My first misadventure

Ok for my first misadventure. While I was on travel to the great pacific Northwest, I started working on a layout design. Not much else to do when sitting in a hotel room. So off I went with a few ideas in my head. I had started working on my design when I soon realized that I just didn't have enough room. So how do I fix that? I didn't want to remove towns and such. So I decided hey, I can make it a double decker. Sounds good right?

So off I went, working on my new deign of a double decker. I posted several versions on here and got some great feed back. Well as things would have it, even though it sounded great, reality set in once I got back home and could stand in my garage and take some actual measurements. I soon came to realize that with my tablesaw and workbench at the height they were, the only way to do a double deck layout was to either one, only have about 12" between the two decks or two, have the top deck so high that I'd need a step stool to see it. And of course if the Boss couldn't see it well, then that would just make matters worse.

So back to the drawing board I went. I finally came up with what I think is a workable design. I can place a permanent part of the layout on two walls, in a "L" shape. The third wall of the garage is where I store my tall tool boxes, drill press and water softner equipment. I will build a temporary peninsula that will have the rest of my layout on it but can be removed and stored when I need the garage for other things, like parking a car or building something for the Boss. So I think I have a plan.

here's the jest of the layout. In the upper left corner, which is the back wall of the garage, is a loop that will allow the main line to run behind the scenery and allow me to run the trains in a continuous loop. There is another loop around on the lower right end as well. At the top left of the layout is the Ft Worth Stock Yards. Now I know some purest are going to say "hey, the KATY nor the T&P serviced the stock yards". And they would be right. But it's my layout and to me, you just can't do Ft Worth without the stock yards. That's what made it Cowtown.

As you continue on down the line, you make a turn onto the peninsula and into the main part of town. There will be a few namesake industries to service along with a iceing platform. These are all straight from the maps I have found. As you near the end of the peninsula, you find Tower 55 and the crossing of the tracks. This is where the T&P cross as well as share some of the same track.

As you make the transition from the KATY line to the T&P line, going from southbound to west bound, you come into union station. As you continue moving west, you pass the roundhouse and on into the T&P yards, just like the picture I posted. Pass the yards, I'm not sure yet of what I want to do. I'll either make the yards longer, or just add in some building and such to fill in the space. At the end, you loop around and head behind the layout once again. My though is this is where you would be heading off to other destinations.

On the occasions that I need to use the garage, I will remove the peninsula and insert a filler peice so that I can still run trains in a loop.

So tell me what you think.

The start of the build

So now that i have a plan, it's time to start building right? Just throw up some drywall and hangers and mount the modules/sections/or what ever you want to call them. WRONG! yep, my second misadventure. After doing the above, I found out that my walls were not straight. Well what did I expect of a 60 year old garage. So time to go to work fixing the problem. I removed all that I had done and started installing firing strips. I shimmed as necessary so that I would finally have a straight mounting surface.

The build continues

So now that I have a straight back drop, time to put up some brackets and modules. The modules I built ate 4' long by 14" wide. Don't ask me why, that's just the way they came out in one of my other renditions of my original designs. I built the modules using 2 X 3 steel studs, riveted together. Then I glued 2" foam on top and wrapped the whole edge in 5" masonite board for a finished look. The modules will be bolted together when installed. And if I ever need to move them, or get to expand the layout, it will be much easier with it built this way.

Looks good and we all have misadventures

I'm not very good at layout design so I can't comment on that facet but it seems to me that you are making good progress. Even after 35 years in the hobby I still have misadventures too. Just recently I had to drop the whole valance of my railroad a couple of inches. It's  curved and had been permanently made all in one piece now even though I built it in sections. Wasn't fun. I'm also altering the positions of my lighting to avoid glare from the CFL bulbs while standing at the edge of the fascia and looking into the scene. I should have thought all this out better but I got on a roll and started blasting full speed ahead.

MIchael

More garage work

Thanks Michael. I'd build another garage but if I did, that's where i store my wife's truck that's too big for this garage. Plus I'd want to put in a 4 post lift for if or when I ever get to build another toy. So for now, I'm stuck with this so might as well make the best of what I have.

