u/RadRacer203

Finally got in a few more parts and finalized the design of my first layout in 20 ish years. I ended up modifying the slopes of the elevated track a bit, played around with spacing of everything, and changed the very sharp switch I had for a more reasonable one. I'm pretty happy with this design now, and I'll probably start nailing it down soon, but I'm unsure if I want to put a crossover between the 2 tracks at the front, or keep the separate. I took away the crossover I had initially planned because it didn't work out as well as I had hoped, and was just not very good. I'll think about that a bit and decide, but aside from that I need one or two more switch controllers, and I can start nailing the track to the table and running wires. One thing I was wondering though, is is there a prescribed way to align track sections? They don't all appear to be completely level with each other at the joints, so it's a bit of a rougher ride than I'd like. Should I adjust the connectors? Grind the track slightly? Something else? Really what I'm seeing at the rail joints is one side is slightly higher than the other, so especially longer steam engines sort of go halfway, then tip onto the lower track, if that makes sense. They don't run smoothly on these joints

I kind of got out of Reddit and haven't posted much in a while, but figured I'd give an update here cause I just remembered lol.

I live in Vermont, so I obviously can't drive it in the winter because of the salt, but I've had this all original 1955 Hudson for around 2 years now, and I've used it more or less as my daily driver for the spring, summer, and fall. It's been absolutely fantastic, I've put ~7000 miles on it with very few issues. What I've done has been: kingpins which I knew it needed when I got it, brake shoes on the front preventatively, removed the heat baffle in the exhaust manifold because it was leaking (need to put a baffle back in with muffler mud so it doesn't boil the fuel in the carb), new rear tires (put the rears on the front after I wore out the fronts cause of the bad kingpins), new carpets, new windshield wipers and arms, and a new muffler. Aside from that it starts every time, has been dead reliable even in traffic in 95 degree weather, the transmission and drivetrain is rock solid, and the only thing it really needs is some new stuffing in the front seat. The radio is currently out and getting rebuilt by a friend, and getting bluetooth added. It is still the original 6v positive ground electrical, and will NEVER be changed to 12v

I have driven this car over mountains on muddy, rutted dirt roads, I've gotten it up to its top speed multiple times, I've driven it like I stole it on winding back roads, I've had 8 people inside taking it out to events, I've hauled a fucking rototiller with it. This is by far the best and most reliable car I've ever owned