Help from the Family

 Well, after eating, playing, sleeping and even running the trains, Jason and Dylan wanted to work on the trains so first we pulled in 3 sections of 8 conductor wire that was about 50 feet long in each section. Jason drilled the holes under the layout to carry the wire. Dylan and I cut it into lengths and then Jason and I pulled it into place. It will be used to power the 8 hidden storage tracks.  Dylan is wondering about why he wanted to work rather than just run the trains while Jason is loading the air hammer to lay some sub roadbed.

 Dad takes a picture break with his son before we lay the sub roadbed in the yard entrance on the east end.

 Dylan is moving some of that 8 conductor wire out of the way as we prepare for another project.

 Jason is hammering down that sub road bed near the yard throat and Dylan is supervising closely with plenty of questions!

 Dylan and Grandpa are running the train on the track behind me using our radio throttle.

 Here is the BIG project. We have to place the turntable into the structure of the engine storage area. This is what Jason and Dylan have been walking on in the earlier pictures. The turntable assembly weights about 20 pounds and was made in Niagara Falls. It is an aluminum based structure with a heavy channel across the bottom that holds the motor.

 After we used a brace and bit to drill up from the bottom in the corners of the box I had made a long time ago when I framed the area, we sketched the area using those corner markers on the top. After that, we centered the turntable, trying to fit the mounting brackets into the box. Once located, we used the walls of the turntable as a template to draw our cut line. Jason is shown here cutting the disc out. We also placed a couple of pieces of plywood to hold the disc from falling through as he cut it.

 Here I am removing the cut disc from the hole. You can see the hands of Dylan as he closely supervises. I am holding the two pieces of plywood that we used to hold up the disc.

 This view shows how close the walls of the framed box were to the sides of the turntable.

Jason and Dylan are looking at the upside down turntable as we check the hole for fit before we work from the bottom. We went on the hang the turntable from some 1/4 inch rod using tee nuts.  We had to stop then as they had to go home, but a lot of difficult work was done.