Trackwork First Steps

Yesterday I transferred the paper track plan for Willow Junction to the layout  by establishing base lines on the plywood, laying out the turnouts, and penciling in the centerlines.

 I marked the turnout ends as well as lines at the switch rod location. (While I am not planning on using switch motors here, I will drill holes in case I might want to add them in the future.) The one change from the track plan was to locate the switcher engine house track at 14" from the edge instead of 15".

Laying out Willow Junction's track plan: without a backboard in
place, the sprayed-in, closed cell foam insulation is visible.

The next steps before actually starting to lay track are to lay the cork roadbed and to modify the turnouts. I have the cork, track, and turnouts, but the turnout pads are on backorder so I may have to  splice the turnout cork from straight sections. David Popp on MRVP has a good video on modifying turnouts as a part of the Olympia Logging video series. Also, the Peco instructions that came with the Electrofrog turnouts are clear and helpful. It looks like there are four steps to turnout modification:

1. Connect the point rails and stock rails
2. Construct point rail jumpers at the hinge
3. Remove wires connecting the center rails to the frog and use insulating rail joiners at end of center rails past the frog
4. Attach feeder wire to frog