El Portal, Entrance to Yosemite Valley

El Portal (The Portal) is the final stop for some trains just like on the real Yosemite Valley RR. At first I only had a flip up bridge about 3 feet long. Trains would come off the layout onto the flip up bridge and pretend they just made the 77 mile trip from Merced, Ca. to El Portal.

Well that didn't cut it for long. I had to come up with something else. Back on went the thinking cap. Where did I have room to fit another yard. I thought about doing the transfer table thing again like I did at Merced Yard area but I wanted more. The only place available was a work bench that would give me a 5 foot long by 1 foot wide area if I cleaned all the junk off it.

Using the same drawer slides as the other yard used, what evolved was a 5 foot long x 1 foot transfer table that could be set on top of the work bench and removed later when ops was done to give me my bench back.

I first had to convert my straight flip up track to a curve to go around to the new El Portal area. It took some finagling to get things aligned but through a series of brass pins, you can flip up the bridge, put in a pin and drive off the layout, 77 miles up to El Portal.

El Portal has three tracks. The center one would be aligned with the mainline for trains coming into El Portal. Once there the engine would be uncoupled and put on the turn table and turned and leave going on to the back track and be fueled and serviced there. The yard crew makes up the new train on the front track meanwhile. When ready, the engineer goes out to the main, moves the entire scene on the slides and aligns with the pickup track, couples up to the new train and heads back towards Merced on the main layout.

This has opened up a whole new adventure and fun to the layout.

Original flip up ridge going no where quick.	Bridge today. Notice curved track. I left a piece of the original straight track to look like an abandoned rail line. Notice the fueling area at the end of the layout! It has fueling sounds when you fuel up.	Bridge up in place. Technically it was a 77 mile run from Merced, Ca. to El Portal so engines have to stop leaving the layout and coming on to it at the fueling station on the edge of the layout.
Dirt is down, now the grass	Long shot looking up towards El Portal There is a house and small out buildings on the right side of this picture today.	That whole middle drops down out of the way so crews can walk around the layout, yet the connection to El Portal takes under 30 seconds to put up and pin.
Today there is a Tower and Office buidling up by the turntable. The left track is where trains are made up and picked up to take back to Merced. The middle track is for incoming trains. The right track is where engines go after being turned. There is a small fueling station there now, (not in the picture). Once fueled they will continue down the track away from the turn table. The whole table will be moved to align with the right hand track. The engine pulls out on to the main, the table is then moved to the first or left track and the engine backs up and gets it's new train and heads back across the bridge, stopping for water and fuel when it arrives at the edge of the layout. The yard crew then breaks down the cars that just arrived.