Past Layouts - #1

The Apartment Railway
Since there has not been much going on with the current layout (Holiday celebrations, work, NMRA Division newsletter and life in general) I thought it might be fun to visit the past and show some of the layouts that have preceded the Northern Montana Line.

During the early 80’s, I got married, accepted a job transfer to Utah and began a new era in my life. We lived in apartments for to many years. I was anxious to build a layout. At the time I had a small stash of HO gauge equipment that I had collected while a member of the Great Falls Model Railroad club in Montana during my high school years. We finally moved into an apartment with a spare bedroom with enough space for a layout. The only problem is the bedroom was not big enough for an HO layout. The solution was to try and build something I had never attempted before. N SCALE! Now this was a big change for me. Early N scale was something that needed a lot of work, but I was determined that I WAS going to have a layout. So a small 2’x4’ portable layout was started to hone my basic model railroading skills. This was a simple folded loop with a town on each side. Not much to operate, but I was finally building something! Below are some of the only photos I took of the layout. I wish I had taken more. All this was pre- Kadee, DCC and the highly detailed models you can get today!

Snapshot Sunday - #23

Scan of a Polaroid from my second layout in 1974. The Montana Central & Southern.

Layout Update - #13

Another Rolling Stock Update
One of the industries on the NML is Fergus Gravel just outside of Geraldine on the way to Falls Yard. This industry loads hoppers and gondolas with ballast, rip-rap and other grades of gravel for various uses.

The gravel pit is actually off the layout and accessed by a road that will go from the ramp to the edge of the layout. I have always liked the empties-in and loads-out part of operations. The only way to make it work realistically enough is with removable loads. Time to build some loads!

Removable Loads for Cars
After searching local hobby shops and the internet, I have not been able to find ready to use loads that have the look I want. Then it hit me! The NML uses ballast pulled from the Fergus Gravel pit. The loads should have a similar look also. I created the loads using the most common method that most modelers use. A pink foam base covered with your favorite material. While the one photo below with the load sitting on top of the car shows a lot of pink foam, once it sits down in the car it doesn’t show.

Layout Construction – March 2012

Falls Yard Expansion
After the last USRM club meeting, I became inspired to finish the track work and get into full operating sessions. The Red Coulee bridge is far enough along to begin laying road bed for Falls Yard. After several weekends, the road bed for Falls Yard is complete. Next, building switches and starting to lay track. The yard consists of three yard tracks and  two engine house tracks. The rest are a grain silo spur and mainline with a passing track. Both the mainline and passing track will extend to removable staging tracks at the end of the layout.

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Additional Scenery Details
The paint I was using to cover-up the pink foam and plaster is a gloss orange-brown color. The paint is a reject from my sister-in-laws kitchen remodel. While not a bad color, I wanted something closer to nature. After searching the paint reject bins of several big box home improvement stores, I finally located an acceptable color in the rejects at a Wal-Mart. The upper left photo shows a sample of the new paint.

(Upper right photo) During a visit to my favorite hobby shop, The Train Shoppe, I acquired an NJ International set of crossing signals. To see how they look at the crossing in Denton, I installed one of the signals and powered it up just for fun.

(Bottom photo) Another just for fun project was placing Woodland Scenics Black Angus cattle in the stock pen at Denton. Additional cattle will be needed to justify the stock pen for the railroad. It is interesting that the manufacturer decided to include “cow pies” as part of the set.

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Layout Construction - January 2011

Laying track to Geraldine.
With the helix finished, it was now time to continue laying track to the next station on the line. Geraldine was originally created as a stop on the Milwaukee Road railroad. It was named for Almira Geraldine Rockefeller (or perhaps her daughter, Ethel Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge), the wife of William Rockefeller, the director of the railroad at the time. It is located 54 miles northwest of Lewistown and 48 miles southeast of Great Falls. Geraldine will feature a stock yard, the large Montana Elevator company and a gravel loading ramp. The ramp is not really located in Geraldine and not really for loading gravel. With artistic and operational license in mind, I attached the ramp to the end of Geraldine. The ramp was used as a different way of loading grain into box cars during the early years (see the photos below).

Turnout Control
I have mentioned the use of Bull Frog turnout controllers before, but hadn’t really discovered the best way to use them. On the upper level, I needed to make sure the control rods would be able to clear the lower level lights and operate reliably. It looks like I achieved success in the following photos. A big problem was the linkage from the fascia to the actuator. I cut apart a barrier strip and used only one at a time. Small screws located in the holes are tighten to clamp on the rod (actually another name for coat hanger wire). This allows for adjustment and easy assembly or disassembly.

Layout Construction - July 28, 2009

More progress
At this point I have added some additional benchwork to finish the approach to the bridge and tunnel. I have also added 1" thick pink foam for the track foundation.

Layout Construction - June 30, 2009

Testing the plan
On this day, I decided to check the accuracy of the XTrkcad program I was using to design the track plan. I laid out the prints from the program on the benchwork to get a feel for the layout (This is Great Falls yard). I designed the yard tracks to all curve slightly to make room for the grain elevator on the right. (The grain elevator will be cut down to hide the pipe coming out of the wall.) I wanted to make sure the curve and track spacing would not cause interference.

This another view of the yard.

Just having some fun using the close-up feature on the camera. Looks like I need to clean the real world weathering from the top of the caboose.