Well done drawing

I wish I was as qualified in XTrakCAD as you. The layout looks like it will have lots of potential. 

Xtrackcad

I just struggle with it till I figure out what I want it to do. The drawing looks good small but blow it up and there are a ton or errors.

Edit 8-31 One thing that helps a lot is going online and watching the video tutorials. That helps a lot.

Back wall is done

I finished the back wall so now there is 43 feet of benchwork installed at grid 13-1 thru 43. The 13 is the vertical numbers and the 43 is the end of the horizontal as shown in the drawing. The yard area is next and I have my first planning issue. At grid 1-43 at the bottom right corner of the yard there will be a "wye" passing thru that wall from future off layout storage/staging tracks.

Originally I planned to put up a backdrop to ( hide the access and the Wye area) and I am thinking there really is no access if there is a backdrop in the way. So maybe a removable backdrop? It would need to be about 11 feet long. I could access the wye but not the back of the yard.

My second thought is put the backdrop on the wall and try to hide the open access area by putting a row of buildings along the back of the yard just high enough so the operator working the yard is not distracted by the open area.

I think I will build the yard area bench work and maybe experiment a little bit. I am leaning towards lots of false building fronts. Maybe two rows mounted on lift ups. Drawer hardware could me modified to raise the false fronts and hold them in place above the layout to allow access.

So far I have done all the bench with 1 by lumber. I think for this area of the yard I will use up the 2 by6 lumber I have lying around. In this area it is not attached to the wall and if I do something fancy with lift ups, I am going to need a very heavy solid bench.

BNMR

I was always a Northern Pacific fan but fell in love with the Milwaukee Road out on the Olympic Peninsula.  When living near Bellingham on the old NP line the green BN scheme sort of got under my skin. A "what if" Burlington Northern Milwaukee Road (aka Model Railroad) merger would continue the barge traffic across the sound and extend down the coast to Southern Washington's coast to tap all those huge trees (I've heard that the Spotted Owl is delicious). Now an Owl for a logo on a green and orange stripe ...

wow

big plans and big progress!  IMO, that new bench area is the best progress and will prove invaluable throughout the building.

Trees  and  shrubbery -

I have not found a nice deciduous tree for forests. Any suggestions?

In mature forests all trees have sparse foliage in the middle and more filled in high up. Model trees are full from bottom to top, like they are in the middle of a cow pasture. 

I like to start with dried stems and flowers of the succulent plant Neverdie. They go up fast as fillers. It has y-branches and a fairly flat crown, not so prototypical but  good to start.

Snips of the Neverdie tops are bushes.  Cut or broken stalks are fallen trunks or retaining walls for rip-rap.  Standing stalks are dead trees.

I have both

I have loco's from both railroads. Just a switcher for MW. I hear it tastes like chicken!

Read my blog about home grow trees

In my tree blog I talk about growing Teloxys aristata. (Supertrees) same as you would get at Scenic Express. There are lots of video's of using them. They grow dense and sparce as has been my experience and sometimes don't grow much at all. I am still figuring out what does and does not work.

The box is about 25-30 dollars and is very reasonable. These make the best looking decidous trees.

I have noticed the same thing in forested areas, Only the tops of the evergreens have foilage and the bottoms are just straight clean trunks. Maybe it a crowding thing. For a logger it would sure make life easier.

Some pictures

I find that posting a blog is another source of motivation. Here are some pics of latest efforts.

This is the view from 0-6 looking over the waterfront. Most of the front curved benchwork will eventually be bridges. Still working out the access from the corner. Lift up or something along those lines. The one freight car is an 89ft auto carrier. I use that for clearance checks. It actually really hangs over on 30 inch radius curves.

Continuing and showing the 30 feet of new benchwork. The peninsula starts about where the tool cart is.

This is where part of the yard, the wye, and the turntable will sit. The glue bottle is just below where the track will penetrate the wall to the wye. I am going to think about this for a few days before I build here. The wye is not my only option.

The view from the other end. Cross members are 1 by 3 on 12 inch centers. Not glued so easily adjusted or removed. These three sections were assembled in the garage and then installed. Bench work goes fast. Roadbed not so much.

