The D&J Railroad -- From Scratch


Professor;

How long are the trains you're planning on running? Any significant grades? How large is your space (40x50=2000sq. ft?). Reason I ask is I'm working on a layout roughly 26'x28' in HO. I figure my freights will be about 12-15 feet at most. Period will be as early as the mid 70's and as late as the late 90's.

Thanks,
Otis

PS: Good luck with the job hunt!
 
otiscnj said:
Professor;

How long are the trains you're planning on running? Any significant grades? How large is your space (40x50=2000sq. ft?). Reason I ask is I'm working on a layout roughly 26'x28' in HO. I figure my freights will be about 12-15 feet at most. Period will be as early as the mid 70's and as late as the late 90's.

Thanks,
Otis

PS: Good luck with the job hunt!
Click to expand...
I have been running test trains on the layout of 60+ cars. I'm sure I could run longer trains but I just don't want that much on the layout while I'm working on it.
The steepest grade is about 1 1/2 % for about 45'.
The square footage of the basement is a little over 2000sq ft. Dimensions are 55' by 35' with utilities and stair case in the middle. See layout drawing in post #62.
Smallest loop diameter (inside track) is 96" (48"radii).
 
Finished wiring up the frogs on the two turnouts to the freight yard. Initially, I was just going to run manual slide switches to control the turnouts, then changed my mind and went with Tortoise Machines. I had posted in the electrics section that I wanted to control the turnouts with momentary push buttons and that I had figured out how to do that. Well, turns out I didn't have it figured out. The second turnout and set of snap switches was to much for the power supply to trip them both at the same time, plus, the Tortoise Machines need constant power to them to keep the points hard against the inside of the rail. The three buttons on the board stock are residual from that little failed experiment. They will be coming out of there tomorrow.
The BLI AC6000 in the yard lead will go through the turnouts at about 1 mile an hour with no stalls.
This picture is in the background of post #78, just before the doorway.


three buttons.jpg
 
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Finally finished the run through for the freight yard. Fully accessable from both ends now.
Took a little time to run some trains. Here is a meet between a local coal handler and a run through container train. Both are BNSF livery. I'm pretty sure that the UP will be sending their units through here along with unpainted SP units.

yard.jpgyard
 
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As I get more work done on the layout, I wrap it up with running some trains.
Here, we can see some of the older Santa Fe units mixing in with the modern units just passing the end of the freight yard fiddle track.
In the distant background is a local coal drag just coming off the Backyard bridge.

mix.jpgmix

Strings of TOFC flats going through a mild curve are such an appeal.

TOFCs.jpgTOFCs
 
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I picked up on a great deal for this train this morning. It's the Broadway Limited California Zepher line. 18 passenger cars pulled by an F7 A&B unit. Both powered with sound.

F7 2.jpg F7 2
 
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Been running the CZ for a few laps to get it broken in. An amazingly detailed train.

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Starting on the first industry on the D&J Railroad. A coal loading facility.
The first picture is the area on the layout where the Facility will go, in the far left loop.
The turnout for the facility will be at the bottom left of the schematic. The track will follow the mainline around the curve then continue to curve away from the mainline as it crosses over the lower loop. The lower loop will disappear into a tunnel but the coal facility lead will be in the side of the mountain. The mainline where the coal facility track lead came off of will go into a tunnel at about the point were the coal track curves away from the mainline.

scematic.jpg



This is an overlay of the tracks and where the building will be on the layout.
the storage tracks will run along next to the mainline and the three track facility will be set further into the mountain side behind the storage tracks. The storage tracks will holds cuts of about 25 hoppers each.

Coal Facility.jpgCoal Facility


This is the before and after photos of where the coal facility lead will come off the mainline. I used a Walthers #10 turnout from the mainline and it will be manually controlled but will have signal lights on both sides of it. It took a couple of hours to add the benchwork extension to support the track then cut in the turnout and then lay the first few feet of cork road bed and track.

