Rock Island in the Rockies

[APOLLO]

Rather than post photos of my O gauge layout here and there about the forum in other peoples threads I have decided it's time to start a post to describe it.

 

First off, MODS - is this the right place for a US themed layout thread ?

 

I'll start off with the (complicated) track plan.

 

 

I started in American O gauge around 1980. I was going to do the UK scene, and actually bought a little British O gauge, but the Lima stuff was poor, and the good stuff expensive. I allways had an interest in American railroads, and when MG Sharp in Sheffield advertised Atlas F9's at £15 each, cars at £5, I was hooked.

 

A 22' x 12' concrete sectional garage was bought, electricity laid on, the whole shed was sealed, insulated with 2" polystyrene and 1/4" insulation board, floor sealed with diluted wood glue and I was off, The Colorado & Sawatch was born. Peco track was (and is still) used, the points having the unique ability to be easilly adjusted to accept course & fine scale wheels - I run both, still.

 

The baseboard was 2" x 2" roughsawn frames all nailed up & covered with 1/2" chipboard & brown painted 1/2" insulation board on top. Scenery was real red sandstone, & chicken wire on wood formers covered with pink plaster laden sackcloth, sprinkled whilst wet with various coloured sands, earths, etc. Floor to mountain top scenery, a bit (ONLY a bit) like John Allens "Gorre & Daphetid".

 

I have no uploadable photos of this early layout, I will get round to scanning old photos and add them sometime. The end came in 1993 when I got married & moved house. The layout was dismantled as was the sectional garage. What a job !! Eventually a new base was laid, garage re-erected, double glazed this time, electricity & connected to the house burglar alarm etc. The polystyrene insulation was re-used, but new 1/2" insulation sheeting installed. By 1995 I was back in business.

 

I learned alot from my early layout, the new one is a "Walk in" design, the bridge crossing the isle is a lift up one. No scenery below board level on this layout though, storage for bikes, freezer etc (the joys of marriage !!). As you can see, most pointwork (all hand operated) is accessible from the one isle. Again the scenery was built as before, the large & heavy sandstone rock being re-used. Incidentally all my sandstone came from south Warrington, road excavated material from the laying of new gas mains !!.

 

About this time I bought a tape "Rock Island railroad" and was converted to that road. But I don't like flat prarie scenery, however the Rock ran to Colorado Springs and Tucumcari (New Mexico) - great, mountains !!. A bit of research showed that the old Colorado Midland ran from Colorado Springs into the Rockies to Leadville etc. Also the narrow gauge Colorado Southern was in this area. My layout is based just south of Leadville (Buena Vista), SF, UP, RI have running rights on the (re-opened) Colorado Midland. The Sierra Electric is an interurban, however I have built the cars, but haven't strung wires yet. Colorado Southern narrow gauge is still "just about" running, on it's last legs. Alot of modellers Licence here !!

 

My Atlas F9's are Santa Fe, Union Pacific & Burlington Northern, so about right for the general area. I have 2 Weaver Rock Island RS3's and have repainted a couple of F units RI maroon.

Some Rivarossi steam locos run, 3 0-8-0 tender locos (need relettering to RI - yes the Rock had some similar 0-8-0's) and a couple of other Rivarossi steamers. Stock is mainly Atlas & Weaver, some intermountain kits etc. Wheel standards vary, as do couplings, but it all seems to work O

Passenger stock is thin on the ground, something I need to address.

 

Signals are not installed yet, but all the wiring is in. (it's been in since 1998 !!). The whole layout is wired & working, my mate made me 2 excellent 5amp controllers. The narrow guage has a hand held gaugemaster controller. As stated, all track is Peco bullhead (wrong for USA !!), loose ballasted with budgie grit on the main lines and black aquarium sand in the yards. No problems arise with loose ballast, my baseboards don't move - you can stand & jump on em - they don't move. Alterations etc are easy, with no damage to the track either.

 

Lots still to do - but not in the winter months. I try to run trains every week for an hour, even in winter - keeps the tracks clean etc.

 

Well thats enough talk for now - I'll post a couple of pix from a few years ago, and will post more soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brit15

[Allegheny1600]

Impressive!

That's my kind of layout! I love it!

Cheers,

John E.

[thirty2a]

There is not much to say for me but wow! I love it.

[mah644]

A very sizeable effort, even by American standards. Nice design and excellent construction. Your attention to detail is obvious and enviable.

 

Best Wishes--Carl

[PhilH]

Keep em coming - cracking layout and a lovely little helper too!

[APOLLO]

Thanks for the positive comments Guys n Gals.

 

Size of the layout goes back to when I lived with my parents, Back in the 60's I had a 7' x 3' triang TT layout, then we moved house and I went to British OO in the 70's, I modelled Garsdale on the the Settle & Carlisle. When I bought my first house it had small rooms, but a large back garden, and I loved those big American layouts (Pikes) in the Model Railroader mags, so I decided on an outside building, a concrete sectional shed, which is still in use from 1982. We never have enough room do we !!. I also decided to pack up the OO and go American O gauge - as I said it was cheaper than tri-ang Hornby OO back then. I thought alot about HO, drew up some horrendously complicated plans incorporating Chicago La Salle st (NYC, RI) and adjacent Dearborn (SF etc), city scenery, yards, 6 track main lines etc etc - never got beyond a few sketches thankfully.

