In Progress Photos

[JWB]

I notice several guys have been posting in-progress shots. Here are a few from my layout. I'm starting a push to complete the least-finished area on my layout, and I find that taking and posting photos can be a big motivator, as well as a way to see areas that need improvement.

 

The layout design/prototype modeler types are going to get the vapors at some of the things I do, but they're welcome to work on their own layouts while we talk. This peninsula has been designed to interweave three big fields of interest that I've developed as a railfan: German/Austrian prototype, US West Coast prototype, and HOn3, mostly D&RGW but not ruling anything else out completely.

 

Here is a photo looking down the upper HOn3 terminal, a wye based roughly on Cerro Summit or Cumbres. It was retained from an earlier layout and is being reinstalled, however with some new track and Tortoise switch machines replacing twin coil.

You can see the German-type line running directly under this segment.

 

Here is a shot from a position to the left and forward of the last shot, showing the German line and the US West Coast line below it.

As scenic work proceeds, I will add trees and rockwork to isolate the two visually and normally photograph the two lines separately.

 

Here is a shot looking from the other side of the stone arch bridge toward the position of the last photo:

 

You can also see a certain amount of John Allen influence on the layout's overall design. The HOn3 roadbed to the summit is waiting to be placed on the L-girder risers shown in the center of the photo. There is US prototype hidden staging at the bottom level here. The benchwork is generally L-girder, pushing the envelope about as far as I can think of to push it.

[sunshine coast]

Some interesting ideas on the go there .....I think a lot of us have varied interests in railways but not often put together in the same layout ...yet there is no reason why not,as our layouts are our own expressions of railways in miniature ..

 

How big is it overall ?

 

Regards Trevor ...

[alcoRS1]

 

Here is a shot looking from the other side of the stone arch bridge toward the position of the last photo:

 

 

hello I see some SP&S alcos.

[JWB]

Trevor, the room is in a semi-basement in a hillside house, not that much different from John Allen's, 16 by 37 feet overall. AlcoRS1, I did say West Coast!

[Barry Ten]

Thanks for the shots, JWB - I like your comment about layout design types getting the vapors. As you say, you've got a layout, somewhere to run your different interests, whereas a lot of the theoreticians are probably still doodling in their armchairs.

[JWB]

Here's another in-progress shot. This would be against the far wall, maybe 10 feet to the left on the line visible in the background of the third photo in my first post.

As I said earlier, John Allen's last G&D had a lot of influence on my layout design. He had a four-times-around main line, made up of two superimposed inverted figure-eights. He never finished the upper level, and I took that as something of a warning. My space is somewhat less than his anyhow. My layout is a twice-around main line, but like the G&D taking advantage of the semi-basement walls without windows to climb up to chin level. The Moffat Tunnel portal is close to the summit (which is in the middle of the tunnel, like the prototype). I deliberately took the shot to show how the line dodges some sewer pipes in this area. I'm not sure how much I can scenic it, as a plumber may at some point need to reach these pipes, and there's no point in wasting his time having to tear out scenery if necessary. So I'm still musing about exactly what additional scenery I will add here. The portal is from the former Mr. Plaster.

 

You may be able to see that the track through the tunnel is dual gauge. This is another idea I had from John Allen, using dual gauge on one iteration of the main line. Naturally, certain people will have the vapors over this.

[JWB]

Here is a photo of the other end of my narrow gauge, at the town of Anthracite. This is maybe 50 track feet and 30 actual feet from the upper end shown above. The Moffat Tunnel portal is in between. You can see an Atlas turntable that has had a length of HOn3 track placed on top of the HO track to allow it to turn HOn3 locos. This will be concealed by a covered turntable snowshed, very common on the Colorado narrow gauges. That allows the whole ugly Atlas deal to disappear but still be operable.

The tail track behind the turntable runs a few inches into the wall, just to give me those few extra inches. I added this for the same reason the Colorado narrow gauges also added it, to allow a loco to get in behind the rotary or the wedge plow to be able to turn that and run out in the other direction. You can see that the scenery is roughed in, and the mountainside will fit pretty closely around the snowshed, which of course will be removable.

In light of the discussion on backdrops, here is a view about 130 degrees in the other direction toward a more completed area, showing how I've blended middle-foreground scenery in with the layered backdrop. The area around the covered turntable will be pretty much like this, though probably with some spring snowdrifts just for effect.

 

I think I'll be concentrating on this part of my layout for the next six months, since it will be on a tour for the Sn3 Symposium in Monrovia, CA in February. Anyone in the area is welcome to contact me for info. The layout is HO-HOn3, but the Sn3 people are pretty flexible.