Measuring the wye 30 inch radius. I can draw this on Xtracad or lay it out on the floor. In full scale it is much easier for me to be accurate.  

I inherited a Bosch Jig saw, or pattern saw what ever you want to call it. Here is the deal, I used to buy cheap jigsaws and battle thru making the curved roadbed. With a quality high speed saw, it is quick and easy and I get clean lines.  We get what we pay for. My dad always spent a small fortune on tools. Many of the tools I sorted were in his toolbox more than 50 years. I almost bought a bandsaw for cutting roadbed. But a good one is expensive and I would have no use for it after the railroad is built. I figure I will spend about 6 hours making the rest of the road bed with the table saw and jigsaw. Not enough to justify a bandsaw.

Wow!

That's a very nice start. Looking forward to seeing the progress

Superb!

What a great space for your layout, and the bench work construction just looks superb! I'll be following your progress, eagerly watching for further developments. Keep up the great work!

Looks good Stevie. Keep

Looks good Stevie. Keep sharing with us.

Thanks guys, and lumber prices

There was a time when I could get discarded shipping crates for free and they even had a lot where we could take them apart and only take what we wanted. I built a couple railroads with mostly free lumber. Today I have to buy lumber. The stuff that has been stored for years still had to be bought. For my peninsula and for the main yard section I am leaning towards building the girders out of 2 by 6 and 1 by 3 plates. I did all the rest of the benchwork with 1 by4 and 1by2 plate. But those are all attached to the wall and its easy to put a brace or two angled back to the wall. The peninsula is stand alone along with the main yard which has an access in the back the whole length of it.

 So for the peninsula, I am going to have a false wall down the middle for the backdrops and I am thinking I might epoxy it to the floor and attach it to the ceiling just for strength. My big trucker friend is a pretty massive dude. I want him to be able to lean on stuff or even walk right into it without harm. So pretty much its going to be a 2by4 false wall and 2by6 girders. I think it might be strong. For the yard, I can attach both ends to the walls. So with 2by6 girders, I can get by with one set of legs in the center and we should be able to walk on it.

So about lumber prices. A 2by6 at 12 feet is about 6 bucks. A 1by6 at 10 ft is about 11 bucks. Less than half the lumber at twice the cost. I think the reason might be that 1 by lumber is less forgiving and they need better wood to start with to get acceptable pieces. And if the mill is always set up for 2 by lumber, there might be an extra cost with producing 1 by lumber as it is sort of a side line to the other stuff.

I expect to buy 3 more sheets of 1/2 inch, maybe more. That stuff is really getting expensive. For simple shelving indoors the pressed chip board is fine and cheap. But for the roadbed, its a bite in the budget. If I use the underlayment, it isn't too bad. If I use the really clean and sanded stuff, I will need a loan with options on my first born. Since it is going to be covered with homasote and/or cork, I think I can put up with the knots and holes.  I wonder does anyone go to the effort to fill the holes?

Where I save a few bucks is the 70% off rack. I check it out every time I go there. Today I got 30 feet of 1by 4 that is only slightly damaged or warped. For cross members or risers it is fine.

Stevie a sheet of 3/4 sanded

Stevie a sheet of 3/4 sanded ply can be had for around thirty dollars. If this is cut into 4 inch strips it will replace a lot of dimensional lumber and be very strong. It will yield 11 strips 8 feet long. A kreig jig and screws will allow it to be assembled with butt joints and be very strong. Plywood is also more stable than dimensional lumber. At the cost of lumber today you would not think it grew on trees.

I assume

Your working in HO.  I probably missed it.  I think your detail is just about right.  It takes some real vision to see all the way through to the end. From the earlier comments, I take it your including the NP in your theme.  What era, the long auto carrier some nods like near the BN time.

Lok forward to your progress,

Ply timeframe

I have a bit of 3/4. Mostly short chunks I used for drawers. I would use it but its a pain to mate to 1/2 and get it perfect. And I don't have enough to do much anyway. As far as strength, I see they are using plywood to make "I" girders for flooring. I don't know. I really like the idea of 2 x 12's. But it is stronger and likely less warping and flexing. I think I have enough straight 1x4, 1x3 and 1x6 to finish most of the railroad. I bought 4 of the 2x6x12's and I am just starting to lay that out to see. If it works out I will need just a couple more.

