Hey everyone, let me introduce my self, I am Steven. I've been mostly a lurker here for a while but love the community here! Just thought I'd actually try contributing some. I was born and raised at 10,200 feet in Leadville, Colorado in April 1987. My Dad and Grandpa started me out right chasing trains from Minturn to Buena Vista on Rio Grande's Tennessee Pass line. Up until UP took over and mothballed it at least.... My Dad also had an N scale HCD layout but we never did much with it. During high school I landed a dream summer job on the Leadville, Colorado & Southern railroad in town here as a Brakeman. It's a wonderful tourist railroad that runs on the old Denver, Southpark & Pacific/Colorado & Southern/BN line north of town. One of my good friends parents owned it. After 3 successful summers as brakeman, trackcrew and engineer I moved on to Denver and worked for BNSF as a Conductor and Switchman. It was a ton of fun and taught me alot about life and railroading. I also joined the local N scale club, DANS, and started really model railroading. Got an NTRAK module a have participated in many shows. I built a small 2x3 foot layout and sold it to a friend. I started a much larger 3x15 layout but never finished it. After a little over 3 years there I decided to quit and move back home to Leadville in 2009. My good friend who's parents owned the Leadville Railroad had become more than just a friend. She had taken over all the marketing, accounting and other business items from her mother. Her brother now ran the track crew and engineers and offered me a job on the railroad again and I couldn't say no. This past August, Kirstin and I tied the knot and moved into a brand new home with an unfinished basement. As everyone knows money is tight these days, especially in a family business, so finishing the basement is slow. I have BIG plans for a 19x26 foot room that is all mine. However I just can't wait and am pondering a small 4x10 layout inspired by John Leader's (HuskerN) recent layouts. I would like to do a layout that is more for the railfan, not really operations. I am thinking of WP's Williams Loop on one side and Rio Grande's heart of the tunnel district, South Draw, namely tunnels 14-17 on the other. Here is a quick and dirty drawing: It's rough, I know, I'm not so good at the drawing part. It's more of a concept than anything. There are nasty S curves and other bad track arrangements that are big no-nos. In reality it will be smooth track-work with easements and at least 6 inches between S curves. I'm also toying with a bit of super elevation using the masking tape method. Quick look at what I'm planning 1x4 construction with 1/8 Masonite Spline roadbed. Minimum radius: 20" Track: ME Code 55 Mainline run: ~35' Let me know what you think and if there are any suggestions please don't hold back. Hopefully doing semi regular updates on this project will keep me inspired and motivated. I know I was a bit long winded but I have liked reading about all the great people here and everything they have accomplished. The least I can do is share my little bit and hope you enjoy it too. Thanks for reading!
Welcome Aboard... I like the track plan. Hopefully its a 'walkaround'...at 4 feet wide :tb-wink: Keep us posted. Updates are always welcome.
Welcome back, Steven! I find your chosen prototype and locale extremely appealing. I have spent many hours in South Draw watching trains. I have a ton of area photos of the Draw should you need prototype reference shots. You mentioned S-curves--the prototype has them, and as long as they are not located in a switching area, you'll be fine. Your easements and superelevation will further ease operations. The only thing you'll need to watch for is keeping your roadbed flat on the grades. The smallest high or low spot will cause frustration and derailments in Code 55 track. Spend the extra time with a long sanding block, and make it a smooth and flat as possible. Your patience will be rewarded. I once thought I had a minimalistic trackplan--only one siding--yours has none! But 2 signature scenes? I love it. One train comes to mind that would fit either side: the Ford FAST/D&RGW train 179. From Rock Island in Denver (before 1974-76), over the Moffat, and to Milpitas, CA Ford plant via WP. With 20" curves, autoracks, and 86' autoparts boxcars will be right at home. Just add the Milpitas F's, or a quintet of Grande 4-axle hotrods. Dude, I'm getting excited thinking about it!
Congratulation Steven on marriage, and moving to Leadville. Beautiful country. I was born and raised in Salida. My Dad worked at Climax. Anyway welcome to the board and look foward to hearing about your layout. Remember to post comments / pics on occasion so the rest of us can see your progress and enjoy your layout progress with you.
