Trackwork

The trackwork on the Colorado Front Range Railroad consists primarily of Atlas Code 100 flex track and Peco Code 100 Electrofrog Turnouts. There are some miscellaneous parts from shinohara and Microengineering. The sub-roadbed (for mainlines) and roadbed (for spurs and yards) is Homasote ( a high density paperboard primarily used in expansion joints in concrete). The roadbed for the main line is a product called Flexxbed (available from http://www.hobbyinnovations.com/). Siding use Midwest cork roadbed availible at most hobby shops. Transitions from the cork roadbed to the Homasote sub-roadbed are wooden shims used for shimming doorways and can be found at most hardware stores.

The helix is a single track helix with an inside track radius of 36 inches . The helix is constructed from 1/2" plywood and 1/4"-20 All Thread. The plywood was cut into 90 degree pieces from 4' x 8' sheets (8 pieces or 1 turn per sheet). This plywood sections were then glued together with splice plates (1/2" Plywood) and Elmer's wood glue and were gradually built up over each other using the all-thread, washers and nut for supports. The track work in the helix was laid as the helix was constructed. The helix will be 3.5 turns.

All turnouts have a 5/16" hole under the throw bar to accommodate the use of Tortoise Switch machines. All switches will eventually be equipped with Tortoises. All the mainline turnouts will DCC controlled (with the capability of local control) to allow for CTC in the future. See the Control Panels section for the local control panels. For more information on the DCC controlled turnouts see the Layout Controls section.