Yes, HO scale.

I really don't have an era. My newest engines are SD-40's. So at least to that time frame. The auto carrier is one of a kind for checking clearance. Specifically the side clearance. The premade tunnel portals just ain't going to make it. My vertical clearance is at least 3.5 inches.

I think for a time frame if I had to have one it would be about the time of the merger when a lot of stuff was still sitting around waiting for new paint. But I think that eliminates my SD-40's with the green/orange paint jobs.

It will be a fictional railroad with lots of hand me down equipment. We can't afford paint and similar luxuries?

I understand the era aspect for a model railroad but I expect one day we will have a few modelers bring their own equipment to run. That could mean a shay working the mill while a string of SD-70's pull a bunch of double stacks. So while I might loosely set a time frame, it will still be open to whatever people want to run.

pictures and a new problem

I drew this up on Xtrackcad but it doesn't stick out to me until I actually try laying it out in 1-1 scale.  

Putting the 2x6's up did nothing to show me what it would look like.

Better.

In the drawing it shows the turntable near the edge. I think that may be a problem as it puts the yard tracks in back. This might be the area where an operator is reaching across the tracks to uncouple cars the most. I am thinking of either putting the turntable in back or eliminating it altogether. I think I want all those yard tracks closer to the table edge.

I lay the roadbed on the floor and stare at it, measure it, adjust and stare some more. For me it really points out minor and major errors in my plan. Once I get this where I think I want it, I will trace it in pencil on the floor. The floor is already getting chipped and scarred.

The 1x2's parallel to the wall represent the access aisle. I am making it 20 inches deep and about 10ft long.

Yes, I am also trying to figure out why there are 4 outlets on a 12 foot wall? That was a spare room but I don't remember what I was thinking when I put all of those in. The top one is a phone connection which landlines are almost a thing of the past. 

Getting a better picture

I built the yard section for grid 3-30 to 3-43. It is 32 inches wide. With the 1 by 3 cross members some will extend about 14 inches. I used 12 ft 2 x 6's. I think that will be strong enough. Since I have it mapped out on the floor I can see some minor changes from the original plan. The aisle at 4-30 is shown at about 30 inches. I am going to increase that to 4 feet. I only lose a few feet of railroad but the ease of passing each other going to and from is well worth it. We used to have a railroad in the garage back room. A duck under to get in the room, Some of us might still be scarred form that nightmare, and the aisle was about 3.5 feet and with 4 or 5 of us in there is was pretty cramped. For this last railroad, aisle room and operator comfort will take precedence over a few extra feet of railroad. I have the luxury of being able to do that. I envision several operators, so the more room, the more enjoyable it will be to operate.

So since I am widening the aisle, I am also looking at section 12-29. The backdrops actually leave an empty corner in the drawing. There will be some changes to that. It will become obvious when the benchwork in that area is built.

We originally planned the mill area at that corner but we are moving it to 6-29 on the back side of the peninsula. It just gives my buddy a lot more length for structures and sidings.

I also made some cardboard sections to represent the car ferry and the cannery. The waterfront extends along most of the wall from 2-5 to 11-3. There will also be a couple piers for barge loading. In the corner at about 4-3 there will be an open access area. I will put a tall hillside (rockface) in the corner, almost vertical in the back of the access and a slightly shorter hillside in front of the access. Hopefully it looks like a valley is behind the first hillside. Since this is southwest Washington on the Columbia river, I can get away with almost vertical rock faces up to a few hundred feet high. And covered with moss and trees and shrubs growing right out of the rock face. In fact, the Columbia River continues with the rock stuff all the way deep into eastern Washington. I have fished every pool up to Wanapum Dam and its all really beautiful scenery. Once you get east of Portland into the gorge it turns from heavily treed to less trees and then desert like. Then the rocks get bare. Here is a photo of Beacon Rock. This kind of terrain gives me modelers license to have large rock outcroppings just to hide the edge of a backdrop or to mask the fact that the tracks are right on top of each other.

Here is another image of BNSF in the Columbia River Gorge.

