Time for another update now that more track has been ordered and further plans made. Budget is tight, so I took a minimalist approach for now. I'll be adding two sidings to permit runaround moves, one at Camp 10 and another up at Crater Lake Junction, along with installing the wye at the end of track in Crater Lake. The 8 turnouts and most misc track materials like rail joiners are already here.
For now things involve preparatory work only, because ME is still working to get the mold for HOn3 code 70 flex track back into production. They announced last Sept that they have managed to obtain the services of a tool and die maker to handle this fix and several other projects after it's done. I heard one reference recently that it still could be as much as 6 months away. Meanwhile, I have two bundles of weathered code 70 backordered and really hope to see them sooner than mid-summer.
Anyway, maybe you can visualize where the missing track will go. First the siding at Camp 10. One switch is in the foreground, the other down just past the passenger shelter.
Here's a pic of the other switch by the Camp 10 shelter.
Anither siding will go in at Crater Lake Junction to provide a runaround to serve spur up to Camp 13, as well as the nearby quarry and the rest of nearby area.
Crater Lake itself will be able to use the wye there for some switching as well as turning equipment. I added a short extension to one tail track this evening to make working trains there easier. Here's a pic of the turnout to nowhere at the wye in CLJ.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Wow Mike talk about some amazing mountains and fits in perfect with the Steam.
Lynn
Present Layout progress
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/290127/3372174.aspx#3372174
Lynn,
Thanks!
I really try to make those mountains taller than they appear and it mostly works. I would love to have a train room with 16' ceilings, where you have to belay to work around the peaks
Since I had to settle for 6'6" ceilings, I do the best I can.
Here's couple more. A view of the Crater Lake Stone mill at Purgatory...
And one that shows a view of Crater Lake, where a wye is being constructed at the end of the line. The papers, etc in the foreground really contrast with the distant mountains...which are only 3' away at most.
The Camp 10 siding depicted above will change slightly now that I've looked at it and measured things. Will wait until I have the track to set things out.
Next is Crater Lake Junction, where 3 turnouts will provide a passing siding and access into Crater Lake. Just a fuzzy pic for now. The 3rd turnout is off in the distance and will connect to the turnout in the left foreground.
In Crater Lake proper, I moved the wye out far enough so the tail track will hold 3 passenger cars to enbale a whole train to be turned, although the motive power would have to be turned separately from the rolling stock. You can sorta see where the things have been moved out of the corner about 6" to 8". This also makes the track somewhat accessible for routine maintenance.
At the far end, I added a subroadbed extension that allowed even more room on the other tailtrack. There's also more room for the siding that will serve the tie cutting operation.
Finally, the long view shows where the tracvk was shifted out to move the tail track turnouts out for more room.
Now all I need is for Micro-Engineering to start spitting out code 70 HOn3 flextrack...
Since it looks like ME is still a ways off with code 70 HOn3 flex, I went ahead forth ME code 55. The code 70 to code 55 transition rail joiners are a bit wonky, but they work. So with the arrival of supplies, the track laying began.
I widened Crater Lake about 2" to get a little extra elbow room by scabbing on some more wood like this.
The Big Test. Would a K-27 go around the 17" radius wye leg? Yes!
Finally reached the end of the line...
Things leveled up pretty well, except for the tail track. Once I got everything else level, it's end was blocked from rising by the AL sheeting of the backdrop. I was able to reach in with tin snips from the bottom, made slices on ither side of the subroadbed, and lifted. I'll disguise things better when I get a chance, but it's really only visible from one direction.
The end of the track really
is the end...
The tail track limits what can be turned to just three passenger cars, so the loco has to drop it and runaround the wye to finish turning them.
Crater Lake Junction got a passing track, also. There will be at least one more through track here eventually, as well as a couple more spurs.
Camp 10 also got a passing track/siding
Now I can do exciting things like meets
This ends the tour for now, but I'd be glad to answer any questions.
Thanks for looking!
Been tuning track and correcting some minor issues, but had some time for some more scenic pics.
345 is "close to the edge" of a 5.5' drop to the floor, but I've since filled the gap next to the fascia to make things safer. You can see the tie mill on the right, next to my low relief mountains.