Thanks guys! Mtntrainman, It is definitely a walk around. I learned my lesson with deep one sided scenes at the clubs layout at the Forney Museum in Denver. It looks cool but is a pain if you derail or want to do any scenery work past about 2 and a half feet! Hemi, I didn't think of the Ford FAST train but you are absolutely right!! I have most of the parts to make that train already so that works out nice too! The train that came to mind that both roads ran for me was the California Zepher! I have it too with WP, D&RGW and CB&Q power. I may take you up on those photos too, but I have a fair handful myself from the month I spent working as Conductor on the the BNSF trains Denver to Kremling! Now that was a dream come true!!! Operations wise I am am going to run Rio Grande and WP obviously but want to run some modern BNSF too.
I would be interested to see those shots, especially from the cab. Mine are all from high perches all over the Draw. How did I forget the CZ?!?!? I guess I had freight on the brain.
No picture I have describes South Draw better than this. Vews hat cannot be had from trackside: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=231539
We all knew that an topic such as this would get Hemi's attention! Please keep us updated with progress. Photos as you move ahead would be great!
Thanks for the photos Hemi, I really needed that overall shot! After a little playing in Google Maps and Photoshop I came up with this: Kinda neat and gives an Idea of how I want the scenery to look. I also realized that Eastbound and Westbound are the same in both scenes!! That is another little thing that makes these scenes mesh really well! I also spent some time in XTrackCAD and drew up the benchwork: Now I'm off to the local lumber yard, which happens to occupy the old C&S freight house, to get the lumber! I decided to use Mr. Leaders method of ripping cabinet grade 3/4" plywood into the 1 by lumber needed! I have never tried this before but like the results others have had and the economics make sense to. I was going to use 1/8" Masonite for the spline subroadbed but went and looked at Jamie's CSX Dixi Line Blog and he used 3/16" Masonite. I like that I will need fewer splines and that it will give smoother curves too. So with that in mind.....Off to the Lumber Yard!!!!
I took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday and cut out all the parts from the 3/4" plywood. I am very please with how simple and easy it was. The lumber produced was top notch too. I don't think I can buy 1 by lumber again! I used the factory edge of a scrap piece of 1/4" ply that I had as a fence for my circular saw. I set my Square at the appropriate length to produce the required boards and butted up and clamped down the fence. After the first one it was a breeze to reposition and cut again. It took me about 30 minutes to get all the lumber needed. Then I moved onto the 3/16" Masonite and did the same thing. I needed 25 1" strips to do my spline roadbed and I made a ton of dust that got everywhere. I was glad I was outside. After dinner I was able to cut and assemble most of the parts. This morning I finished up the benchwork and started on the legs. here it is upside down just before I moved it into the train room. The reason for the different heights on the cross members is that the South Draw scene will go well below track level where the loop scene doesn't. This will save me foam and time gluing later. After spending some time doing honey-do's around the house and town I was able to get the layout up on its legs this afternoon. I made them folding legs so that I can take it to a couple places in town that want me to display it for a day or weekend a few times in the future. You can really see the different height between the two scenes now. I might have made it a little to tall.....I am use to NTRAK modules at 40" and didn't want the layout that short.....however I think I went the other way and may need to cut a couple inches off the legs. It ended up at 50.5" to the top of the benchwork. I am going to wait until I get the Spline roadbed installed though to make a final decision. What have been your experiences with layout height?
I love the layout concept, it really does work well. The last cookie cutter based layout I did used the plywood for 1x lumber technique. Worked like a charm. You ask about layout height? Personal taste, but build it so you don't have to crouch, stoop, bend or stretch to work at rail height. Eye level is cool, but standing comfortably is the best stance for reducing fatigue. My HCD layout is about 36-40", and it's much too short. I need to sit on a stool, or stoop to work on it at rail level. The mountains are easier to reach. On a side note, I think you might want more depth on the South Draw side. There's a ton of elevation variance there. Tunnel 17 at track level, (7257' asl), burrows under a tall hill (7565' asl), and the bottom of the Draw (7060' asl) is two hundred feet deeper than track level near Tunnel 16. It drops considerably from 16 towards 17 and 12. My last layout before the HCD had South Draw, but much more compressed than yours. I had 12-16" depth below track level: I had scenery about 14" above track level too, and it wasn't high enough for my taste. You can easily go tall on that layout, and deep, too!