Well it was time to tackle the back wall. I had to remove everything, including the particle board I had covered the wall with a long time ago. I had to build out the lower portion of the wall to make it straight and reinstall my cabinets and work bench. I also had to rehang my upper cabinets. That pretty much took all day. I've still got some clean up work to do in there before i start building out the wall for the layout. But progress was made.

Here's a quick picture of the left wall that's already done along with my tablesaw and other tools stored neatly under it.

The back wall I had to disassemble.

Ready to put in my firing sticks to make it straight. I used three lines of string. One on top to set my height, and two more to set the boards straight and flush. I ran one near the top and one near the bottom. Once set, all I had to do was shim out the boards till they touched the string. Once it was all done, I had a nice straight surface to mount my particle board backing and put my cabinets up against. The top of the particle board is at a height of where the bottom of my modules will be.

Ok, here's some pictures of

Ok, here's some pictures of what all I did on mounting the cabinets. And yes that is a Cushman scooter in the picture. One of my other projects.

Where did I leave off.

OK, I got some more work done during Thanksgiving. Wife was home sick and so I took advantage of the 5 days off I had. This is where I set up a 1 X 4 as the bottom area to attach my drywall for teh back drop. You see a bit of a step out. That was so that my cabinets had something to set up against and I wouldn't be loosing stuff behind them any more. I shimmed it off of the studs as well so that I would have a flat straight backing, same as the other wall.

Here's the drywall all installed, same as i did on the other wall.

And here's how I mounted my brackets for my modules to set on.

Here's some pics with some modules in place. This is all basically from my viewing perspective.

The Roundhouse

I've built my corner module for the roundhouse. It's a 3 X 3 module. I'm using a Walthers 120' motorized turntable and 5 of the Atlas Roundhouses. The Atlas Roundhouse was the closest one I could find that matched the one I have pictures of. The plan is to leave the roundhouse open from the isle view so that you can see inside of it.

A change in plans

OK, after some feed back on my design in the design forum, along with some input from a friend of mine, I've made a few changes. The main area of change was the section that will be removed when I install the peninsula. I also flipped the stockyard area as well so that now the main line runs behind the buildings. By doing this, I was able to eliminate the S turn that everyone was worried about.

A few other design ideas was to make a large tressle bridge scene in the removable section. Since I have a picture of a large tressle bridge in Ft Worth crossing over the trinity river, I thought this would be a good place to model it. I also came up with a plan that since I am making such an interesting bridge crossing scene, it would be a shame to not use it in the main full layout. So if you look closely in the full layout, you will see that I'm using this module in the peninsula as well on the upper side left area. At least this is the plan, I just hope I can make it work. I still haven't decided of what to do with the lower section to the right of the main yard. I'll figure out something I'm sure. If anyone would like the file and has XTRACKCAD, just let me know and I can Email it to you.

The bridge module

Well I built the module for the bridge scene. I took pictures this time as it was a bit involved. The ends are the full 2 X 3 metal studs standing up. The cross pieces are the studs on their side with 2 of them overlapped to make a square box for strength. I then glued down some 1/4' ply on top for even more strength and as the base of where the river will be. The foam is then glued on top of that. The area is stair stepped like I have built it.

The first thing I did was draw it out on the back drop. This gave me an idea of what it would look like finished and also made it easier to build once I got the correct measurments.

Here you can see the studs both laying flat across the center as well as standing on end near the ends. I riveted everything together. The module is upside down in the first pic.

Plywood being glued down on the base for strength. And yes, that is a piece of old rail. I got it from my grandfather. I remember as a kid seeing it in his work shop. He used it as an Anvil. It's probably 100 years old I guess. It weights a ton. Or at least 75 lbs. I also have the long metal pole they used for aligning the tracks on the ties before nailing them down. And that is my Harley that I need to store in the garage, hence the offset peninsula.

The finished base module in place. I still have to do some shapeing as well as put on the front fasica board and shape it.

