First, a little background

It all began with a grandson and his interest in trains, particularly Thomas the Tank Engine.  I didn’t have a train set as a child and grew up a couple hours from the nearest railroad.  Didn’t know much about railroads.  With the help of a grandson the first layout was an HO 4x8 in the garage with two concentric ovals connected with a double crossover and a three track spur, Thomas, and a cheap Bachmann train set.

While talking with a co-worker I mentioned what we were doing and he introduced me to MR magazine and invited me to see his layout.  He had recently switched to Marklin 3-rail and gave me some old locos and rolling stock.  He also handed me a stack of Kalmbach books including Linn Westcott’s HO Railroad that Grows.  I took Linn’s plan and started with chapter 8, the last chapter, and built the first Hill Valley railroad with Atlas sectional track and Snap Switches.  My wife spent a week the next spring at her mother’s helping with spring cleaning.  When she returned the railroad had grown, into a 5x16 including Thistle yard.

I am employed by the Boy Scouts and had been living at a scout camp in central Utah.  I am also approaching retirement and a recent transfer at work and the resulting move allowed us to buy a home in southern Utah where I grew up, where we raised our family, and where we intend to live out the rest of our lives.  The 5x16 won’t fit in the new house so it is time to start over and improve on the many mistakes made in the first two versions. 

There was a sun room on the back (west side) of the house with lots of windows and 120+ degrees on a summer afternoon.  The wall of windows and two horrible sliding glass doors have been replaced with a 6” insulated, sheet rocked wall and a conventional exterior door.  The room is finished, metal supports built and benchwork for the lower staging level installed. 

Track plan to follow.

A Mission Statement

HVT Mission Statement

The mission of the Hill Valley and Thistle Railroad or HVT will be a lifelong journey to create a freelance model railroad serving the communities of Hill Valley, Thistle and Helper.  The railroad will support operating sessions, be fully APB signaled and capable of fully automated DCC computer control using JMRI software, Wi-Fi Smart Phone throttles, cab view TV and remote operation via the internet.  It will include a fully automated roadway using DCC controlled Faller type vehicles.  The layout will feature user friendly computer controlled operation by novices such as youth groups and train shows. This technology combined with reliable track work, extensive sound, operations, automation, detailed scenery and lighting will provide a means to learn and improve knowledge and skills from a wide variety of disciplines which will then be shared with others.

History - About the HVT

About the HVT

The HVT is a tourist railroad set in 1983 and an alternate route for D&RGW and Utah Railway between Thistle and Helper, Utah.   The HVT railroad operates dailey service between the interchange yard and engine facility at Thistle, the popular resort town of Hill Valley and Helper, traveling through picturesque mountains and rolling sand dunes, passing the famous Mountain Dell Scout camp and historic Fremont Indian cliff dwellings.  Buffalo still graze in the luscious grass near Tatanka Lake. 

The HVT was originally a narrow gauge line which began in 1895 when silver was discovered in the Clear Creek mine located near Clayton Ravine.  A new Rogers locomotive #3 found its home hauling silver ore to the mainline and supplies back to the mine.  The new railroad connected with the D&RGW mainline at Thistle through a series of tunnels and was later connected on the east end at Helper, again by tunnel.  After the silver vein paid out in 1910 the line lay dormant for several years.  In 1921 several investors got together and reopened the mine, this time looking for coal.  They were successful and the railroad was back in business, complete with new standard gauge track work and rolling stock.  Locomotive #3 was taken out of mothballs, converted to standard gauge and put back into service.

The flagship of the HVT tourist fleet is the same engine #3, a recently restored 1896 Rogers 4-6-0 steam locomotive, pulling a set of restored passenger cars from the same era, and is joined by the Hill Valley Creeper #616, a 1907 Baldwin 2-8-0 Consolidation.  An EMD Doodlebug or McKeen Motor Car provide daily passenger and freight service between the three towns and the local mine.  The HVT Local is a daily ‘turn’ serving the local area with a couple of GP20’s acquired from WP and ATSF and currently awaiting a repaint.  Freight is interchanged with D&RGW ‘thru-freights’ at the Thistle yard.  The favorites of the younger crowd include Thomas the Tank Engine pulling Annie and Clarabelle, and his companions Percy and James.  HVT is contracted by the Southern Pacific to do turn-around maintenance on their FEF-3 GS4 which pulls occasional heritage excursions thru Hill Valley aboard the historic Coast Daylight train.  The Central Pacific Jupiter and Union Pacific #119 find time from their schedule at Golden Spike Monument to visit Hill Valley.   The Rio Grande Zephyr and Amtrak travel thru Hill Valley on alternating schedules.

