Electric Railroad Gazette


AUGUST, 1999

Hello, and welcome back to Railroadland. We've been very busy. We changed the name of the railroad to the AC, DC, and RC Railroad.

The AC is the "Z" railroad and stands for "American Coast" railroad. The DC is the "N" railroad and stands for "Daylight California" railroad, and the RC is, of course, the "Rock City Railroad." The new name adds humor and puts it in front for all listings and web links because it starts with an "A."

We also changed the name of the "What's New" newsletter to the "Electric Railroad Gazzette." This reflects the AC/DC "electric" part of the railroad.


Here's a rundown on the new construction and changes.

1. rebuilt the N control panel and built the Z control panel

2. wired the N control panel, including all the switches. All that's left is the lights.

3. wired the Z control panel blocks. The switches are yet to do, but the wire is in place.

4. moved the N and Z control panels to the sides of the HO panel so as not to block the panaramic view. (formerly they were stacked)

5. Moved both sides of the layout away from the wall 3 1/2 inches and added 3 1/2 inches to the Z background. (In Z scale this is a lot of room)

6. Cut a few inches away from the front of the layout to make up for the added room in back.

7. ordered some foam and resin and am starting to make the rock walls in the mountain area. The mold has a "Grand Canyon" feel to it, so as to contrast from the "California" mountains.

8. built a walkwayramp over the wires so they don't get stepped on

9. Added a new downtown "Z" station that's close enough to reach. (it's not quite finished as we're waiting for the switches)

10. Added a "N" downtown section that's close enough to reach. This includes 2 new long sidings that will hold long trains.

11. Moved the HO downtown station forward to make room for the new "N" and "Z" downtown stations. Downtown will now look a lot fuller, as previously it was all "HO" scale. Now it has stations in all three scales, and the extra 3 1/2 inches in the back.
We reduced the Walthers background downtown posters to Z scale to match the final Z scale background.

12. Cut 7 inches out of the yard to make the room for the Z background on the sides, then hooked it all back together

13. Added 2 more long lines to the yard on the inside. These two new lines wrap around in front of Downtown to hold longer trains than the now shortened yard. We also added an extra line in the old yard by squeezing them closer together. The yard is now actually skinnier, but has 7 lines instead of the old 6.

By trimming the yard, we added about 3 or 4 inches of walk space, which gets rid of that enclosed claustraphobic feeling in the back of the room.

As you can see, we've been busy, and now we're building the mountain rocks, which should take a month, then painting and landscaping another month, then downtown another month, and then getting everything up and running and ready, another month. It should be ready for the next openhouse around Thanksgiving, or at least for Christmas.

The St Louis loop will have to wait till next year, as will the underground helixes and hidden staging yard.

Stay tuned