More About Grades and Track Placement

Since I'm  not making any headway on the backdrop, I decided to spend some time working on grades and the placement of my track work.  As I suspected, the track plan that I posted last week is now obsolete.  The overall plan is still generally correct but I had to move some track around and play a little more with the grades. I also moved a track into a tunnel to ease the clutter.  I will draw my next track plan when all of the track is fastened down.  Until then, nothing is set in stone. Nor will it ever be.

I cut some plywood to cover the part above the bench work. It is being cut to reflect the different elevation of the land but most of it will be covered with scenery and should not be considered ground level.  I have also added a filler piece to the corner which I will shape later.  I wanted a little more separation between the tracks.  Also the scenery will look better without the square corner.

Once again, I will be using flex track and the Bachmann Ready Track is just something I am using for layout.  Nothing is fastened down securely as it all has to come out to paint the backdrop.

One of the changes I made was to move a second track to the tunnel area as the area to the left in this photo was just too busy.  The lower area with the large piece of blue foam is going to be the dock area.  The curved piece of track that ends up in the air is going to the ore tipple that sits out over the water and dumps into an ore barge.  This is part of the Dolly Varden Railroad infuence. The straight piece of track passing under it will lead to the log dump area on the dock.

The brown paper that is taped to the bench work is just to help me visualize what the area will look like with the two hidden tracks showing.

I had a couple of questions about the trestle so I am including another view.  This trestle is based on a plan I found in the Narrow Gauge Gazette.  It is similar to the trestles used by the Rio Grand Southern.  It was a lot of fun to build and I spiked down the rails and guard rails to each tie, making it four spikes per tie.  It was a lot of work but makes for a nice effect.

That's it for this week.

Odds and Ends Part I

I am still waiting for some help painting my back drop so I do not have any big changes to report.  There are a few small things going on, so I haven't been completely idle.

I have had a request for a track plan so I will give it a try.  I have not posted a plan before because it kept changing as I tried to work in the features that I want on the railroad.  Like most of us I want many more things than what will actually fit the space.  I still have not worked out the rat's nest of track that is in the lower left-hand corner.  It includes an upper track, a lower track, a track onto the dock, a track to the elevated tipple and a track leading down from the switch back.  Way to much going on but I really need it all.  It will be interesting (at least to me) to see how this all comes about. 

I have not even thought about the design of the yard, but I know that it must include an engine house with machine shop, a small station of some sort, and storage for a few cars and engines.  I would also like to have a run-around track if possible to help make up trains.

This is the track plan as of July 23rd at 9:40 AM PDT.  Nuff said.

I have been carving 2" extruded foam into some rough shapes that will be the basis of the background scenery.  It is still pretty crude at this point but I will do some final shaping and then add some Sculpamold (which I have never used) to add the final shape and smooth out the transition between pieces of foam. 

I have also been experimenting with making trunks for my twisty wire evergreen trees.  This one may be a little too large diameter wise.  Any thoughts?  My plan is to use this type of tree behind the upper track all the way around the layout.  The foreground trees will be made using Caspia branches.  I may throw in a few furnace filter trees also to add a little variety.  Other trees to be included are yet to be decided.

A friend and fellow modeler by the name of Brain Smith has a rather elaborate machine for making trees of twisted wire and sisal rope and I hope to make good use of it and his skills as I will be needing several dozen tree to get the look I want.

About five years ago I bought a small table saw from Micro Mark and to try it out I took a 1" by 10" by 5' picket from an old redwood fence and ripped it into 3/4" strips on a full-size table saw and then used the new saw to create O-scale lumber.  This trestle is the result of that experiment.  It was a fun project but since I had no plans at that time to build a railroad it just sat around taking up space.  When I decided to try building an On30 layout I decided I would have to work it in some place.  This may be the place.  At some point in the construction I will be showing the trestle in greater detail.

I like to place railroad equipment into the area I am working on to get the feel of what a scene may look like.  This represents a pair of Shays that have just pushed some log cars up the switchback and are now crossing the high trestle to enter the log-loading area.  Yes, I know the log cars should be empty.  As you can see there will be a lower line also crossing the same area on some sort of a low bridge whose design is yet to be determined. 

If anybody is still with me, I hope you find this of interest.  Comments are always welcome.

Planning Backdrops and Grades

This past week I have spent some time trying to figure out what I am going to do about a backdrop.  As I plan to have tall trees along the back of most of the railroad I do not need a lot of scenic details.  With few exceptions I just want to have the area directly behind the trees to be shades of green to give the impression of a dense forest even if I only have a few inches to add model trees in front of it.

Because the back of the railroad will have an elevated railroad line running along it I have to establish the height of the track above the bench work.  This way I will know how high up the wall I need to paint my green background.  In order to do that I have to figure out the where the roadbed will be and in order to do that I have to plan how steep the grades will be on the high line. 

Here is  my progress on that plan.

