With the wall up, I was able to play around with deck height again. This has the decks at 45 and 64.5 inches with the valence at 83 inches.
The last bit of progress was to start adding valence brackets under the sheetrock.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
March Progress
I made some progress on the section house in March. I decided to start by building a wall roughly in the middle of the room to hang the benchwork from. Matt Latham came over to help.
With the wall up, I was able to play around with deck height again. This has the decks at 45 and 64.5 inches with the valence at 83 inches.
With a rough idea of where the decks will be, I got some 1/4" sheetrock and covered the wall at the top.
The last bit of progress was to start adding valence brackets under the sheetrock.
With the wall up, I was able to play around with deck height again. This has the decks at 45 and 64.5 inches with the valence at 83 inches.
The last bit of progress was to start adding valence brackets under the sheetrock.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Demolition
When the section house was remodeled in the 1990s, they installed two handicap ready restrooms. The previous owner kept them and ran tracks through along the wall.
While this provided a great place for the dispatcher to sit, it used a significant amount of space that I wanted to reclaim for the new layout. There is space in a closet between the furnaces that can be used for a toilet and sink.
My friend Matt Latham helped me with the demolition.
We tacked the two outside walls in one evening. There was a lot of sheetrock to remove, but it went pretty easy.
The wall separating the two bathrooms was made of OSB, insulated and a little tougher.
While this provided a great place for the dispatcher to sit, it used a significant amount of space that I wanted to reclaim for the new layout. There is space in a closet between the furnaces that can be used for a toilet and sink.
My friend Matt Latham helped me with the demolition.
We tacked the two outside walls in one evening. There was a lot of sheetrock to remove, but it went pretty easy.
The wall separating the two bathrooms was made of OSB, insulated and a little tougher.
Chimneys
The section house has two brick chimneys that are right in the middle of the layout space. Shane built around them, but I wanted to use the space. I called a couple guys about having them removed, and for $500 plus haul off, I was in business.
Nothing a screw gun and pry bar couldn't take care of.
This chimney also had been dressed up with sheet rock.
The next day the demo guy was done.
All that was left was a pile of 120 year old bricks in my trailer. A couple people came and salvaged what they could and the rest went to the dump.
The chimney in the east room is pretty accessible, even when covered with sheet rock. In the west room there was still a couple walls and backdrops surrounding it.
Nothing a screw gun and pry bar couldn't take care of.
This chimney also had been dressed up with sheet rock.
The next day the demo guy was done.
All that was left was a pile of 120 year old bricks in my trailer. A couple people came and salvaged what they could and the rest went to the dump.
Lone Star Region of the NMRA Division 1 meeting
I had the guys from my LSR division come over and see the progress... or lack there of on January 17, 2015. This seems to be the kick in the ass I needed to get going.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Layout Home
I started coming out to Argyle about 10 years ago to work and operate on my friend Shane's layout. He had moved the Roanoke T&P section house on to about 2 acres of pasture in 2000 and was building a large, double decked T&P / MKT themed layout in it. This was a regular place for our informal Thursday Night Jazz and Pie Society round robin group to meet. The section house was built in in 1895.
My wife and I spent most of the summer of 2013 looking for a new house on a piece of land. We wanted something between Denton, TX and McKinney, TX. Ideally, I was looking for a place with a metal shop building that I could use as a layout room. I mentioned in passing to Shane that we might be neighbors soon, and he told me he had put his house in town and the land with the section house up for sale and was moving to the piney woods of East Texas. My wife liked the idea of Argyle because it's about a 7 minute drive to her job at Peterbilt Motors in Denton. For me, not so close.
Before I knew Shane was moving, he had ripped out his layout and burnt most of the benchwork. This is what the section house looked like when we decided to buy the property. The two columns are brick chimneys that have had sheetrock boxes built over them.
The section house is roughly 85'x14.5' inside, with the middle taken up by two wheel chair accessible rest rooms and two furnaces. The building was renovated in the 1990s and was used as two separate offices. The insulation was also upgraded at the time.
My wife and I spent most of the summer of 2013 looking for a new house on a piece of land. We wanted something between Denton, TX and McKinney, TX. Ideally, I was looking for a place with a metal shop building that I could use as a layout room. I mentioned in passing to Shane that we might be neighbors soon, and he told me he had put his house in town and the land with the section house up for sale and was moving to the piney woods of East Texas. My wife liked the idea of Argyle because it's about a 7 minute drive to her job at Peterbilt Motors in Denton. For me, not so close.