I could hide a lot of stuff behind a rock wall like that one.

I am enjoying this part. Getting the details of the plan worked out and discovering I have a lot of room for industries and interchanges. I think the area just outside the yard will be an industrial complex. Just a few large industries would make it interesting. A grain terminal? Smelter?, Oil storage? Maybe an air freshener manufacturing plant next to the smelter? A paper mill is popular. There is one located a few miles downstream from Tri Cities. For those of you who make photo backdrops, the Columbia river gorge would be a great vacation location and photo shoot. You can drive up both sides of the river and likely find a few hundred miles of scenery to photograph. And there are tracks on both sides of the river and they are very busy.

Too clean...

Your layout room is entirely too clean. Could you please get a bunch of miscellaneous junk and scatter it all over? You are making me feel bad. I have plenty of extra junk that I can send your way if you don't have any. 

Randy

Too clean?

It is for now. I am sure that will change as things progress.

More progress

I built the bench for part of the yard area. I really needed to get it built so I could see exactly how the peninsula bench work was going to fit. It is installed and bolted to the wall on one end and screwed to the wall with l brackets on the other. It don't move!  

Its nice to find real straight 2x6. I had to shave all the 1x3's on the table saw as they vary in width about 1/16 inch. It doesn't matter where there are risers anyway but the yard plywood will be screwed directly to these so I wanted it real level. I can sit in that chair and roll around under the benchwork. Saves wear and tear on my worn out knees, I am tempted to build a little rolling cart that I can sit on and also have room for a few tools.  

I cut out a bunch of 30-38 inch radius sections. Should last me a little while.

Oops! Ignore duplicate photo.

Even though I have it on the drawing, laying it out rough on the floor makes it so much easier to visualize. The peninsula is going to have a wall for the backdrops down the middle and so I sort of want to get it properly located before I epoxy the plates to the floor. And that brings up another possibility. I found this photo. It was in an Issue of Trains magazine, the photographer is Jeremiah Lietke. Just want to make sure I give the proper credit.

With a rock face like this one, you could skip the backdrop other than some sky.

Notice the boat is anchored with a large ball on the anchor line. If it was my boat, I would anchor a few hundred yards up river so I could get an unobstructed view of the trains. The fish are not biting anyway.

This picture doesn't do justice to the original photo. http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/observation-tower/archive/2015/05/07/profiling-young-talent-in-railroad-photography-jeremiah-lietke.aspx

If you click on the link you can enlarge the photo. Notice the moss and trees and shrubs growing right out of the rock. In the lower river, the rock faces are almost completely covered with vegetation. I found this and many photo's by google search of "railroads in the Columbia River Gorge". (images).

I am thinking I could model this using foam, carved and stood on end. Covered with some rough plaster or something and it would be acceptable.

layout

that really is going to be a great layout

Layout? Thanks! I hope it turns out that way.

My main goal is to build a railroad that is enjoyable for several operators at a time. The second goal is interesting scenery that is mostly plausible.

update with pics

Progress has slowed slightly. Other commitments and such has taken priority. 

The yard sections are at least covered with plywood. I used caulk to hold it to the cross members. I think if I have to move some for turnouts, the caulk will be easier to break loose than wood glue. Still have to cover it all with homasote and sorting those pieces will be a chore. I printed up a bunch of fast tracks templates so I can lay thing out and see how it will fit. The turn table will either be moved to the back or eliminated altogether. And I am doing some searching on spacing the yard tracks on a radius. The yard is curved starting with a 32 inch radius and going up from there. I think 2 inch is really close for longer cars. I am likely to go with 2.25 inches in the curved area.

I painted the underside of the plywood white. just adds a little better light to the under areas. I am sort of planning to build the peninsula soon also. I think I want to get most of the benchwork out of the way and then continue with the roadbed. I may shorten the yard a bit. In the drawing, the longest track is 18 feet, the shortest would be 13 feet with the turntable moved.

" I used caulk to hold it to

    Should be plenty strong with caulk, I don't even bother with any glue,I  just nail my plywood with a nail gun and it always stays put. If I have to move a crossmember a hammer under the table can pop it out  :> ) ........DaveB