Cottondale Junction

Not a lot of progress since the last post, but I do finally have a piece of the middle level in place:

Finally I can tell how much room there really is between the lower and middle levels, and I'm pretty pleased with it. You can see back to all the tracks, and there's plenty of room to reach in and fiddle with cars or flip switches.

This portion of the middle level will be Cottondale, where the L&N main has a junction with the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay. In reality the junction grade crossing will be where the layout main line crosses itself. Now you can see how the main gets from Chattahoochee to Cottondale--it runs along the front of the lower level and reaches the helix to the right, works its way around the first two levels of the helix, and appears at Cottondale on the middle level at the back right. From there it proceeds around the middle level to Milton before proceeding on up to Pensacola (on the other side of the layout). Tallahassee will be along the back in this scene, a couple of inches above the middle level. The mainline from Tallahassee will wind around the top level of the helix to reach the junction from the front right (the top level of the helix is not yet in place).

Next weekend I plan to have more time to work on the layout, so maybe I can get the rest of the middle level in place at least.

Framework Finished

This weekend I completed all the framing for the middle and upper levels. The joist and risers are all in place.

Above is the Tallahassee / Cottondale side of the layout. The middle level (Cottondale) sticks out over Chattahoochee yard on the lower level, while the upper level (Tallahassee) runs along the back.

In this view looking toward the Chattahoochee wye, Tallahassee is to the right along the back upper level, while Pensacola is to the left. In the middle (front) level, Cottondale is to the right and Milton is to the left. The eastbound main from Cottondale down to Chattahoochee sneaks underneath the upper level around the back.

It's all ready now for the plywood subroadbed and upper helix pieces to complete all the benchwork. After that I'll go back to laying track to complete the mainline. Time to order some more track!