A good clear pic of the track arrangement at Crater Lake
A look down into the unfinished quarry scene.
The track at Crater Lake Junction. The uphill track on the right is the logging branch up to Camp 13. In the other direction is the lead to the Crater Lake quarry track. The tracks on the left lead into Crater Lake proper.
Camp 13 is a pretty lonely place right now, but will be the site of some serious logging action and another spur.
The lower track is the Cascade Branch as it nears Summit.
Between Crater Lake Junction and Summit is the site of the Outlaw Mine.
Just south (RR east) of Black Cat Junction is Camp 10, where they've been busy loading raw poles to send to the treatment plant in Alamosa.
At Purgatory, the Mountaineer stops for water and any passengers at the stone station there. Stone stations are unusual on the Rio Grande, but with stone being a major commodity on the Cascade Branch, it was worth the extra expense. A stone station is planned for Crater Lake.
Having troubles with pictures these days, but it's not consistent. Let's if these appear...
The B&B gang has been busy in Crater Lake. They've finished the station and stockyards. On the other side of the track, they built a water tank and coaling platform.
Everything is mostly from scratch. I used some Grandt windows and doors on the station and the pens are leftover parts from Walthers stockyard kits.
I even made my own spout for the water tank, after reading a post or article about someone using shrink tubing to make windsocks. Using 1/8" Plastruct tubing and an elbow fitting, I made the end of the spout.
Slide and glue some 3/16" OD and 1/4" OD tubing on after tapering around the spout end of each piece. You could also use some putty to help smooth further.
Here is the shrink on the armature that was just made. The trick is not to much heat, as you want to lessen the bump at each section of tubing, not exaggerate it.
My arrangements for handling the spout are rather crude but look right at the minimum 2' viewing distance.
When I think "Cascade", I think the mountain range that runs from northern California up through Washington States. So it's a strong association when I read the title of this thread! I'll have to work hard to break it!
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Jim,
I've not had the pleasure of visiting those areas more commonly associated with Cascade. For me, Cascade is a place I've been by many times on the D&S, but have never been off the train near there, save for the 1996 Nat'l Narrow Gauge Convention special. Milepost 477 on the Silverton Branch, to be more exact. Since my branch is imaginary, maybe it just sticks better than reality for me?
That does bring up the subject of freelancing, which can range from the implausible to the almost real except for the missing rails. I stuck to real places on the line with the majority of the layout, but got the itch to do something a little different. In part, it's that old "keep on building" thing many of us get enthralled by. But the Cascade Branch also serves an imprtant function of spreading out my operators from the crowded aisle in the main layout room. Additionally, it serves to provide better, more diverse traffic, because it supports a lot of "open load" operations with logging, stone, and aggregates. Once Black Cat Junction becomes more than a wide spot in the road, I'll add oil production to give another place for oil to originate from for the refinery in Durango, as well as a destination for pipe trains.
Here are some more pics along the Cascade Branch.
Before
After
OK, got that After pic fixed I think. The perils of operating with XP at this point, I suppose.
BTW, the scene at Crater Lake is pretty deep, even for my long arms. The liftout pieces of the quarry takes care of one side, while the long low relief mountains, hill and trees on the adjacent wall is also a long liftout. I designed the whole subroadbed base of Crater Lake to liftout in order to fcailitate trackwork. But's it's hevay and my back is flaky.I manged to shift a couple of things, primarily moving the tailtrack tuirnout close enough to the aisle side to reach in to lay it, so left things in place and proceeded anyway.
The problem is reaching the area around the tail of the wye track that goes all the way back to the corner. That's where the conveyer leads to the crusher in the next pit back (not modeled). The conveyor itself hangs off the back of the bin assembly on a wooden peg. I can leave it hooked up and reach in to place the bins and it attached to them.
But then there was the support tower for the conveyer. It was too long to look right without some support. I could use the grabber to place it back there, but how to accurately measure it? And exactly where would the legs sit, since the tower's location is not visible from the aisle due to falling off terrain back there?
The solution turned out to be using the camera held high enough to see it to take a picture of the grabber sizing up the "foundation" site. With the measurements, I built a tower, then placed it correctly with the grabber.