Before I knew Shane was moving, he had ripped out his layout and burnt most of the benchwork. This is what the section house looked like when we decided to buy the property. The two columns are brick chimneys that have had sheetrock boxes built over them.
The section house is roughly 85'x14.5' inside, with the middle taken up by two wheel chair accessible rest rooms and two furnaces. The building was renovated in the 1990s and was used as two separate offices. The insulation was also upgraded at the time.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Track Plan
I worked on this double decked track plan to present at the Spring 2014 LDSIG/OPSIG meet in Tulsa. Click on the image or download a high resolution pdf.
First Post.
Thanks for joining me as I begin to document the construction on my new model railroad. After spending the last 20 years collecting and trying to model the Camas Prairie of Northern Idaho, I'm changing my focus to Northern Wyoming and Southeastern Montana.
The reason for the change? Now that I have the space, I wanted a model railroad built for mainline operation. The Camas Prairie was a very charming branchline in a forested, mountainous area that features 3% grades and giant trestles. While I never had the space to model that part, the switching layout I built based on Lewiston, ID satisfied my operating interests. Like many others, it was heavily influenced by my friend Jim Senese in Claremore, OK - albeit, on a much smaller scale.
As I see it today, the new railroad will run from my home town of Sheridan, WY north and west to Laurel, MT. Sheridan to Huntington, MT was owned by the CB&Q. From Huntington to Laurel, the CB&Q had trackage rights over the Northern Pacific mainline.
Laurel has a large classification yard, roundhouse, icing facilities, grain elevators and a small oil refinery. The NP continues west from Laurel to Washington and the coast. South or Laurel is the CB&Q's line to Casper and Denver through Wind River Canyon. The Great Northern connection to Great Falls was at the east end of the Laurel yard at Mossmain. There were also a handful of branchline jobs that ran out of Laurel like Redlodge and Shepherd.
16 miles or so east of Laurel is the commercial center of this part of Montana, Billings. Besides the typical warehouses and other businesses found throughout the intermountain west, Billings features a sugar factory, two large oil refineries, a coal fired power plant, a flour mill, grain elevators and meat packing. There is also a regional passenger station, a small classification yard, a roundhouse and engine service facilities. The Yellowstone river bisects Billings from the industrial East Billings.
From Laurel to East Billings is double track and governed by Rules 251-254 for directional running, according to the time table. East Billings to Huntley is CTC territory.
Billings and Laurel would make an interesting layout in themselves with plenty of industrial switching and yard operations. The 16 miles between is many times more than most model railroads can accommodate. However, I wanted a significant piece of dark territory that can be dispatched by Timetable/Train Order.
I decided to add the CB&Q between Huntley and my home town of Sheridan, Wyoming. This line wasn't signaled until the 1980s and offers operating interest as a connection to railroads south and east of Laurel.
The reason for the change? Now that I have the space, I wanted a model railroad built for mainline operation. The Camas Prairie was a very charming branchline in a forested, mountainous area that features 3% grades and giant trestles. While I never had the space to model that part, the switching layout I built based on Lewiston, ID satisfied my operating interests. Like many others, it was heavily influenced by my friend Jim Senese in Claremore, OK - albeit, on a much smaller scale.
 |
| Friends operating my Lewiston layout. |
Laurel has a large classification yard, roundhouse, icing facilities, grain elevators and a small oil refinery. The NP continues west from Laurel to Washington and the coast. South or Laurel is the CB&Q's line to Casper and Denver through Wind River Canyon. The Great Northern connection to Great Falls was at the east end of the Laurel yard at Mossmain. There were also a handful of branchline jobs that ran out of Laurel like Redlodge and Shepherd.
16 miles or so east of Laurel is the commercial center of this part of Montana, Billings. Besides the typical warehouses and other businesses found throughout the intermountain west, Billings features a sugar factory, two large oil refineries, a coal fired power plant, a flour mill, grain elevators and meat packing. There is also a regional passenger station, a small classification yard, a roundhouse and engine service facilities. The Yellowstone river bisects Billings from the industrial East Billings.
From Laurel to East Billings is double track and governed by Rules 251-254 for directional running, according to the time table. East Billings to Huntley is CTC territory.
Billings and Laurel would make an interesting layout in themselves with plenty of industrial switching and yard operations. The 16 miles between is many times more than most model railroads can accommodate. However, I wanted a significant piece of dark territory that can be dispatched by Timetable/Train Order.
I decided to add the CB&Q between Huntley and my home town of Sheridan, Wyoming. This line wasn't signaled until the 1980s and offers operating interest as a connection to railroads south and east of Laurel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)