 

I also built an OO layout based on Chesterfield Market Place in a spare bedroom in my present house in 1996, but when "my little helpers" (yes twin girls) were born in 2001 that layout also bit the dust. I'm up in the loft now with OO, in the Garage with O - out of everybody's way !!

 

I put the heater on today and ran a few trains. Bit of maintainence needed, which I will do if / when spring arrives. I dont envisage buying any more stock, I have enough and I have tons of work to be done with what I have - though I will tweek the layout & scenery a bit here and there.

 

You will note that I have moved the MPD to make a narrow gauge station & yards. This was done just after laying the track and was due to Bachman bringing out its narrow gauge range.

 

All the photos (including those below) are quite a few years old. I will take some new ones as the layout has progressed a bit. (but not alot) when I have done a spring clean soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If anyone has any questions etc please feel free to ask. Comments / suggestions are also welcome. I'm not a scale modeller, most of my stuff runs out of the box, but I have done a bit of repainting / weathering, and plan to do a bit more. The maroon RI F9 & black SP F9 are my own repaint work.

 

Brit15

[trisonic]

Yes, all North American stuff here!

We will be splitting it up into Models vs Prototype shortly........

 

thanks for posting.

 

Pete.

[signalmaintainer]

Very nice!

[F-UnitMad]

Sure I've seen this layout on a Forum somewhere before, but not sure where..??

Lovely stuff - Atlas F-Units right up my street although I missed the "Bargain" era you mention - Victors in London also had them, but by the time I got there around 1990 they wanted £70 for an F-Unit ... similar to what they go for these days sometimes.

Of course US O Scale is still far cheaper than British O Scale although it's suffered like all US outline recently by a weak £-vs-$ and Stupid Shipping Prices.

I've re-wheeled my F-units with NWSL wheelsets, as the original wheels had deeper flanges that I found caught the chairs on Peco track - have you found that?

 

I like the room-filling plan - does give the impression of being, not just an American-outline layout, but also built the way Americans would build it too, if you know what I mean...

[APOLLO]

I posted a few photos (probably including some above) on various posts over the last couple of years, but I thought it's better from now on to keep em all together in the layout's own thread.

 

I got quite a few things from Victors quite a few years ago, mainly Weaver freight cars and a couple of Weaver locos. Kittle hobby was also a good firm years ago for Rivarossi locos and plastic building kits. A firm down in Cornwall supplied the Weaver RS3 in Route of the Rockets colour scheme - £160 back in the late 80's.

 

I have no problems with Peco track - everything runs OK, fine scale & course scale (Atlas).

 

One firm I can recommend is P & D Hobbies, Fraser, Michigan USA. I had gear problems with 2 of my Weaver locos, split nylon main gears. P & D stock all weaver drive train spares, ordered via the net and they arrived the following week - brilliant.

 

http://pdhobbyshop.com/

 

Weaver is also a good firm, and was able also to supply spares direct. They have a very good PR department and answered my emails same day.

 

http://www.weavermodels.com/

 

In 2008 when you got over $2 to £1 I ordered another RS2 direct from Weaver via the net - VERY good service from weaver - the loco cost around £170 (at $2 = £1), shipping was about £20 but it was "delivered" to Parcel Force in Liverpool where I had to go and collect it (behind Broad Green railway station) then I had to pay duty, around £30 if I remember - so at the end of the day it wasn't quite the bargain I thought it was - but she's a beaut, RI maroon livery, metal body, VERY heavy and very powerfull.

 

Not much is advertised for American O scale in the UK these days, I suppose I was lucky to start off when I did. Tennants sometimes has a bit of secondhand in stock now & again. There's a guy in Morecambe sells American O scale, Quince Valley Designs, but i've never used them - any info / recomendations ?

 

http://www.quincevalleydesigns.co.uk/

 

Everything O scale is big bucks today - shame really as it really is a good scale to work in. I have some Lima, a train of metal wheeled bogie tankers and the long flat cars in the photo's carrying the VW's (Pound shop !!) are Lima. need decks and repaint etc (another job). I keep my O scale American head on when out shopping, especially in the cheapie shops - it's amazing what you find and can adapt - you can get away with murder with a layout like mine !!! I'll take a few up to date photo's soon.

 

Brit 15 (or should I sign off RS3 !!)

[Talltim]

Going off topic, do you have any pics of your Market Place layout you could post? Probably in another sub-forum!

[APOLLO]

Talltim - I have some pics, not brilliant as taken with an ancient digital camera.

 

I'll make a seperate layout thread soon for my loft layout and post them there.

 

Brit15

[F-UnitMad]

2008... £1 = $2.... oh happy days, don't remind me....

 

Second P&D Hobbies - used them myself, Pat answers eMail enquirys quickly too.

Tennants is my 'local' so have had a fair bit from them, too. They tend to have more 3-Rail stuff though.

