Ryan's Layout Update #2 (Not for Dial-Up Connection)

This project has been underway for over a year now, working at a pace that life is allowing. The last update I posted was simply a video showing an overview of what Stan had created and the layout was still in place at his home. In this update I will be playing catch up with the last 12 months of activity from tear down to re-construction. 

All the rollingstock and buildings have been removed.

Fred Eisen pealing the layers of the upper staging at Baltimore away.

Grant Mauro planning our next move with the helix.

Helix out and loaded in one piece.

Wiring under the layout.

Fred and Grant discussing our next move.

First load out. Maybe one of the first layouts to drive over and under the trackage that is actually on the layout?

Would not go down the stairs to my basement in one piece, so we had to cut it in half.

The helix after being halved now in the layout space.

Grant, Ben, and John promising me the remember were everything goes...

Ben Brodbeck and my self pulling some track up in York to prepare to disassemble this area.

Hidden Trackage behind Wago, this is what feeds the helix.

Wago and Upper Loucks are removed.

Working on removing the Mt. Wolf section.

Grant with power tools under York.

with the second deck York section removed the area between Flour and Emigsville is now exposed.

Preparing the area with Poorhouse Yard to be removed.

James Klyeman and Ben with a section of benchwork.

 
Loading up again.

Starting to wonder what I was thinking! In some ways it probably would have been easier to build from scratch but I really wanted to preserve this layout.

Ben and John with the last section of benchwork standing.

They let me do the honors of taking the last bolt out.

All cleaned up at Stan's.

Have to start somewhere, started to lay some of the puzzle pieces out.

First section of benchwork put back together, a 19' section for Mt. Wolf.

Stan had the layout bolted to his wall. I had to cut new legs since I was not using this method. I installed levelers bolts using tee nuts under each leg due to my basement floor having somewhat of a bowl shape for drainage.

Enola/Harrisburg Staging off the ground.

I found the use of 5 gallon buckets helpful during re-assembly to hold the sections up while I bolted the legs back on.

Last major section of the lower level that was not back in place.

The flour mill section completes the bottom level, now on to fixing all the seems and track where the sections came apart.

All of the curves have been super elevated.

   
This is what happens when you give certain people a saws all... (their name rhymes with rant)

Sub-roadbed repairs complete on Chestnut St. in Mt. Wolf.

I thought about trying to drop the track back in to the ballast, but it wasn't going well.

 
Few more examples of where sections needed to be re-joined.

Track re-layed between Mt. Wolf and Emigsville.

Scraping the ballast off with a chisel blade and the shop-vac.

Much easier to relay the track now.

Got the lead to New York Wire Cloth back in.

Mains back in between Wago and Mt. Wolf.

Track plan for the lower level.

Mains before York Flour are back in.

Lead to York Flower is back in place.

I hope you enjoyed looking at the photos of the work up until now. Here is a video tour of the layout in its current state as of March 20th 2023.