THE RAILROAD REEMERGES

It has been a long stressful winter and spring as we dealt with the aftermath of discovery of a water leak in our house at the beginning of January.  The leaks were caused by flooring staples penetrating radiant heat tubing (intended to heat the tile on our main floor).  Four years later and a thermal cycle (no heat) allowed the punctures to reveal themselves.  I reported the start of this process back in January:

http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2016/01/house-maintenance-pause.html

The railroad has been covered by screwed-down hardboard for the past four months.  The railroad had to serve as a work platform during that time.  House reconstruction (flooring restoration, drywall replacement, trim—deferred, and paint) finally got underway in April.  We finally took action for ourselves with paint as we realized it was the key item remaining that kept us from returning to normal house functions.  The trim will get installed in a while, but is not critical to returning our lives to normal. 

Here I am applying paint to the ceiling over Oakridge.  A large patch of ceiling was removed for both leak repair and inspection.  Three new inspection hatches have been left in the ceiling, one of which is just over my left shoulder in this photo.

Two primary leak sites were discovered.  The subsequent inspection effort exposed more of the ceiling such that four stations on the railroad were impacted by the construction effort.  The first was over the Oakridge engine terminal.  Subsequent inspection led from Oakridge across the aisle to an area over Cascade Summit.  The second leak site was over the RR-West end of Springfield.  The subsequent tubing inspection led to a long opening that extended from the back wall of the house to the main house beam over the Eugene Depot area.  This last area  disturbed the mounting of my NCE radio base station.

NCE radio base station dangling from the ceiling.

The ceiling has been restored as far as it will be, with three inspection hatches left open for now.  Eventually they will be covered.  They are located over aisles, so the hatch cover mounting should not impact the railroad.

Radio base station remounted and Eugene uncovered.

The final step of uncovering the railroad was at Oakridge where it all began.  In the rush to provide a work platform, I had screwed down many small scraps of hardboard over the Oakridge track.  Uncovering this area required many more screws to be pulled out than other areas.    At least it is done now.

Oakridge uncovered.

I now turn to a period of inspection and repair.  I also found I have some spray foam insulation (used under the house main floor) to dig out that fell between those scraps covering Oakridge.  Sigh.