Wye Track Realignment - Part 1

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We decided to enlarge the reversing section of our Wye so we could turn an entire train around. The job entailed a lot more work than we thought.

After we got into the project and started laying the new track, we decided to give the right-hand curve of the Wye a wider radius. This would make it easier for large locomotives like Madame Queen to pass through the small #4 wye switch. Realigning the right-hand curve of the wye also required us to remove more of the original reversing section track to make everything come out right. The job ended up taking us (my son and I) 6 days.

All the steps required to complete this task are in this video and will be a handy reference for anyone wanting to make track changes to fully completed scenery areas of their model railroad. Just like any remodeling project, you must tear out the old before you can install the new. We spent a lot of time tearing out the original HO scale track, roadbed, roads, trees etc. down to the original Styrofoam base of our benchwork.

Then we had to level out the areas where new track would be installed and start putting everything back together.

Final testing of the newly realigned wye track was done with AT&SF 2-10-4 Steam Locomotive #5000 (Madame Queen). Madame Queen is the largest locomotive used on our layout. Her ten-coupled drivers are a great way to test new curves and turnouts.

The Wye Realignment is presented in two parts because there is almost two hours of footage covering this project. We hope the information and techniques we used to realign our wye will help you with any changes you want to make on your model railroad. Let us know if it does.

VIDEO CONTENTS:
00:00 Introduction
00:38 Removing original track, road bed and ground cover.
29:45 Start test fitting new cork roadbed with straight pins.
37:05 Making the RH curve radius wider.
49:00 Cutting out ground cover for new reversing section roadbed.
51:03 Removing ground cover for new reversing section roadbed.
56:13 Test fitting cork roadbed for new reversing section route.
59:34 Checking distance between new roadbed.

RECOMMENDED LINKS:
1. https://youtu.be/4ivpv29FCJY 2. https://youtu.be/ijglGJsRq7Q