East Oakdale Framing

Several months ago, I decided to start construction of the layout extension going from the Sierra side of Oakdale Junction to the SP Merced staging yard and Sierra's Jamestown staging yard.  Once again, I used 1X3 boards purchased from Lowes for the open grid frame and 1/2 inch plywood for the top.  This small section fits the area from the main layout (near the meat packing complex) to the edge of the doorframe of the door leading out of the garage to the side yard.

Door Leading Out to the Side Yard

Unlike the Farmington section, I did build this section with a backdrop and an overhead lighting valance.  I also included a way to light the section with "night lighting."  Due to the small size of the section, I was not able to use the blue rope lighting that I am using on the longer sections of the layout.  Instead, I installed three individual light bulb fixtures (blue bulbs) and a standard on/off wall switch to turn them on. (Details of this will be in a separate post.)

This section is where the SP tracks leading to Merced (staging) and the Sierra tracks leading to Jamestown (staging) converge for a short distance.  I had to do this in order to make my track plan work for the operations I have planned to run my layout.  After converging, the tracks split apart prior to crossing a removable access bridge leading to the rest of the layout (Merced and Jamestown).

Though the majority of the turnouts on the layout are controlled by Caboose Industries ground throws, this section has two turnouts controlled by slow motion Tortoise Switch Machines.  A small control panel is affixed to the fascia of this section.  There are two toggle switches in the panel to control the turnouts and red/green LED indicator lights for throw direction.   The sections of track will also be monitored with NCE BD Block Detectors and will light an orange LED indicator light on the control panel.

Location of Control Panel