Thought I'd do an overview of where the Cascade Branch is now by throwing up a few pics tonight as the start of a tour of the line, then continue to the end of the line, which has now been extended beyond where the passenger train was shown in the pic toward the top of the page.
First, some pics of Tefft where the Cascade Branch leaves the Durango to Silverton line. The grade behind the stationis the ruling grade for the line, so if you can make that, you're good over the whole line.
The only problem is that there is no place to turn a helper loco except for going to Silverton. I'm going to move the worker's housing up to Black Cat Junction and build anotherlike the one at Purgatory phone jack turntable so there's a way to turn locos at Tefft. That way they don't need to go to Silverton, another way of spreading out my operators which was one of the original goals of thos project.
After going behind the mountain and through the wall, trains emerge form the "anti-tunnel" for the operator, it looks like the track emerges from a deep cut as it turns to pass in front of the Purgatory station.
If you were follwing through the thread, you'll have noted that I changed the track around some after I got used to how it would work best by operating Purgatory. I recently added stockyards, a brewery, and a coal and oil dealer. All are being developed and there may be more changes.
One thing I sought to avoid was over-planning. I made sure basic stuff was provided for, but left lots of space to get creative. Another example is Camp 10. I'm still working on it, but it now offers a siding for passes and loading poles to sent to the plant in Durango.
Here's a pic of the siding at Camp10.
Back with more later.
Once all the track is in place, it will be essentially double track from Camp 10 to Black Cat Junction. This will facilitate loading poles and making up long trains for the mill at Rockwood. The Mears Logging outfit will have its woods HQ and shops here. At one time I also planned to shoehorn in a pipeline terminal for a pipeline from nearby oilfields. Too much stuff, too small a space. I solved it, but will leave you in suspense until we arrive at the solution.
Leaving BCJ, the track curves behind the mountains...
Trains have to work their way up a side canyon to reach Summit, which is on the east side of the actual grade crest, but close enough.
Here's looking ahead at the crest of the actual grade. No ballast on the track yet, but I'll deal with the small gaps along the roadbed edges from where the modules sit when that project is due.
Stepping back to get a good angle, next up is the site of what will be the Outlaw Mine, named in honor of a group of HOn3 buddies who keep the homefires of narrowgauge modeling alive even when I'm too busy to join them
Next is Crater Lake Junction. You can take the logging spur up to Camp 13, the track down into the quarry, or the track into Crater Lake and beyond to Snowden. To the right and up a 2.5% grade is the line to Camp 13. The lines to the other two are behind the photographer. No ballast here yet, because CLJ will get at least one, maybe two more sidings, plus the spur down to the Outlaw Mine.
Nicely Done!
Hey, I like the look of that oil dealer you have at Purgatory. Is that a kit? Would not mind seeing some more of that in the future. What paint recipe did you use?
Thanks, eric
Eric,
Thanks for the comments.
My fuel tanks in Purgatory are a kitbash of various parts in the scrap box. The tanks are your standard yellow Rx bottles with the childproof kludge on the mouth cut off with the bandsaw. Not sure about the tops, but they came from a kit. The unloading platform is built from some leftover support frames from the Walthers icing platform. The top brace was from one of their oil refinery piping kits IIRC. The railings on it and the truck loading stand are Grandt leftovers.The valves and pump are Plastruct from thei refinery kit, as are the tank-top vents. The framing supports for the truck rack are from the bulkhead framing that comes with the Walthers 53' GSC flat car. I bent the piping out of Plastruct line. The ladders may be Walthers, not sure. Paint is Rustoleum Aluminum, all on a gray "concrete" balsa slab.
Here's a trackside pic.
And a 3/4 shot with the fuel truck standing by to load.
As you may have noticed, it was at Crater Lake at one time, but I switched it with this one after CL got more crowded, mostly because it fit the space a little better.
Pretty much the same type of parts, just a little different set of them. The "wrapped" tank didn't really come out well, but haven't gotten around to redoing it.
Crater Lake was a lot like building a ship in a bottle. The reach in is actually well past my natural limits. Parts of it lift out so that I can work on things off the layout. Sometimes I use one of my "grabbers" to reach in. I moved the tail track switch for the wye out closer to the edge to make it easier to reach.
