drag cars with trucks from an earlier era. After doing that and observing darn good results, tgoo much chance and operator iinput was required. The jumps and bumps leading to a slightly too steep bridge needed to be smoothed out. I described these in more detail in the trhead I cited above.
I decided to do it right with a permanet fix of one long grade. An earlier attempt foundered when I tried to leave the switch to the turntable in place. This created a low spot in the middle of the grade, which didn't help.
And I was still figuring where to put a new industrial spur. What a mess....then it struck me. I realized I had the correct lefthand turnout. I could move move the entrance to the service facilities from the uphill to the downhill end of Purgatory! This actually made a lot more sense in terms of facilitating getting a helper on the downhill end of the train, was more compact based on its relationship to other facilities.
I basically built it backwards and needed a do-over, which I did.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. By running the new spur across the TT bridge, I even could gain the extra spur without adding another turnout by simply repurposing the existing TT lead. Brilliant!
Here's the first pic, showing the built up roadbed that gained roughly 3/8" to ease the grade across it at about underneath where the loco and boxcar are coupled at the bridge abutement. I use basswood for the main part of the build-up. For fine adjustments I used styrene sheet in various thicknesses. As little as .010" gap under the drivers on one side can cause a heavily loaded C-19 locomotive to stumble and stall on grades like mine (~2%).
A closer look at the finished "adjustments" -- kids, don't try this at home. I couldn't really draw it as involved finding the sweet spot between three differeent curves.
I tacked the turnout parts directly to a piece of sheet basswood. Once everything was adjusted with shims, I replace them with the right sized wood or plastic "fake ties." Once ballasted, it works visually and is far more stable as a platform tyhatn ties are with all the grade changes.
In this pic with the new siding connected to the main, you can see another reason why moving the TT lead 180 degrees worked well.with the main and siding raised to the optimal grade. It would've been a crazy steepgrade out of the siding if I'd tried reconnecting the grade to the old location.
More shortly...
