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The Saga of my Ever Shrinking Railroad, Part Duex

23544 Views 74 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  OldNoob, 
vsmith
Well here I go yet again, with another thread to document the planning and construction of my layout inside my new garage.


Heres a link to the original, now archived post:


http://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50168


I will attempt to repost all the original text and pictures sans replies, so there is a continuity to the progress.


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12/12/07


Its ALIVE!!


This will be the new home of the building log of my indoor layout, the Borracho Springs RR, a small mining themed line based on several historical lines like the Gilpin Tramway, the Coronada RR, later AKA the Arizona Copper Co RR, with influences from a couple model RRs, like John Allens G&D, Bob Hegges Crooked Mountain Lines, Malcomn Furlows work, and Joe Crea's Pitkin Tramway.

The Plan:
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/vsmith/GarageStudyTRY%20AGAINx2.pdf

The location is indoors again, like the previous incarnations, in my newly rebuilt garage which unlike the old one, is insulated and plywood sheathed on the interior walls. Almost all the benchwork is already completed for a previous plan which after setting up, I was unhappy with. The back wall of the garage is 19'4", the left side is about 9', and the right side is 10'6"

So away we go...



12/12/07 In addition to reworking the plywood I have a lot of prep work to do, including adding something (masonite?) over the plywood walls to paint the backdrop on, wiring busses, and adding flourescent lights under the overhead shelf. Then it will be adding plywood platforms for the upper track deck.

Scenery will be blue foam, with either cast foam or hydrocal details, we'll see which are easier to do. but that wont be till after all the track and wiring is installed and operation is in good shape. I've already reworked the expanded benchwork on the left side of the layout, that was the trickey one, still need to rework the right side plywood a little, maybe today or next weekend. Pics when the benchwork is finished..


12/23/07 A little progress. Got the benchwork expanded:

Left side benchwork, expanded to accomodate the R1 turnaround

Right side benchwork, widened about 12" for the R1 turnaround on this side and for the track on the fiddle yard.

Fiddle yard widened to accomodate 3 tracks.



12/26/07 Yesterday I began test fitting the track and building the plywwod subtrack for the elevated sections, starting on the left side and clearing off the benchwork as I move thru each section, already finding some reach issues that will be an issue when the time comes for scenery (not operations), as the layout is a tad higher than the last incarnation (42" vs 36"), mostly I just need to keep a short step ladder handy.


PS the door is finished and installed/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/laugh.gif
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W
Your layout is a real inspiration. I'm rethinking my basement right now. Although I should push on with the outdoor plans first.

Great visualization. Must be a ton of hand work. I use Google SketchUp for 3-D visualizations of projects. I've just started using it for an outdoor RR design effort. There's a free version and it allows you to import jpgs and others as a base for your drawings. http://sketchup.google.com/

Just strip off the labels and dimensions from base drawing and import it into SketchUp. You can resize it to match real world (indoor) dimesions. You're half way there. Add your buildings using the pull tool. You could create standard track sections and turnouts and reuse them but your plan is already well along.

The Big benefit is just what you're trying to accomplish here. Really nice thing is I can swing around and change point of view, computer does the redrawing in a split second. Another feature is that you can create a multipart visualization and "walk through" you're whole thing from an operator or train perspective.

Overall, SketchUp is relatively easy to learn and has lots of video tutorials and friendly user forums. Anyone who works in CAD can grasp the concepts very quickly.

Have fun and share any images you create.:)
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vsmith
Well the shrinking rairoad has done the Big Shrink, yet again, almost out of existance. Too many other outside pressures means I'v had to pull it up again from its permanant benchwork which have been reassigned to other uses. This turn of event is a major reason behind my downsizing. I still have the Portable Pizza, which will be my primary focus from here on out. I'm planning to add yet another (R1 loop) layer too it, this time it will be on rollers so it can be moved about, but my 10year dream and seamingly constant struggle to push the boulder up the hill and build a large permanant room size layout is over for good, or at least until I can freely devote a dedicated space (indoor or out) that will not have to do double duty with other uses, maybe in 10 or 20 years when I retire, or is that IF retire...but this is the 5th time I've had to dismantle a layout and quite frankly thats more than enough for a while... I'm still deciding whether to add to this thread for the new Portable additions or to add to the already developed Portable building log, thats all I had to say.

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blackburn49
Posted By vsmith on 06/09/2009 9:36 PM
Well the shrinking railroad has done the Big Shrink, yet again, almost out of existance. Too many other outside pressures means I've had to pull it up again from its permanent bench work which have been reassigned to other uses. This turn of event is a major reason behind my downsizing. I still have the Portable Pizza, which will be my primary focus from here on out. I'm planning to add yet another (R1 loop) layer too it, this time it will be on rollers so it can be moved about, but my 10year dream and seemingly constant struggle to push the boulder up the hill and build a large permanent room size layout is over for good, or at least until I can freely devote a dedicated space (indoor or out) that will not have to do double duty with other uses, maybe in 10 or 20 years when I retire, or is that IF retire...but this is the 5th time I've had to dismantle a layout and quite frankly that's more than enough for a while...




