Monk Subdivision - Lessons Learned in 3 Months

In January 2024, I wrote in a post that Mike Confalone was right about his “Act first, think later” approach (https://hedley-junction.blogspot.com/2024/01/monk-subdivision-mike-confalone-was.html). Sure, Mike isn’t a reckless modeler as he puts a lot of thoughts into his work, but the ideas are always tested in the physical world and if they fail or lose their purpose, they get adjusted, fixed or replaced by newer ones are better.

I’m have been following that mantra for more than three months now. Going down to the basement, leaving the computer behind and working my little share each single day since then. What I have in front of my eyes now is a functional layout, sufficiently wired to be operated and with basic controls, both DC and DCC. I also have a large bridge already in place.

In my previous “life”, I would have worked by basically doing nothing for months, working like a madman a few entire days, then hit a roadblock, go back to that forsaken computer and find a new funny train related distraction until I would change my mind a go back working on the layout after forgetting the reason I was working on it.

Relying only on will power alone is a sure plan for failure. Only discipline can help to achieve results. As I will state in a future post, I still have a lot of things to do before starting scenery, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t put a few minutes each day on the layout.

And don’t believe it was a walk in the park over the last few months. I made a lot of mistakes, had to demolish and rebuild from scratch. Wiring had to be modified more than once to get it as clean as possible when it will be time to expand it. On my bucket list, there is a lot of rebuilding in my future. But when done piece by piece, step by step, everyday, it’s no longer a dreadful chore but simply leisure.

Part of me want it perfect, particularly the running qualities and the scenery, but I need to take my time and work on it a little bit everyday. I had planned for the layout to be fully operational by mid-September and I reached that point by early October due to some technical issues with the lift bridge. It may not yet be steam power friendly, but it is for diesel power and I will take that win any day!

Monk Subdivision - Adjusting the Staging Yard Lift Bridge

Adjusting the staging yard lift bridge wasn’t an easy task, but when decomposed into discrete steps, it was much palatable. The first steps was to remove the end tracks on the bridge itself to resurface the warped plywood surface. They were all soldered and wired with feeders. Thus I took my time, over two evening to prepare everything.

Resurfacing the plywood was much easier than thought

Then the surface was sanded down with a rotative sander and final level adjustment done with wood putty to ensure a perfect surface. It took three adjustments, but I got it right and sealed everything with a good coat of paint.

 

Perfect vertical alignment for improved performance

Then tracks were relaid, resoldered and rewired in place, assuring a good alignment to prevent derailment.

 

When done, I took care to finalize the bus wiring and gather all the wired together in a bundle. This was to ensure no wire would get entangled by repeated action of the bridge lifting motion.

 

A simple surface bolt took care of lateral position

I also added a small bolt to secure the bridge lateral position. This was required because I observed some lateral play that could be about 1.5mm. That is a huge misalignment! I found out by accident when a steamer hit the rails full speed and got its rods firmly stuck. This is some really nasty mechanical stuff. I went to the hardware store and tested several surface bolts until I found one that had minimal slack in it to ensure perfect alignment.

 

Adding a MDF guardrail for peace of mind against accidents

Finally, I added a piece of MDF to act as a guardrail to prevent trains to plunge on the concrete floor of doom. That takes away some stress to run expensive rolling stock!

Now, I have reached a point were most tracks have been laid and are functional. I only need to address the faulty trackwork by the curved turnout located on the superelevated spot. Once this is done, it will be a matter of adding the team track and coal track in Armagh, followed by installing a few tortoises and additional wiring. I must admit I'm a little bit afraid of running trains when there is not terrain to catch a falling piece of rolling stock. It doesn't take a lot to have such an unfortunate accident and I'm not willing to take that risk.

I must admit I'm not writing that much because I feel these nuts and bolts articles are far less interesting than scenery, planning or simply modelling. I have been working on a few rolling stock projects in "secret" too, but I'm waiting a bit before sharing them since I want to focus my efforts on what matters right now.