Local transportation includes the recently restored 1951 Flixible Utah Parks bus and the kids’ favorite, Bertie the bus.  Traffic is busy on the streets with parcel deliveries from UPS and freight on Tayden Truck Line.  Be sure to watch for a cool looking Jeep running around town and for Dr. Emmett Browne sneaking around town in a strange looking Delorean.   Tourists always enjoy taking a scenic helicopter flight with Grandpa in HVT’s new Bell Jet Ranger with tours leaving from the helipad atop the clock tower building in Hill Valley.

Highlights of the area named after grandchildren include Sarah’s Western Wear, James’ Service Station, Tayden Trucking, Keegan Korner Market, Cameron Cattle and Livestock, Jarek’s Jalopies, Dusty Dustin Lumber, Shayah Park, Carley Cut and Curl, Parker Oil Distributor, McDayvin Drive-in, home of the famous golden arches, Briele’s Boutique, Jaycee’s Pet Castle, Jayda’s Jewelry, the classic Jordyn Spreader, a ride in Lizzies track inspection car and Zander Energy.

Givens and Druthers

                             Givens

                             Druthers

Track Plan

The track plan is drawn with Draft Sight, an AutoCAD clone, and serves as a general guide for planning and construction. Roads and scenery are not included in the drawing.  Atlas code 100 flex track with Fast Tracks #5 turnouts is being used and the actual track will flow better than the straight lines shown in the drawing.

The layout is built in sections along-the-wall with a lower level staging and a double track helix on the right end.  The mainline has a descending turn-back loop on the left end with Hill Valley and Thistle being 4” lower (one turn of the helix) than Helper and Clear Creek.  Staging serves as both Salt Lake and Denver.  An operating schematic of the railroad is shown at the top of the plan.  This may help you understand the traffic flow better.

EDIT: Trackplan updated 7-21-2018

Extra car storage will be in two 4-foot wide drawers under the center of the staging yard.  The front two tracks serve as Salt Lake and Denver and are fiddle tracks where new thru-freight trains are built.  The left end of the staging level has a circle track that can be isolated and used as a programming speed matching track.  It can be powered with DC, the PR3 programmer or a Sprog II.  An N-scale circle track is included for use in programming N-scale decoders. (Have done a few conversions for others)

The helix with have an access window in the front for those who choose to watch the trains climb and descend.  I am considering having the turn table and roundhouse lift up to allow access to the back of that corner.  An alternative would be a hard point where a reach-in platform/ladder could be attached.

The town of Thistle is accessed from the third turn of the helix, and a single uphill track will allow continuous running for open houses.  The passing sidings and helix are planned for right hand running so one track in the helix will be uphill, the other down.

BTW This drawing shows the train room and how the layout fits into the scheme of things.  Between the desk and workbench is a small two oval Lionel layout with a slot car track, built for the grandkids and for train shows.  It came about as a result of my wife’s observation a few years ago that there was nothing for kids to run at the local (Provo) train show.

Operating Scheme

Thoughts on Operating

The plan is to operate using Car Cards and Waybills with a sequential schedule.  This will allow ops to stop at any point and pick up again where it left off.  The layout can be run with any number of operators from one to six or seven.  A magnetic call board is planned to keep track of the trains and crews.

The front two tracks in staging are fiddle tracks and represent Salt Lake and Denver respectively.  When a thru freight arrives the staging yardmaster will build a new train for the return trip.  Both east and west bound thru freights will set-out and pick-up blocks of interchange cars at the Thistle yard.  The Thistle yardmaster will build the daily “Valley Turn” and the next operator will run the train out to the local customers and back to the yard.  The yardmaster will sort the returning cars into eastbound and westbound blocks for the next thru freight.  Rinse, repeat.

The Rio Grande Zephyr and an Amtrak train will run daily in opposite directions between Salt Lake and Denver.  Utah Railway will run a daily coal train.  Steam powered tourist trains will run on occasion between Thistle and Helper, and perhaps beyond.  The Doodlebug will run twice daily turning on the turntable at each end of the run.  An occasional SP Daylight or Big Boy heritage train will run thru for variety.

With enough operators a dispatcher position with CTC could be added using FRS radios, and/or a remote dispatcher could be utilized using JMRI/CATS with Mumble for communicating remotely. The Daylight and Amtrak will each have available an F3 loco with onboard camera for a remote operator to have cab view.  A surveillance system allows remote viewing including the cab views.  Trains can be set up for open houses to run automatically using JMRI scripts for Robot Throttle or Auto Dispatcher 2.34.

