Sparks yard rebuild - completion

The rebuild of the staging yard is now finished.  This took about 7 weeks to complete which was a bit less than I had expected.  All 4 staging tracks in the main yard plus the siding on the return track are available for use and I have been running various types of trains through to verify everything is working correctly.

Back in this April post I explained how a section of the return track was used to activate a current sensing unit that would cause the Wye turnout to automatically align for the yard exit.  Because the new yard has a siding on the return track I was not able to do it the same way so an Azatrax IR sensor was placed between the end of the siding and the wye turnout to trigger the turnout to change.

Back in 2014 when I was building the yard I was able to do most of the original yard wiring before the yard was installed and tipped up on edge so access was easy and I kept everything nice and neat.   The wiring modifications this time had to be done with the yard in place but I really tried to keep it neat.  What did help was having the controls in the wall cabinet under the yard.  Shown in this photo are all of the turnout controls for the new setup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are few more things I learned from the yard rebuild that I have not had a chance to post on so those will make good topics for future posts.