Hanging brackets, legs that roll, and isolated frogs..

I was supposed to go to Phil Monat's house today for an operating session on his Delaware Susquehanna layout (See The Layout Design Journal issue #43 for an article on his great layout) but as luck would have it (or in Phil's case bad luck) he lost power like the 2.3 million others in the northeast, do to a freak October snow storm that dumped up to 16 inches of snow in some areas around the greater NYC region.  So.. model trains need electricity to run, Phil had none, which means no operating session.  I hope he and some of my other friends further to the north of me, get their power back soon.  I hate to think of them without power, with the cold weather here now.

Living in the NJ shore area (NO, not anywhere close to where Snooky stays thank God) we had very little in the amount of snow that fell, so we are lucky that we haven't lost power.  I took advantage of my now freed up schedule and did some more work on the layout.

First up was to finish prepping the helix legs for installation.  I mounted locking casters on the bottoms of each leg. With the helix being in close proximity to the mechanical room doors (just a little over 3' away) I wanted to be able to unattach the helix and roll it out of the way easily if we ever need to do any major service on the water heater or on the HVAC system.  Both might need replacing within the next couple of years and I don't want to have to tear out the helix to get clearance to the mechanical room.  Unbolting the helix from from the layout, and disconnecting the wires and track, will be all that's needed before I can roll the whole thing out of the way.

Casters added to the legs will help with moving the helix if needed.

After finishing the helix legs I moved unto installing the rest of the brackets for the lower level bench work.




This picture shows the rest of the brackets installed for the lower level.  And yes.. the sombrero still hasn't been moved yet.  :)

 The last thing I worked on today was gapping the frogs in 7 of the Fast Tracks turnouts I built awhile back.  Once I have all the turnout frogs gapped, I will then solder the feeder wires onto them.  Then they will be ready for installation on the layout when I get to that point in construction. 

All in all not a bad way to turn my disapointment about the op-session being canceled into a productive day on my own layout. :)