I have sheet rocked the new wall separating this stall from the rest of the garage.  I only rocked it half way as I want to be able to open the garage doors at each end of the garage to take advantage of any breeze that comes through.  When the basic scenery is done I will sheet rock the other side of the wall and seal off the room.  I will be installing a room air conditioner in the hole at the upper left of the wall.  As you can see I have painted the walls the basic sky blue.  I will try to get some haze airbrushed in along the horizon when I figure out where the horizon is.

At this point I have installed some risers and cut some roadbed which for now is just laid in place.  The roadbed along the left wall is level but climbs along the back wall and the right wall at a grade that is about 4- 3/4% at the steepest.  I did some grade test on my engines under load and quit when I got to 7-1/2% and they were still pulling well so I am happy with grade.

I have also been cutting and placing 2" blue foam along the back of the roadbed.  At this point I am just roughing in the scenery so that I can draw a line on the wall that represents the horizon.  Since I chose not to round the corner of the room I will build up the terrain in the corners and place several tall trees in the corners to hide this fact.  Once I have drawn in the horizon I will pull the foam and roadbed out and work on the backdrop.  As I have no experience at all on painted backdrops I will have to see if I can recruit some help from friends and family.  I may have to reread Tom Sawyer to work that out.

I hope to have more progress next week.  Check back if you are so inclined.

Some Thoughts Regarding Design and Bench Work

This railroad will be based loosely on the Dolly Varden Railroad in upper Canada.  Some of the features it shares are the time period in the early 20th Century, its isolation, its use of narrow gauge equipment and its service of mining and later logging.  It will be very remote with no connection to the rest of the world except by water.  There will be an ore tipple on the wharf and logs will simply be dumped into the bay to be formed into rafts and towed to the sawmill.  There will be no town and very few buildings.  There will be a small yard with an engine house/machine shop and some storage for a few railroad cars.

There will be a loop for continuous running when desired but the railroad will be operated as a point-to-point with a pair of switchbacks on a 5% grade that leads to the mine and the log-loading site. After a lot of indecision, I have decided to use HO flex track as most of it will be out of site or buried in the dirt.  There will be no ballast.  Main line curves will be a 22" minimum radius and the upper line will be 18" minimum radius.  I think this will be fine with the engines I am using.

Motive power will consist of a pair of double headed Shays to climb to the logging site and a Climax to pull a few ore cars to the mine. There will be very little rolling stock and all will be no longer than 30' in length.  There will be a couple of Porters and perhaps a rail truck for maintenance.  I will have a hidden staging track for some other equipment that I may want to bring out and run around the loop when the mood strikes.

The railroad will be power by DCC and I will have sound in as many engines as I can manage.  This is not a large railroad so I plan on it only being operated by two people.  If a third person shows up they could switch the wharf  and/or shuttle cars around the small yard.  More about the design in a later post.

The bench work is going to be an around-the-room design.  It will be 30" deep in all but one section. The height of the bench work is 48" but the track will be 50" to 68" above the floor.  The high point will be at about my eye level.  I am trying to create the illusion that this railroad is high in the mountains.

I am making the bench work, including the legs, out of 1/2" plywood.  I have ripped it down to 3" wide strips and then screwed and glued it into sections that are mostly 4' long.  These are connected with bolts and wing nuts and then they are screwed to the wall.  Additionally, some of the legs have braces for more stability and all legs have levelers in the bottom. This makes for a very stable platform but still keeps it light in weight and easier to breakdown and move if necessary.

I have put the bench work in temporarily to make sure that it fits but will have to remove it to sheet rock the new wall and paint a backdrop.  The backdrop will be fairly simple as I expect to have trees along the back.

That's it for this post.  Check in again next week.

Starting From Scratch

I have decided to build an On30 model railroad after a 30 year gap since my last attempt at building a railroad.  I had been happily building HO scale structure dioramas when the lure of Bachmann's On30 engines convinced me that I should try again. I will be trying some of the new methods that have been developed so I am inviting you to join me as I struggle though the trials and tribulations of converting my former wood shop in the garage into what will hopefully be a fully scenicked and operational depiction of a logging railroad early in the 20th century.  I will be experimenting with poly foam and plaster cloth scenery base and trying my hand at DCC.  This is all new to me but should be a fun learning experience.

Our home has a three car tandem garage and I will be building the railroad in the rear stall.  I have removed everything from the wood shop except for some cabinets that will remain and be located under the bench work of the around-the-room railroad.

Here is a view from the rear of the garage showing the wall that I am installing to separate the train room from the rest of the garage.  The plastic boxes on the cabinets contain some of my model building kits and materials and will be stored under the bench work.









I have already started building the bench work and will post photos in a future post.  I might add that the temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley where I live often reach over 100 degrees in the summer so my model building will be somewhat limited during the summer months but I will be able to do some work early in the morning.  I hope to get the bench work finished and the road bed in before too long.  First I have to sheetrock the new wall and paint the room in some shade of blue that will represent the sky.  That's it for the first post.  I hope you will look in again.