Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Mending Fences

No train work, physically, today.  But whilst on another task, I put in a bit of thought on the trolley loop on the layout.  I have an idea that, if I can make it work, will save real estate for structures. 

First, on to 'real' real estate.  We share a wood fence with a neighbor on one side.  Good people, great neighbors.  Recently, they bought a small travel trailer, and decided to park it in their side yard, behind the fence.  We have no problem with that.  They did.

They have a small steel barn on a slab back there (as do I, but that's not important.)  The trailer wouldn't fit, too long.  So, the decision was to pull the fence forward far enough to contain the trailer.  With no HOA (Yea!!!) and a very permissive city, they set out to move the fence line.

Before starting, they did talk with us about it, and were concerned with how the uneven fence line between the houses would look.  After a bit of discussion, they said they would move my short fence to maintain alignment with theirs.  Good, I said.

In moving the fence, my gate there, a wide personnel gate (the mower will drive through, but not a street vehicle) was repaired and rehung.  A side note here: these fences were of so-so construction quality.  I generally say that the developer/builder used the Crappy Fence Company.  I'll not say any more.

Anyway, my gate there was stuck partially open, and was sagging.  After they (he and his wife worked side by side) were finished, the new gate on my side works fine.  It was moved to a more level spot on the fence line.  It was still wanting to sag, since it did not have a diagonal brace on the back side.  Now it does, thanks to a 2x4 and some long wood screws.  Looks good, works good, job finished.

Their gate opening is extra wide, to accommodate backing the trailer into its spot.  The original gates are too short.  With the unevenness of the yards around here, they wouldn't have worked anyway.  They are working on a solution to that issue, but are happy for now that the fences are moved and all are satisfied.

On the other side of our house, we have a double gate.  It suffers from sagging and other problems.  For fence work, that's next on the agenda.  Not until warmer weather, but it's in the project queue.  Those gates will have to be removed, straightened, and have a working brace applied.  Then they need to have about 2" sawn off the bottom (the yard here is NOT flat,) some hinge and hinge mounting point repairs made and rehung.  I will require some muscles for some of this, as I certainly cannot even attempt it any more. 

A few pickets need a little attention, but that's just a few screws and my cordless driver.  Not a problem man.

Now, for the trolleys.  I think I've devised a scheme that would allow unattended loop-to-loop action, with no reversing controls, no DCC, no track position sensors.  I'm going to be working on that idea, and will share details once I have it working.

Here's an early doodle for the tram track plan:


Track joint vs. module joint is an on-going consideration.  It's gonna be fun.

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