My railroad is located in a 32 by 20 foot addition situated above my garage with access gained through a door into the master bedroom. Following completion of the physical room, I decided to partition off the front 10 feet as a home office and work room with locations for my computer, worktable and spray booth. The remaining 22 feet of the room is dedicated to the railroad. When another room became available in my home due to children growing up and moving out, the home office moved to an unused bedroom and the entire room is now devoted to trains.
Electrical service in the room consists of two 15 and two 20 amp circuits. All the wall receptacles in the train portion of the room are controlled from a switch located inside the room door allowing that portion of the room to be turned off on exiting. In addition, two 20 amp lighting circuits, and two ceiling lighting circuits are also switched there. The walls were covered with drywall, painted a sky blue and then a suspended ceiling was installed. As layout planning continued, free-standing walls were erected to delineate the railroad area from the work area and create an access hallway to the railroad.
It was determined that a full scale version of John Allen’s Gorre and Daphetid could not be constructed in the space available so a special yardstick, scaled to 90% of full scale, was utilized for all measurements. All the benchwork for the railroad was constructed utilizing standard L-Girder techniques with some supported by the floor and others hung from the walls. The benchwork for Colorado Springs (Divide) and Leadville (Port) was covered with plywood and topped with homasote. Where necessary, cookie-cutter techniques were utilized for grade transitions. Layout construction proceeded with spline techniques for the mainline until Basalt (Gorre) was reached. For my three splines I ripped 1-5/8″ lattice in half yielding two 3/4″ strips according to an article in Model Railroader. I utilized the longest lengths I could managed (16′) for this process. Spacer blocks were cut from 1″ material and installed approximately every foot staggered on either side of the center spline. Two inch wide strips of homasote were cut from 4×8 sheets and contoured into roadbed according to the same article. The benchwork at Basalt (Gorre) was finished the same way as Colorado Springs except particle board was substituted for plywood to better facilitate the biscuits used to join the sheets. Once I was satisfied with the roadbed, track laying began in Colorado Springs and proceeded westward to Basalt.
All of the track is Code 70 with Shinohara utilized in Colorado Springs and Micro Engineering (formerly Railcraft) elsewhere. All the turnouts are Shinohara controlled by Circuitron Tortoise Slo-Motion switch machines. After many years of operation at my club, the now defunct North Pennsylvania Model Railroad Club, with carrier control, I knew that this layout would be controlled the same way. I had built and utilized a PMP112 system on a previous layout and again installed it to begin running trains. Then progress struck the model railroading community. DCC was born and I began to evaluate the various offerings. Following hands-on playing around with the various offerings at the Atlanta NMRA Convention, I purchased a Digitrax’s Big Boy and several additional decoders. This is now installed and operational. One additional Booster was installed to control the yard and engine terminal at Colorado Springs. I obtained an additional booster, used, which allowed me to split the mainline in half with each half powered by its own booster. I have a third booster installed to power the Basalt area of my layout. I have since replaced the Big Boy with a Digitrax Radio Chief and utilize it for operating one of the four layout blocks and driving my programing track. The three other layout blocks are powered by DB100+s and DB100a. No block circuit breakers are currently in use and have not proven necessary because of the single track nature of the railroad. A toggle switch was installed in series with each layout block to facilitate trouble shooting and has proven sufficient at present. I have not moved to bi-directional radio control as it currently doesn’t offer any enhancements that I find valuable. Throttles are currently connected to the layout through five (5) UP5s and one (1) UR91 strategically located around the layout. After starting out with Digitrax DZ121 decoders mounted in the engine, I have gone completely to sound with a mix of Soundtraxx Tsunami and Train Control System (TCS) WOW decoders with all new additions to be outfitted with TCS WOWs. My locomotive roster is not large and is composed of fourteen (14) steam engines in a mix of brass from MEW and Hallmark and plastic from Bachman.
Next to be installed was a ceiling valence of masonite with its concealed lighting. I installed nineteen (19) porcelain socket and floodlight socket combinations approximately every four feet along the valence. The floodlights are wired on one circuit and the porcelain socket on another. The floodlights are 10 watt, 65 watt equivalent, dimmable LEDs while 7 watt, 40 watt equivalent, LEDs are installed in the porcelain sockets. All the LEDs are 5000K. This allows working illumination for the railroad and more intense, focused lighting for running when the aisle lighting is extinguished, framing the layout in darkness. Later plans call for covering the valence with fabric to conceal all the seams and screw heads before being painted blue.
