It has been a month since my last post, much has happened. All of the spline roadbed is in with cork roadbed glued to the top. All of the mainline from the ,east heading west, from Portland staging through Sanford and almost to the B&M interchange is in. In the photo you see the mainline to the left and the cement plant siding to the right with a cut of cars on one track. I need to lay the track from Rochester staging out to the B&M interchange so that the rest of the cement plant subroad bed can be installed. The Cement plant tracks deviate from the trackplan at the bottom of the blog page. I would have had to make the grade too steep to get intro staging with a switch at the location closest tom the B&M interchange. The cement plant will now have a two track yard for drop offs and pick ups and fopr the plant switcher to use for shuffling cars. The mainline now has a 2.5% grade down from Sanford to the B&M interchange and then 2.5% from there down into staging.
The B&M interchange is also evolving and will be quite different from the intial drawing. The short length of of the sidings and trying to get a run around at the end would have made the maximum train length 3 cars plus caboose and engine. The new design will allow the B&M trains to access the P&R main and the run around switches have been deleted. this arrangement makes a convoluted wye. I am waiting for a 60 degree crossing and tracks to start working this area.
