Laying the roadbed on the overhead loop

We now are laying the homasote roadbed on the overhead loop. The six tracks are more obvious now. I cut the strips of homasote to be the same width as the track. It is also kerfed so I can bend it to make the curves. We followed those pencil lines laid out by the trammel to position them.

We added biscuits in the ends of the plywood sections to align the pieces vertically. We then placed doubler plates of 1/2 inch thick plywood at each joint. This will allow us to rest the new piece we put up to the ceiling on the previously hung one so we can just add two pieces of steel rod at the opposite end to hold it while we get the other rods in. These pieces are gaining weight as we add the homasote and can be unweildy.

The last picture is a bit busy and distant but you can see all the homasote is in except for the last sections where I have to lay out the turnouts that spread the tracks into the six loops. I used an air nailer to nail the homasote down and that is the air hose laying in front. You can also see a rough outline of how the turnouts will go in. I am waiting for some additional turnouts to come so I can complete this section. In the meantime I have painted the whole assembly battleship grey to clean it up.

As usual, when you get into construction, tools and other things come out so the clean basement is not so clean any more.