Desiring that a backdrop be painted on all the walls, I obtained 100′ of unbleached muslin and wallpapered the walls and masonite backdrop with it. It was then given two coats of Gesso, preparing it as you would an oil painting canvas. I have always marveled at the wide brush, wet-on-wet oil paint techniques of William Alexander and Bob Ross, so I obtained supplies and decided to try my hand at oil painting. To my surprise, it really is not a difficult technique to utilize, as the pictures of my railroad will attest. But as with all skills, the more you practice the better it gets. In most places on the backdrop I painted before installing the three-dimensional scenery and on some I did it backward. That was a big mistake and it made my life difficult, but not impossible. The area behind Cascade was painted that way. All the backdrop has been painted with a rough idea of what I want it to look like with final finishing to follow. I discovered, by accident, that it is easier to paint over an undercoat of oil paint, thus the preliminary step which also allows me to better visualize the finished (?) product.
Scenery work is now in process throughout the railroad. Some is in the finishing stages (?), some is in basic hard-shell, and some is still bare benchwork, although that amount is diminishing. As of this date I have utilized over 600 pounds of Hydrocal in the hard shell and rock castings. I have chosen to utilize screen wire for my basic support structure and cover it with Handiwipes (a nylon, open weave cleaning cloth) soaked in Hydrocal. Rock castings are then applied wet so as to follow the contour of the hard shell with the voids and cracks filled with Sculptamold. The resulting mass of white is over-sprayed with a dilute mixture (3:1) of reefer gray Floquil Polly S water-based paint since the Hydrocal and Sculptamold have different absorption rates and don’t take acrylic washes the same. Since I have large areas to cover, I apply the diluted paint from a spray bottle (any kind will work although I find that those left empty from pump hair spray work very well). I then come back and over-spray various grays, browns, blues and earth tones (dust and dirt) to blend and develop the earth coloration. Some areas are filled with Permascene to represent dirt. These are also over-sprayed. Sine I require large amounts of my base color, reefer gray, I took a sample to Lowes and had it color matched in a quart of latex paint.
Building, in various stages of completion, have been installed in Colorado Springs, Leadville, Cascade and other towns around the railroad. The Colorado Springs Roundhouse, utilizing 8 stalls from the Model Masterpieces replica, has been completed with the help of fellow modeler Jim Maurer. Inspection pits, from Guts Gravel and Glory, are installed and a Diamond Scale 65 foot turntable is operational, controlled by a New York Railway Supply PTC Model III. I installed the PTC Model III in under an hour and then spent another 1/2 hour programming it for my 21 roundhouse tracks. With its pushbutton control panel for ease of use, I know my operating group will be fighting for the Colorado Springs Engine Terminal. A second Diamond Scale 65 foot turntable is installed in Basalt and controlled by a single toggle switch and pushbutton controlling rotation.
The trackwork in Basalt has been completed with a six track yard and engine service facilities in place. I was even able to incorporate two visible staging tracks that will represent traffic past Basalt to Grand Junction. There is adequate space to represent the town of Basalt and display the Railroad Hotel I have longed planned to build. Since I am now part of a round-robin group that meets every Friday night, work on the railroad takes large leaps when the group is present. With scenery always a viable project, I need to replace my pictures to show how work has progressed.
Besides working on the railroad, it is also operational and we try and run trains during every work session and have gone so far as to have complete Operations Sessions. Operations is driven by JMRI Operations and normal train operation consists of four (4) trains running over the layout. All turnouts are controlled via Digitax DS54s which allow the operator to change the position of any turnout from their throttle. In addition, control panels currently exist for Colorado Springs Yard, Colorado Springs Engine Terminal and Leadville. Control of the Basalt area is accomplished via a Panel Pro panel, through JMRI, and controlled via my iPad and a Kindle Fire. The panels utilize route control to simplify switching and again utilize the power of the DS54s. There are currently fifteen (15) DS54s in use, each controlling four (4) turnouts or crossovers. An additional Panel Pro panel has been created covering the entire mainline and allows for on road switching of the turnouts without the throttle. Thus each train crew is composed of two men, an engineer and a conductor. The engineer concentrates on his train while the Conductor handles the paperwork and operates the turnouts via JMRI.
Since I can now readback decoder values through the Digitrax Radio Chief, I have also added JMRI and a LocoBuffer to the railroad inventory. With these tools I can program all my decoders and DS54s though a very user friendly interface and store the information on my computer. Although computer control is not one of my wishes, I can also control all trains and turnouts through this wonderful tool. Best of all, Decoder Pro is free. Because of the increased current requirements necessary to program sound decoders, I have also added a Soundtraxx PTB-100 to the programming track.
I will update this write-up as work progresses on the railroad, so check back for progress reports.