Staging Track Complete

Some progress has been made on the lower level staging.

The track with FastTrack turnouts is complete, the track and roadbed have been painted, the lower level fascia is in and painted, and the hard board is in place waiting for the backdrop pictures.

Next comes the helix.

Regards,

Dave

PS Previous posts were updated with current info and track plan.

Dave, it looks like you are

Dave, it looks like you are well on the way to having a model railroad ready to run trains. Great progress. I suspect the kids are going to love this.

Kids love trains

Thanks, Rob.  Yes, kids (from all decades) love trains.

The local model railroad club has a public layout tour each November.  A week-and-a-half to go and three weeks of work to do to be ready.  Had over 350 people go thru the train room last year.  

That sounds familiar, more

That sounds familiar, more work than time to complete it.

Where it all started

In the Layout Design Special Interest Group under Why do you want a layout? it asks this question: What drew you to model railroading in the first place?

I recently came across an early picture of my very first layout with my very first train.

It was a grandson with a strong interest in Thomas the Tank Engine that got me started.  Having no train as a child and growing up a couple hours from the nearest railroad it was all new to me.  With help from a co-worker (who passed two weeks ago) and Linn Westcott's HO Railroad that Grows this 4x8 morphed into the 5x16 shown in the first post of this thread.

Next in the saga was a co-worker that showed up on my front porch and gifted me the 1956 American Flyer train set that he had as a child.  Grandkids loved to connect track and run it on the living room floor.  I also acquired a 1997 Lionel New York Central set that a tenant left behind at a friends rental.

About four years ago I helped at a train show as a member of the local MR club.  After the show my wife commented that there was nothing for the kids to run.  I said that I would have to do something about that.  Tried to make a small layout with the American Flyer and Lionel but the radii were too far apart, so I bought a Thomas Lionel with 31" radius FastTrack.  It went well with the O-27 NYC track.  But being involved with Boy Scouts for almost 40 years a Lionel Boy Scout train seemed more appropriate than the New York Central.  Now, the tracks really should match, so some GarGraves 3-rail flex track was installed.  And as a child I never had a slot car set so....... this is the result.

The New York Central became the Christmas tree train.  But there was still the American Flyer train.  Looking around for a place in the new train room the one place that it would fit was on a roll-away layout under the helix.  A Thomas toy in the correct size for S-scale and a spare AF 3-axle chassis had previously been acquired.  Add to that a NWSL gear box, motor and work with a drill and file and we have an S-scale Thomas.  A grandson designed coach bodies for Annie and Clarebel which his dad 3D printed.  But wait, there is enough room under the S-scale track for a G-gauge Bachmann Thomas:

Add to that the original HO Bachmann Thomas.  And a Hornby OO Thomas can run on the same HO track.  Next to arrive was a Tomix N-scale Thomas.  This left a gap which was filled with a TT-scale Thomas kit-bashed from an Ertl toy and parts from two Tri-ang locos and another NWSL motor.  And don't forget Z-scale.  An 0-6-0 loco was 3D scanned by a grandson and 3D water tanks were added.  A coat of paint and the number '1' took care of Z-scale.  Then there is T-gauge (1:450).  A BR125 is available and it appeared in two Thomas stories as Pip & Emma.  The latest addition is a Nano scale train (1:1,000) from TinyTrains.com (their website is currently being upgraded).  A Thomas loco was 3D printed to replace the generic loco in the kit.  That made ten Thomas and Friends trains.  Arduino and motor shield throttles were built so that all controls were identical.

You may notice in the right side of the photo a large scale Thomas from a Peg-Perego set.  This is 1.5" scale or 7.5" gauge.  Original plastic wheels were replaced with metal wheels on a metal chassis and 3D printed 'hub caps'.  Link rods were added the night before the November club open house and there wasn't time to install a motor and controller.   The following weekend was the Train Expo in Salt Lake City.  The Lionel layout, the 9-scale Cliffs layout and the 7.5" Thomas spent two days being run by hundreds and hundreds of young kids (and adults).  The large Thomas must have traveled over 100 miles on that 7 ft length of track, pushed forward and back all day long by very young operators.  I don't think it is ever going to get that motor installed.

This is my effort to share this wonderful hobby with new model railroaders.  Oh, and I'm still building on that conventional HO layout which is the subject of this blog.

So, that's what got me started and what I'm about with this crazy thing called Model Railroading.

