C&S Falcon Division

Geep_fan Oct 18, 2014

  1. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    Hello All,

    My previous garden railroad (thread titled "my dabbling in G scale") ended up being a little short lived due to some geographical issues with the track. A plan to add a rock garden to the front yard was proposed a while back and we decided to go with it. This is the new version of the garden railroad, much bigger than before!

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    overview of the layout, looking down the long side with the front end loader parked next to the layout with a load of ballast.
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    The small yard on the south end.
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    North end curve with the spur in the middle, Someday I plan on filling in this corner with flagstone to make a rock mountain.


    The trackage is a mixture of mostly LGB track was a few pieces of aristocraft. Right now I'm using track power DC, however I plan on adding battery and R/C control to the trains. The ballast I used is extremely acidic, and it likes to wreak havoc on the pickup capability of engines.

    The layout is planned to be based on the C&S around 1900, just after the merger and before the CB&Q takeover. I only have one piece of equipment not for that era, a bachmann railtruck.
     
  2. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    10583226_10204289094259419_1814132213_o.jpg
    Photo of the trackage before ballasting and testing the railtruck. Runs great, need to level a few spots and stuff, but just minor touches really. 10685709_10204289016257469_278998061_o.jpg
    The cat isn't entirely sure about this......
     
  3. Shortround

    Shortround TrainBoard Member

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    Looks like a nice start.
    I often wondered what cats think of our activities. It would be interesting to know.
     
  4. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Something to the effect of 'humans are nuts!'
     
  5. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    A lot has changed in the past few months. The Piko 0-6-0t suffered a gearbox failure at a trainshow and never recovered from it, and my bachmann goose decided to cook a motor on me, which put the G scale on the backburner for the time being. I recently had the chance to visit a garden railroad in the Denver area that inspired me to get going again. I'm a member of the C&S Historical Society and after the larger motive power showed a disliking to my R1 curves, I decided to go a different route. I have a friend who has a bachmann 3 truck shay, and I was always impressed at how much it could pull, and it's lack of care for how sharp the curves it ran on where. So I found a cheap bachmann 2 truck 36-ton shay and purchased it for the garden railroad. I still didn't want to give up the C&S concept though, so through the history books I went, until I found the Argentine Central.

    When the C&S was running trains up to Silver Plume, it had an interchange with a railroad called the Argentine Central, the Argentine Central was a 3' narrow gauge railroad that had a fleet of 6 shay's that were used to haul mining materials to and from the town of Waldorf, Colorado. In addition, the railroad also was constructed to the summit of Mount McClellan using a series of switchbacks, to this day this stands as the highest summit ever achieved by a normal adhesion based railroad in the United States. This railroad was short lived, only lasting from 1905 until 1918 and went bankrupt 3 times in that period of time, however it provides a very cool prototype to work from.



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    First off, a shot taken back around October or November showing the snowfall on the layout. The goose had derailed during a trainshow and locked while the motor was still getting power, by the time we noticed, the motor had cooked. So in this shot the goose is just sitting while the snow accumulates on it.


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    Then came the large rocks. These boulders are actual Pikes Peak granite taken from the broadmoor area of Colorado Springs. It does help to have the little green machine to move these!!!


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    After the big rocks came some smaller, yet still big and heavy, rocks.

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    Looking at the new rock garden.
     
  6. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    [​IMG]
    During the time I was moving rocks, I decided to do a test and see what a tunnel along the backside of this rock would look like. Here's the test tunnel with a pair of bricks holding the top rock up.


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    the rock tunnel in it's final state, D&RGW Reefer in there for testing.

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    The tunnel from the other side.

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    Shay demonstrating the clearances in the tunnel
     
  7. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    [​IMG]
    My mother collects garden buildings, primarily those that light up, so I have a few buildings to make a small town with. I'm not sure if this will be Silver Plume or Waldorf yet but we'll find out before too long.


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    One end of the layout has a spur that leads to what will soon be a mine. When I built the shelf layout inside the house, I had leftover trix track after the layout was done, so I took the leftovers outside to make a minecart system with HO track. Eventually I'll build the mine building and some minecarts to go in there.

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    The shay is approaching the town and yard with a short train. About where the engine is is the theoretical summit of the railroad, there is a slight hump in that spot as the train climbs back into the town forming the highest point of trackage.

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    Train rolling past the mine and tunnel.
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    [​IMG]
    The bottom of the shay's crankshaft does come a little bit close to the switch machines and the ballast in spots......


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    I didn't quite have the shay yet when I took these photos, but it does showcase the amount of snowfall we've been getting. Makes for some nice winter scenes!

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    The wind out here sometimes does create some interesting scenes on the sides of the rolling stock.......

    [video=youtube;YCbiKVFcxHA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCbiKVFcxHA[/video]


    And of course, I can't let this thread go without some video. Enjoy!
     
  9. Keith

    Keith TrainBoard Supporter

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    Nice, relatively small, simple layout!!

    Track level video looked good. But, I'd be
    a bit concerned where it jarred, or hit something.
    Just make sure all equipment will clear!

    Only other thing, you gotta a add sound to the Shay!!

    Did that with that with a pair of Rio Grande GP40's.
    Makes a BIG difference when running!

    By me, I don't think folks know the trains are there, until they either
    see or hear the train.

    Again, nicely done!
     
  10. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    Keith, the rolling stock doesn't hit anything, but the camera is wider than the car and does clip some close rocks as it goes around, hence the thud noises you hear in the video. The layout has gotten about 30-40 hours of run time since the shay arrived a week and a half ago, the layout is designed so that a train can be setup to run and be left unattended for showing off the garden when my family hosts events and stuff.

    As for sound, that's a maybe. For the time being the layout is staying DC track power however to operate on a couple of my friends layout's will require that I install battery and wireless control to the engine, it will probably end up being dual mode track power or battery power through airwire. I have considered using a TCS WOWsound decoder in the shay, but not for some time. I find that when I go to visit other layouts, the sound coolness wears off pretty quick. We do operating sessions at one of the airwire layouts and the automatic whistling for direction gets extremely old after a short time.
     
  11. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    [video=youtube;7IvfgXoZp2M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IvfgXoZp2M[/video]


    plowing snow on the Argentine Central.
     
  12. Shortround

    Shortround TrainBoard Member

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    It looks as though you will need to add a plow to your fleet.
     

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