Building the Ore Yard

Photos from November 25, 2020 to January 15, 2021

With the platform for the ore dock complete, it was time to address the benchwork and track that would connect the ore line at Felch Jct. to the dock itself. This trackage would need to traverse the hidden areas behind the water heater (more on that later) and emerge from the hole in the wall onto the ore yard benchwork. In order for this element to fit within the constraints of the railroad room, it was condensed to a very simple design that would allow ore trains to drop their cars on the arrival track and pick up empties on the departure track. A yard switcher would then be responsible for switching loads onto the ore dock and empties off of the ore dock.

The point where the track would emerge had been set and the position of the ore dock, while still somewhat flexible, had also been established. The next step was to determine the shape of the platform itself.

Now that the shape of the yard was determined, I built a simple open grid box that could be mounted to the studs of the heater enclosure.

A layer of homabed was added to the ore. yard platform.

The ore yard was able to be constructed on the workbench which allowed delicate trackwork to be assembled and tested thoroughly.

Under track magnets were added throughout the yard to support the operating plan for the ore yard.

Tortoise switch machines were installed and wired to terminal strips. Due to space constraints, the Digitrax DS64 would be installed on the inside of the heater enclosure opposite the yard (see image later in this post).

The ore yard benchwork was then fastened to the wall and integrated with the ore dock initial joist to ensure smooth train running across the platforms. The initial design was to make this yard removable for maintenance. Once the yard was put in place, it became impractical to remove it, so it is permanently installed.

The DS64 that controls the turnouts in the ore yard was mounted behind the yard inside the heater enclosure. This required running a Loconet cable around the water heater and into the enclosure as well.