Well that's it for now. I've been working on my G scale train set that I put up around the tree so work on this layout is at a stop for a bit. I'm trying to install small Christmas lights I found at Michaels onto the side of my G scale passenger cars. Please provide any comments you may have on new layout design that I posted. I'm hoping soon to start building my turnouts. I'm building mine vice buying them. Wish me luck.

Time for an update.

Well I took 2 weeks off from work for a Christmas break. Did a little traveling and spent some time with the family. I took the Wife's grandfather down to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum while we were visiting them. We had a great time and was fitting for us since he's the one who got me started in building a model railroad. For you old timers who will remember them, he still has his pre war Lionel and Varney trains. I cleaned and oiled them for him and got them running again.

Anyways, on to the build. I also spent some time working on the layout while I was on vacation. i completed my modules and have them all mounted. I painted the back drop a base coat of sky blue and the modules a base coat of cowboy hat brown.  I've started putting down my subroadbed. I'm using Secenic express foam roadbed. I've painted some of my flex track using floquil paints, rail brown for the rails and railroad tie brown for teh ties. I've started pinning down some of the main line track and  running a few loco's around it to see how it works out. In doing this, I've found a few areas that I just didn't like they way they were or they way the train looked going around some of the curves, so I made a few changes.

In those changes, I've added a few cross overs to better facilitate use of the passing sidings and industries usage. I also added in a reversing section at each end so that i can run trains in any direction. But I'm probably going to need some help when it comes time to wire it up. Having a full scale printed layout sure helped a lot in figuring out what works and what doesn't. I've also decided to take some of the back return track that was originally all going to be hidden and leave it exposed in some areas, mainly the curve around the roundhouse and possibly at the stockyard area. I also changed the dual use module which is going to be my trinity river crossing to a single main line. This was based on some pictures I found of the actual bridge.

So on with the pictures of the progress. First is the new layout design. Or at least the permanent part. I still need to do some changes to the peninsula design since I've changed the dual use section where the bridge is going to be.

More pictures.

here's my modules all in place and painted.

lower right end in the layout drawing.

Looking down the yard from the curve to the round house.

The roundhouse area. this also shows my layout laid down.

Looking down the other leg towards the upper left curve in the drawing.

Here is the layout plan in

Here is the layout plan in place with some reference pictures.

The cattle pens at the stock yards.

The Swift packing company.

The Trinity River crossing north of town.

Some pictures for ideas of

Some pictures for ideas of the Swift packing area.

bridge module

Well hear we are with another update. First thing is that i tweaked the layout design a little. I'm not going to post a picture of the change but I moved the spur at the top left into the middle of the return loop on the top left. this gave me a little room to move the double spur right below it up a little to make some more room in that area and not crowd things.

Now on to better things. I started working on my bridge crossing module. I've glued down some pink foam and defined the river route. I then took some light weight spackling compound and spread over the foam making it smoother and shaping the rolling hills like I wanted to. I then painted it with Olympic interior flat latex Cowboy Hat Brown that looks similar to dirt from Texas. While the paint was wet, I sprinkled out some Woodland Scenics blended turf earth blend # T1350 over the wet paint. Once it was dry, I just shook off the excess on a piece of paper to save and reuse later. I was basically just playing around but like the way it came out so I think I'll keep it.

I'm going off of a picture I found on the internet of the Trinity River bridge crossing just north of Fort Worth. From what I can deduct from various pictures, there is a wooden trestle running from the upper ground down the bank to the river. This section in N scale measures out to be about 18". There is a steel girder bridge that crosses the river that sits on concrete pilings and measures out to be about 8" in N scale. Then there is another wood trestle on the other shore running up the bank that measures out about 8" in N scale. So that's what I'm going to set mine at. 

I have a return loop at the back of the module as can be seen in the layout drawing. I've tried to hide it with a backdrop mounted in the foam. The plan is to paint some scenery on it that will match up to the permanent backdrop on the wall. remember that this module is going to be removable and will be reused in the peninsula when it is put in place. So I have to paint the back drop to work in both places. So tell me what you think so far. My next step is to do the river, then paint the backdrop and then build the bridge and ballast the track.