Wow. Another one bites the dust: The "Saga of (your) Ever Shrinking Railroad" definitely says it all. Just keep on hanging in there and good luck.
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T
Dang drat it Vic...

You had the garage completely rebuilt (with an attached hobby room) and *still* couldn't get the space?

Oh well, maybe you can dedicate part of the new expansion to the house for your layout...or maybe you have a crawlspace you can partly excavate and make into a basement?

Real bummer...
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vsmith
The garage was never rebuilt specificly for the layout, it was because the old one was in danger of falling over, and the attached room was intended for a home work studio but has morphed into a storage room, thats one of the big hangups, all the crap I cannot seam to convince the boss we need to dispose of, if I want to clear that room out I need to move it to the garage, so the layout which eats up a big chunk of the garage had to go to make room for things as well as an old car I either have to restore or get rid of. Add in my bikes and bike tools and the movable portable micro-layout starts making a hellova lot more sense...



Heres the new direction, with the existing portable nested on top so it will still be removable for exhibition. The entire thing will be on rollers so its possible to move it around as well. This plan shows an attachable fiddle track shelf at the rear, still thinking about that. Bit of a big change aint it?
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T
Too much stuff, too little space...

Maybe, once you get some stuff moved out, you could start on a series of interconnected 'shelf modules'....
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wchasr
Vic I completely understand about the too much stuff and not enough space problem. Had it mostly under control with my wife. The kids were another story but they've gotten used to daddy bulldozering their bedrooms at least twice a year to purge toys they do not use anymore. my mother will simply not give up her stuff. She's got things she's moved 6 or more times from one house to another. Over and over again. Now that hopefully she is settled in she can use some of this stuff but there is no room for it all at this point. Then there is me. I've purged a LOT of things but the trains keep expanding to fill my space and I've yet to set ANYTHING up. (sigh) I'd had a lot of the back yard available at one point but then we got the dog. Now I'm re-thinking the yard again. You'll get there ... at some point. I started this hobby with a long term goal and I've got some time yet to acheive it. The deadline was flexible and I'm adjusting to that concept. I don't neccesarily NEED it now but it would be nice to be able to run all or even some of my trains. I understand your purging and feel your pain.

Chas
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Les
Vic,

I'm a little late to the thread, but I'm sorry to see your layout coming down. I will miss those neat bashes you keep coming up with. Don't give up, things change quickly, sometimes.

Les
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vsmith
Hi Les, I'm still kicking - all that came down was the bigger permanant layout, not my workbench. Alot of the stuff I've been selling lately is the stuff that was just too big for the new direction ;)
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Les
Oh, okay. From what I understood, you were sorta kinda giving it up for awhile.
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vsmith
I am taking a break till I can make a hole in the pile of stuff, once I unload the "too-big" stuff I will pick up again.
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markoles
Vic,

I seem to recall seeing pictures of your old outdoor layout. Does that still exist? To ease the pain of having no where to run, are you able to do 'temporary' patio layouts? It is not like it rains out there in socal.
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vsmith
Hi Mark, no that all got pulled up when we did the garage, the ground got all torn up for the power and water lines had to go to the garage, and the boss has been very reluctant to let me put anything back down as she has "other plans" for it, namely paving all of it in. I could lay track down on the concrete but I dont think it would go over very well. I just need to be patient till I can get back to building the tier 3 on the portable, which maybe starting soon.
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vsmith


To whom it may concern, due to circumstances beyond my control (Vertical Scope screwing the pooch and deleting 80MB of my photo history three months ago with no resolution) This and all other threads of my 10+ years of activity on this site are now closed, if you are curious please look to my identical threads on LargeScaleCentral which in the coming months I will attempt to re-edit photos into from my personal archives once I have a new storage site up and running. It was fun while it lasted but the collective of monkeys now running this site now have soured my experience. Have a good day.
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OldNoob
vsmith said:
To whom it may concern, due to circumstances beyond my control (Vertical Scope screwing the pooch and deleting 80MB of my photo history three months ago with no resolution) This and all other threads of my 10+ years of activity on this site are now closed, if you are curious please look to my identical threads on LargeScaleCentral which in the coming months I will attempt to re-edit photos into from my personal archives once I have a new storage site up and running. It was fun while it lasted but the collective of monkeys now running this site now have soured my experience. Have a good day.
Click to expand...
I know that feeling, it's so frustrating.
Some years ago i was part of a modeling forum that staunchly advocated hosting thread images through the forum website and not other sites. They claimed the images were more secure. Well sure enough the forum got revamped and everyones thread images got deleted despite their claims. From there on out i have stored my images with Flickr which is a dedicated image hosting site.
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