Quince Valley; I think Jason is a member here and attends Guildex at Telford.

[APOLLO]

Not posted for a while, a bit done to the layout & I will post some new pix soon.

 

You may ask why the Rock Island. I found this video, explains it all - music is haunting "Midwest America" Just look at those passenger train formations - just asking to be modelled.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFBaN7vXAtk

 

Brit15

[The Lurker]

I followed the link to this thread from another topic and I'm glad I did - what a great layout. When I was kid I got a book out of the library that had pictures of US layouts like this in various different settings, spiralling, looping and climbing. I loved it. I drew loads of (impractical) layouts, set timetables, the lot. This has brought it all back!

[APOLLO]

Again not posted for a while. Some work done, will make an effort to clean up the junk yard and take some photos soon.

 

Many years ago (1992) ITV Channel 4 broadcast a documentary Hobo by John T Davis. I remember watching it at the time, very interesting film. The end clip with the song Silver Stallion was superb. Anyhow found the end bit on You Tube

 

 

and recently added to Youtube is the full documentary (the end bit above is a bit "mangled", and a couple of songs removed due to copyright.

 

 

Worth watching for the human element, some very touching scenes. American railroad modellers should add some hobo's / hobo signatures to bridges etc.

 

I will add "Bear Grease" handle to to my layout. Poor chap died in 2009. R.I.P.

 

Latest project is an Atlas F9, bought for £40 s/hand. She's a good un and runs well. Rock Island bought some F9's off Union Pacific, and just renumbered and added Rock logos, and just overpainted the Union Pacific on the sides, minimal spend, as the Rock always did.

 

Mine will look like this - next week hopefully

 

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=45763   This site has info re RI ex UP F9's

 

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/6/0/9/7609.1266889580.jpg

 

 

More soon.

 

Edited to add - Just found this interesting site, http://www.hobo.com/westbound.html   Those Hobos had interesting names !.

 

Brit15

Edited February 6, 2016 by APOLLO

[F-UnitMad]

Looks like there was a recent lineside fire in that pic!! Evidence of Rock Island's maintenance, maybe - or lack of...

[APOLLO]

I've been busy on the layout recently installing colourlight signals.

 

Over 15 years ago I installed miles of 6 core alarm cable from two overhed panels to my (then) proposed signal locations. Trouble was I did not have any signals !!. I home made a few for my previous layout but was undecided wether to go for LED or GOW bulbs. Over time I decided the previous signal wires / proposed signals were not correct, wrong positions etc. Hmmm, what to do?.

 

Looking on the Web this January I came across this site

 

http://brysonmodelrailways.co.uk/O-Gauge/Signals/LED/Page2.html

 

Which leads to this ebay supplier in China 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/150891857878?clk_rvr_id=1033717937686&item=150891857878&lgeo=1&vectorid=229508&rmvSB=true

 

Note the prices - £20 for 5 3 over 2 signals +£2 P/P. (buy it now)  The supplier in China, WeHonest.com looked a bit suspect, but has a 99.9% review. Anyway I placed a small order. It came within 2 weeks, all the way from China, well packed also. The signals work superbly off either 6V or 12V. I used 6V. They come completley pre wired and ready to use, complete with resistor fitted. I placed two more orders and they also came within 2 weeks. On test all aspects in all signals worked OK. I particularly like the green aspect, it's a proper "signal" green, not the usual sickly LED green.

 

Anyway, I now needed to bite the bullet & fit them. All the existing wiring was removed (and all used again), easy as it was in trunking. I decided not to use the overhead panels but to put the switches in several Maplins project boxes slung under the layout. The old overhead panels are now used to display paper track section switc diagrams and layout plans.

 

I sited the signals where I need them, and drilled holes & popped them in. The 6 core alarm cables were then run under the layout to the panel boxes with help from my twin girls (for extra pocket money !!). Now its just a case of connecting the signals to the wires and fitting out the switch panels. I've completed two - three to go. I use DPDT sub miniature switches bought in bulk from ebay at around 50p each.

 

I'm pleased with progress, it's been over 15 years since I started !!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When this job is finished next is layout / building lighting - far easier !!

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

[APOLLO]

Some weathering work on a recent cheap purchase

 

 

 

Brit15

 

[rockershovel]

I was much impressed by magazine coverage of the G&DRR in the 70s, I like this layout!

 

Don't care to dwell on the response from the domestic authorities if I suggested buying a garage fit a layout....

[D9020 Nimbus]

No doubt the prototype loco was also a cheap purchase (from the U.P., who once wanted to take over the Rock—the process took many years, and by the time permission was given, the state of the Rock was so poor the U.P. lost interest).

[APOLLO]

Long time since I posted - I must do some updates soon.

 

Just found this interesting site describing the Atlas O gauge range - which set me off in American O scale back in 1982 when it was as cheap as chips !!

 

http://tycotrain.tripod.com/atlas1970soscaleresource/index.html

 

Brit15

[Railpassion]

Wonderful layout, a real operators delight. Have you any more recent updates? Also, what happens with the high lines?