Second Story

This weekend I got started building the framing for the upper level. Here's a couple photos:

Here's the Milton/Pensacola view. The risers along the back are about 10 inches above Chattahoochee on the lower level. That back "shelf" will be Pensacola. In front of that, at about 8 inches, will be Milton. The horizontal 1x2 cleat sticking out shows that level. Milton will hang over Chattahoochee here. Also note the smaller cleat at a height of about 6 inches toward the back. That's the mainline coming up the helix from Chattahoochee; it will be hidden beneath Pensacola as it makes its way toward Cottondale.

Here's the Tallahassee/Cottondale side of things. Again, the risers are 10 inches above Chattahoochee, and Tallahassee will sit on that shelf. In front of that and slightly lower will be Cottondale, which will hang over Chattahoochee like Milton does on the other side. Just imagine Tallahassee's freight & passenger depots on that upper level along the back wall, with a line of city buildings along the background.

Finally, here's your author hard at work:

Lower Level (sort of) Complete

I've finally finished the track on the lower level. Well, not exactly, as you can see from the pictures below, the mainline and siding track is not in place, but that can be added after the upper level framework is built, so I'm moving on.

Chattahoochee sure sees a lot of unusual motive power--here a Missouri North Western Alco RSD 4 pulls a cut of cars from the east end staging tracks into Chattahoochee yard. The Apalachicola Northern interchange track disappears under the helix just to the right of the mainline.

The MNW Alco meets the Illinois Terminal GP-7 on the Chattahoochee wye. The two crews can catch up on news from the midwest when they stop for dinner at Herman's Hamburger & Hotdog House. Herman's previous location wasn't garnering much business, so he had the building moved down a few hundred yards to the wye.
The white mess under the tracks is the adhesive putty I used to fasten the track down. Hope it's not too much trouble to cover that up with some paint and ballast later.

So now it's on to the upper level. The trackwork on the rest of the layout is much simpler than the Chattahoochee yard, so I'm looking forward to the next stage. Time for another trip to Lowe's!