This pic is from before the rock bins, showing most everything else.
I also added a tie mill and some rock bins, as well as offices and warehouse for the quarry, a seedy looking downtown made from foldup paper kits, and a small stockyard. It's turned into a pretty busy place for the end of the line.
The rock bins load aggregate for construction and road work, plus flux for smelting, fed by a conveyor from the crusher further back in another quarry pit.
While they look complex, they're much simpler than board by baoard methods. No problem with shortcuts here, really,as the bins are close to 3' away in the scene.
Thus, there's not a NBW in sight up close...
The final big structure at Crater Lake was the office/warehouse/coal bin complex.
But wait, there's more! Yep, a small extra bit of real estate was recently acquired and construction has begun to extend the line to Snowden, where a pipeline is being built, necessitating pipe trains and tank car trains A few more pics hot off the presses coming very soon.
As with much of the Cascade Branch, there are usually more pics in the weekly Weekend Photo Fun post here in the forum. There you can find more pics on how I built this extension. These may come in handy if you doing doubledecker or otherwise need a nice thin supporting structure for your layout. Be glad to answer any questions in either WPF or here.
Now I'm moving on to Snowden, which just got its name since WPF. It's destined to be the end of the line. The switchback up to what I think will be a mine (might be logging, but we'll see) now rises behind Snowden itself.
There will be three run-through tracks. The main is in the middle, with sidings on either side. One will hold an oil rack for loading crude oil brought in by the pipeline, In effect, very similar to the Gramps set-up in Chama. Coincidentally enough, I already have plenty of Gramps cars.
If you look carefully, you can make out the rough track arrangement in this pic.
Finally, a pic from the other end. The end of the switchback is about 4" above Snowden itself, putting it at 70" above the floor, the highest point on the layout, beating out Camp 13 by a single inch.
Thanks for the info on the tanks and such. Very creative. Your making quite a bit of progress on all the models and the layout. Enjoying the photos.
I've done my fair share of planning over the years. Got many of them stashed away somewhere to prove it. This time I made a basic plan for getting through the wall, looped around and over to above the standard gauge staging. Elevations, locations, and radii. After that, it's mostly what I've been inspired to do in the limited space available.
I knew I wanted certain industries, because one of the overall goals was to bring as much of it out of staging and onto the layout as I could. What needs done is often a product of operating and improving. That's where the idea for the turntable at Tefft came from. The blue cardboard turnout template shows about where the TT lead will connect.
At groundbreaking
An hour later [and better focused ]
Not sure why I waited so long...but it's not been that long. I only started the whole thing two years ago because I badly needed some daily inspiration. Time has been split between it and various smaller projects in the main layout area.
Some would say poor planning at work here. I have redone some things, but it's been mostly because things changed and the RR needed to adapt, just as the prototype does. Fortunately, using old school 3/4" plywood and 1x supporting structure makes the basis design robust and adapatable.
It's been slow going because of budget limitations. A few turnouts at a time, plus slowed by ME's lack of code 70 due to the busted mold. Finally got my first shipment of that since I started a couple of weeks ago. There are a few Tortoises in critical areas, but mostly homebrew manual controls. The LED lighting seems like a luxury, but the easy installation and low operating costs make it a bargain.
So I do have a single track into Snowden and the first train in was the afternoon passenger powered by 345
I was surprised at how quiet the new benchwork is.
The pipe train headed upgrade
It eventually arrived at Snowden where it will someday be switched to the siding for unloading by the crawler crane.
Love the photos Mike, I am amazed at the progress you can make in such a short time! Keep it up. This is one of my favorite threads on the forums here!
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
Mark,
It's one of those threads that seems to keep people coming back. Looks like I might break 10,000 views soon, which isn't half bad. I try to mix things up, with little how-tos and lots of pics. While I suppose I've gotten the knack of building mountain scenery, there's really no rocket science involved with most of it. Similar results are within reach of most here, if you have some space to work with. Except for the initial room entry from Purgatory to Summit, it was all pretty much extra space that I managed to utilize, so that's also an important point. Taking a fresh look around the layout might result in new ROW -- provided the land office is kept satisfied