Hemi, thanks for the thoughts. I know there is a lot of elevation in south draw. I should be able to get most of it in but as usual with modeling, I will need to do a bit of compression. I'm more after a general feel for the modeled areas than an exact replica. I will probably glue the foam board in between the cross members and bring the scenery right down on top of them. Maybe even notch a little into them. I've done this before on my NTRAK module. Worked great!
Just a quick update before going bed. I've glued the first splines together! Need to get more clamps though as this used all of them I own. Tomorrow I have off too so I'll keep going around the loop and hopefully can get a fair amount of the spline done!
Thanks for all your interest Hemi. I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday working on the spline subroadbed. I didn't do a very good job of taking any in-progress photos of the spline gluing process. Mostly because it is a little monotonous and Jamie has done a wonderful job in his CSX Dixi Line Blog. Not to mention that I plumb forgot! Anyway I had to work today and this evening I glued the last 2 pieces of spline in! Over all I am impressed with how it has turned out. I think the best part is the very smooth transitions in grades and the automatic easements into curves. Here is a nice overview: And a couple of the loop end: And the South Draw side: I still have a lot of sanding to do before I can lay cork and Micro Engineering Pre-Weathered Code 55 Flex track. There is a TON of glue drops that squeezed out. Plus not every spline ended up exactly the same height. Tomorrow morning I will remove all the clamps and try to remember to get another overall shot clampless.
While waiting for the glue to dry some before moving on to the next spline, I updated my drawing to reflect how the layout actually turned out: Plus I created a nice profile that shows the gradient. The loop is on the left: Overall the layout is coming along nicely. I can't wait to get trains up and running to test it out! Thanks again for looking!
It's very nice to see another N-scaler doing a prototype scene! I also use splined Masonite on my modular home layout...except in yard areas which get 3/4" sanded-on-one-side plywood as the subroadbed. I especially like the sound deadening quality of the splined Masonite since I'm converting all of my motive power that I am able to fit a speaker into into DCC sound. Yes, the concept of your layout is simple, but because it's a spectacular prototype scene, it will also be a spectacular little layout! It's also easy to see that you've put a lot of thought into its design and the benchwork...so really, it's not so simple in actual execution. Since you're going to sand the tops because of the uneven Masonite strips, now might be a good time to sand in a little superelevation on the curves. I take my glued up splines to the local planing mill and have them sand the tops and bottoms a little, then sand the superelevation into the cork roadbed after its laid and dry. Seeing your engines and cars leaning a little into the corners will really add to your train-running enjoyment, believe me! I'll be watching your progress! Cheers! Bob Gilmore
Thanks guys! I use to trend towards the spaghetti type layouts with 9 3/4 inch curves and steep grades but I would never be satisfied with them. This one is turning out magnificent and really appealing to me! I am planning on super elevation, however I don't trust my eye nor my sanding skills to not get too much angle. I am planning on really taking my time and getting the splines square and level to the benchwork, then adding the narrow masking tape layers on top of the cork. I think I will be happier with the end results this way. I wish I could take the finished splines to a planer however I ended up with a seamless roadbed that is all one piece. I like that better! Also here are the clampless photos as promised:
Very nice workmanship and great progress Steve. I look forward to watching this evolve. Two questions: 1. Is there enough clearance in the Loop crossover as built now, or will you have to notch the spline? (Don't forget that you need to allow about 1/4" for cork & code 55 track.) 2. Have you consider hanging a small staging yard off to the side somewhere so you can change trains without the 0-5-0? That could become tiresome pretty quickly. In the interest of scenic purity, you could arrange for the lead to join the mainline in Tunnel 16, where it would be hidden. Just a thought. Cheers, Gary