Dave

Looks like you’re having a lot of fun! I started with the same Linn Wescott book and my early layouts were very reminiscent of what you have done. Anyway it’s a real joy to read your posts and the picture of the little engineer pushing that train down the track is absolutely priceless.

Thanks, Rick

Yes, those priceless moments are paydays.  It was small children that got me started in model railroading and I am striving to share the hobby with as many as possible. 

At the home layout tour in November I helped with outreach for Operation Lifesaver and every youth that came thru not only ran trains in several scales, but left with an OL engineer cap, OL coloring books, OL bookmark and an OL pencil.  Anything to spark an awareness of trains.

Happy Holidays. 

Backdrop time

Since the staging yard represents both Salt Lake and Denver I wanted to have a photo backdrop that included both areas.

To get a picture of Salt Lake I stood on a 12 ft step ladder (to get above the fence) on the 4^th South overpass and took a series of pictures.  For Denver I found a panorama picture on the web that matched my needs.  Now all I had to do is put them all together.

Ebay provided an earlier version of PhotoShop Elements for a reasonable price.  There was a bit of a learning curve but I was able to put the pictures all together along with a mountain to fill in the center.  The backdrop is 11" x 32' and the finished picture is 29,000 pixels wide. (software limit 30,000)  It was then saved as a .pdf file.

Next was a trip to the local print shop.  After I explained how to do it they used Adobe Reader to print the picture as a poster which was 47 pages wide.  The pic was printed on matte finish photo paper and the white border trimmed.  The hardboard backdrop (6 pieces) was laid on a work table, sprayed with 3M Super77 adhesive and the pictures attached. 

Here is a view as you come in the door.

And here is a view from the other end.

While it won't be all that visible once the upper level is finished I am happy with the way it turned out.  Not too shabby for a $28 backdrop.  And I am learning a new skill with PhotoShop.

Next up will be soldering bus wires to all those feeders then connect them to the block detectors, then……..  

Great backkdrop, great price

That's a slick backdrop especially for that price.

I'm going to utilize some square tube alum tubing similar to that you are using. But do you really think your's is going to support that much cantilever you are giving the upper shelf, without and diagonal arms?

What is your spacing between the upper deck and lower deck?

Brian

@ Brian

Thanks for the comments on the backdrop.  I think it turned out wonderful and it was an education experience for me.

The steel benchwork frame is 0.87" x 1.25" x 1.25" box tubing and is plenty strong to support the layout.  I previously used the same wall thickness in 1.5" x 1.5" tubing 18" long on a shelf rack for carpet rolls at work and was able to use them to climb on.  Part of the secret is good welding.  How do you plan to attach/connect your aluminum box tubing?

There is 11" of free space between the two levels.

Steel tubing...

That steel tubing is plenty strong to support that shelf, no diagonals needed. As a matter of fact, not only will it support that shelf, but it will support an additional two-hundred pounds climbing around on said shelf. 

Randy

Thanks, Randy

Yes, 200 lbs on the 5S framework is doable.  (Seiler Steel Structural Support System).  

Another Layout from the Past

This started out as a circle test track to speed match locos.  In its final version it had both DC and DCC with block detection, Digitrax Transponding and signaling (signals added after the photo was taken) for both HO and N scale.  There was a Faller car test track in the center. 

The circle track in the turn-back loop on the lower level of the new layout functionally replaced that track.  It also has detection and Transponding.

As a side note I built a track powered camera car that streamed live cab-view video to a receiver which was connected to one channel of a surveillence DVR.  The grandkids (and guests) could connect remotely to JMRI and control trains on the test track while watching live video over the DVR.

N Scale

Looks like I have gone over to the 'N'ormal scale.  

A friend recently moved into a care center and made me an offer on his train collection that I couldn't refuse.  Part of it is this N-scale layout which runs really well on DC.  

Three grandkids spent an extended weekend and had a great time running the new N-scale layout (along with the Lionel and HO).  A very young nephew also spent a couple of hours here and his mom posted on Facebook that he was in 'Train Heaven'.  Sharing the hobby with young people is my payday.

HTV railroad

Dave, great job so far. Like the idea of the free standing shelves with the background in from of the uprights.  That 2" steel tube in the foreground looks familiar.  Wow! the backdrop looks fantastic.  Might have to attend the NMRA convention in SLC next year and drop down and see your finished project.  Retiring soon?

Doug

Hi Doug

Fun!

Looks like you've got a great layout there that's providing a lot of fun for everyone! Keep up the great work!