IMG_5653.jpg5653

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I went down to the basement this morning to start work on the layout again and I got distracted into listing some of my late wife's doll collection onto e-bay.
Anyway, got some more benchwork installed for the coaling facility. My jig saw finally gave up so I had to buy a new one. Settled on a DeWalt cordless 18V Jig Saw. Wow, what a difference in performance. I don't know how design makes a difference in how it cuts, but this is an amazing saw.
Anyway, back to the model railroading.
The foremost sheet of plywood is 7' long and is where the three storage tracks will split apart. The blue wall in the background is 16 feet back from the front edge of the plywood sheet. Yeah, I know. I said two storage tracks earlier but I changed my mind. I have a lot of coal hoppers.
The double track mainline on the right will be inside a tunnel at this point while the coal facility will be open and carved into the side of the mountain that covers the rest of the tracks.
There is almost 1 inch clearance above a double stack well car and the bottom of the plywood where it crosses the lower tracks.
The barbell plates are holding down the cork roadbed that I had just glued down.

IMG_5689.JPG5689
 
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Moving along kinda slow on the coal facility staging tracks. The benchwork extends about 2/3s of the way for staging and the track and roadbed are almost half way.

The tipple leads, three of them will come off the first turnout which under the first caulk tube that is laying on the facility lead. All the weights are holding the track and roadbed down while the glue dries.

IMG_6143.JPG6143
 
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Beyond impressive! Absolutely loving your model railroad layout. Your detailing seems pretty spot on, personally I never seem to have the initiative to put the time in. I'll keep following your thread, I wanna see how the whole masterpiece lays out. Beautiful work D&J!:D
 
I'm starting the benchwork for the intermodal facility. It will be about 75 feet from end to end. The first photo is the start of the benchwork. The #10 turnout will be cut into the mainline next to where it is laying. Note one mainline is wood ties and the right mainline is concrete ties.

This is a diagram of the layout and where the intermodal facility will be laid out. The tracks in the photo above will come off the mainline at the top left of the diagram. The tracks will split again for A/D tracks and follow the mainline down to the bottom of the center loop of the layout where it will fan out to several more tracks.


layout track 1.jpg


The loading/unloading equipment will be on the right side of the loop as illustrated in the diagram below. The A/D tracks will continue on up the right side of the loop and rejoin the mainline near the top of the diagram. Total run about 75 feet.


scematic intermodal.jpg
 

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More work on the intermodal facility yesterday. This benchwork seems to be taking longer to do than the original benchwork.
The first picture here is the continuation of the lead area from where it leaves the mainline but follows along next to it. There will be some long intermodal trains on this layout and I'll need a lot of track to park them.

This is the facility container staging area for loading onto trains or trucks. The double A/D track will continue down the right side of the loop and join back into the mainline in front of the window on the right. The train loading equipment will be just beyond the end of the plywood on the right.
 
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Finished the benchwork and laid the roadbed and track. Adding the final touches to the turnouts from the mainline and the start of the fiddle track.

The track on the left merges into the mainline back along the wall in the distance. The double track intermodal track extends around the loop and merges back into the mainline just beyond the turnouts. The fiddle track will extend beyond the mainline merge and wrap around the curve to the right.
There is almost 150' of track in this intermodal facility siding. The turnout for the mainline and the turnout for the fiddle track will be powered by Tortoise machines so that one slide switch will run both motors. The other turnouts will be ground throws because they don't need to be synchronized with other turnouts.
The upright 2x4s will support the drywall backdrop that will be installed just before the scenery is started. Drywall will also be installed along the bottom of the benchwork at the floor level to conceal the wood structure. Masonite board will be applied along the facing top edge of the layout for a finished look.



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i was wondering when you where going to show us a update!

Do you have help working on this huge layout?? If not, wow lots of work for one person!!

Very huge, i wish i could take over my basement and do something like this, i Only have a 18x18 corner of my open basement for my layout room, and im going to have to build up with a helix and a second level just so i can get more mainline run, otherwise the wife doesnt like :(
 
joed2323 said:
i was wondering when you where going to show us a update!

Do you have help working on this huge layout?? If not, wow lots of work for one person!!

Very huge, i wish i could take over my basement and do something like this, i Only have a 18x18 corner of my open basement for my layout room, and im going to have to build up with a helix and a second level just so i can get more mainline run, otherwise the wife doesnt like :(
Click to expand...
I've been in the job search mode for a while which takes away from the hobby time.
For the most part, I've done all the planning and work on this. A friend planned and laid most of the turnouts in the main sorting yard. I finished up the stretches of track through the yard and did all the soldering so far for the buss leads.
The initial work on the railroad began almost a year ago when I finished putting up the drywall and painting it.
 
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