More bridge module work

OK so I got some more work on my bridge module completed. I didn't like the flat grass at the top so I added in some grassy mounds. Once I put in some trees and such, it should look ok. I also tried putting down the base for my river. I took some light weight spackling compound and mixed in a little water and black paint to make it a bit soupy. In hind sight, I should have used more black paint as it's too light gray for what I'm trying to do. I've got a picture of the river at what looks like the begining or end of a storm. Lots of choppy water with a dark gray/black look on the water.

Here's the picture I found.

and here is my work.

I think your layout is coming

I think your layout is coming along very very nicely indeed!!

The choppy water looks good - dark blue, I think, or a brunswick blue-green!

Layout looks

You look like you are going great on your layout! If you have some time would you come up to Minnisnowta and do my bench work. Of course my layout room is unheated as of now, but what's a little chill in the room but an incentive to work faster (-10* inside)?  Looking forward to seeing more of your work as it progresses.

I'm looking forward to spring to start my own misadventures.

Happy Rails to You.

Bing

Thanks Guys

Bing, I'd love to come up and visit. But there's two problems that are keeping me from traveling there, my thermometer dosen't go below 40 degrees and you have white stuff all over the ground. 

The show must go on.

Well I got some color on the water. Not sure if I want to go darker still or not. Plus I still have to highlight the wave tops and then add the gloss coat. But you get the idea.

I've also been working on my bridge. I've made several bents using some stuff a friend of mine cut out for me after we designed it and figured out the right scale. I still need to weather it all and get the right track for the bridge. But I think it's coming along fine. It's not an exact copy of the prototype but it's pretty damn close. I've got to get some more bents to build the other side along with some materials to build the metal girder bridge. Then I'll work on weathering and such. The first two pictures are of the prototype.

More bridge pictures

Switches

I've also been working on building my switches. I've been using a home made jig a buddy of mine made me based off of the fast track #6 N scale switch drawing. We've found a few issues with the jig so he's making me another one. I didn't realize there were issues until I started trying to run some loco's thru them and they kept climbing the frogs. But we've got that figured out and so I hope to make more progress on my switches in the near future. I've got a total of about 55 switches to build so it's going to take some time. It took me about 4 hours to build the first one. It still took several hours to build the second as well. I hope I get better at it or this is going to take a while.

My second attempt at making my own switches. After a few tweaks, it works great.

More bridge work.

Well I got the parts for my Bents and built the wood tresle for the right side of the river. I also 'calmed down" the river a bit and tried darkening it up some. I'm still not happy with the color so more work to come on that.

I went to my LHS looking for a 8" thru girder bridge similar to the pictures I have but to no avail. So I picked up a couple of Atlas truss bridges and a pack of pier girder bridges to kit bash and build my bridge. I cut the trusses off of the sides of the bridge and cut one end off of each so that I could glue them together and make my long bridge that I needed. I also cut the end off of the pier girder to glue them together as well. I then took some 1/8 square wood stock I had and made some sides to glue to the bottom of the truss to get it high enough to clear my dome passenger cars and also to use to glue to the side of the pier girder. I also shaped up some wood I had into my concrete pylons for the ends of the girder bridge. Now I just need to paint/weather it all. So here's the pictures of what I have accomplished so far on the bridge.

Switches

Well I've also been working on building my own switch turnouts. One of the ideas I had was to build things like my yard ladder all as one piece so that way i would not have a bunch of rail jointers in there to contend with. So here's a few pictures of my progress so far. I'm still learning a few things as I go. I've figured out how to get the outer stock rails where I need them along with building/placing my frog points so that they work good and everything is in gage. Now I just need to master my point building so that they work and operate as smoothly as the rest of the switch.

This is my first attempt at building a switch.

This is my cross over switch for my reversing loop that is on the upper left of the layout plan. The upper one in the photo.

And my mini yard ladder in the stock yard area. It's still a work in progress.