Virtual Layout Tour ( Many Pics, Dial Up Warning)

[grandeman]

Maybe this is something that will catch on here. If you like the idea, please post a tour of you RR so we can "take the tour". [8D]

Here goes...

Ours has been updated, so I thought I'd just post it here.

The Rio Grande Platte Canyon Subdivision is a fictional portion of the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) railroad set in the early Fall of 1965. The Platte Canyon Spur extends west into the mountains from a break point just south of Sedalia, Colo, on the Joint Line. Joint Line traffic includes trains from Santa Fe (ATSF) and Colorado Southern (CB&Q) as well as the Rio Grande. Most Platte Canyon Spur traffic is from the mountain coal mining district the spur was constructed to reach, but mining towns and small customers along the route are served by the railroad as well. Coal loads travel to Colorado Fuel & Iron (CF&I) in Pueblo and electrical power generating plants along the Joint Line to Denver.

The railroad is modeled in HO scale. It's a small layout that has roughly 4.5 scale miles of track and covers about 20% of our full basement. Staging consists of three yards that operationally represent points North, South and West of Sedalia, Colo. Each yard has four tracks. The Upper or "north" staging yard sits atop the south yard while the west yard is a stand alone. Train detection was required for the yards since they're hidden during normal operations. It was accomplished using magnetic reed switches and LEDs. The system works amazingly well.

Recently, an older MRC DCC system was upgraded to a Digitrax Super Chief system for train control. The improvement has been incredible! We have two throttles, a DT400 and DT300. There's still a few UP5 throttle panels to install in hard to reach areas. Since it's installation, I've been working (learning thru the school of hard knocks) on some advanced lighting for our GP30's and the SW1200. The SW has a rotating beacon and the Geeps have lower headlights and classlights. I'm amazed at the "super detailing" effect of DCC lighting effects! We're looking forward to the release of Digitrax sound decoders as well.

Fellow board member, Cjcrescent, was kind enough to give us a copy of a computerized operations program that a friend of his wrote. It's very detailed and keeps track of each piece of rolling stock on a layout. It also shows how much money the RR is making along the way and which industry gets which loads. I'm looking forward to getting our data entered into it. It, and the DT300/400 fast clocks, should really add to the operation of the layout!


While the layout is basically complete, we still have several planned projects, the largest of which is signaling. There's also scene super detailing and scenery refinements to do. Scenery is mostly complete but we're still adding a few trees, and detail items such as trackside buildings, flange oilers, etc.


Thanks for taking the "virtual visit"!

FT led freight heads west on toward the Platte Canyon mines.


Switch job at Inland Cement.


Super Chief!


GP7 helper pair being cutout of a train for their light run home.


GP30 in the mine district.


My favorite Platte Canyon Sub pic to date, my little guy running trains.


F3 at CF&I's Split Rock Mine #4.


Empty coal drag rumbles toward the Joint Line from Denver's Cherokee Station power plant.


GP30's struggle upgrade with a load of Platte Canyon coal bound for Martin Drake in Colorado Springs.


Mountain meet! This railfan found himself in the right place at the right time. The long, rugged hike in was worth the effort.


Eastbound coal train on the Platte Canyon Spur.


Southbound freight crew waits for train orders as a Northbound blurs by.


ATSF power at Sedalia, Colo


Another "thru the fence" shot, EMD's finest at work.


Geeps entering Tunnel #4 on their trip west with a train of empties.


Modern consist, for 1965...


SD7 helper pushes a Grande freight upgrade on the Platte Canyon Spur.


GP7 helpers preparing to be cut out for a light return trip down the mountain.


Brakeman on GP7.


SD7 helper running light west of Sedalia.


GP30 heads west with a late afternoon mixed freight.


Vandal's handiwork.


Local cops take a report from RR employees. They don't seem to concerned, note the coffee and doughnuts!


Eastbound rolls toward the Joint Line.


SW1200 #137 working Split Rock Mine #4.


Hidden staging train indication panel. Turnout routes are programmed into the Digitrax DCS100 corresponding to track numbers on the panel. For example, if you want to run a train from/to track 7, switch mode is selected on the throttle, # 7 entered and the "closed" button is pushed. This aligns all turnouts needed to get the train from staging to the main line. Cool huh?[:D] Arriving trains are represented by a Red LED, departing trains a green LED. Empty tracks have no LEDs illuminated.


North/South staging yards.


Loaded West yard.

[gvdobler]

Very nice layout and it's always nice to see young people involved.

[wairoa]

Awesome!!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing your pics. You have done a beautiful job. I love to see the Rio Grande loco's in action. Maybe next year my layout will be presentable and I can share as well... sigh...[sigh]

[jjbmish]

Very Nice!!

[loathar]

Looks great but wow! What a download! (it was worth the ten minutes though)

[csmith9474]

Awesome!!!! I live in Colorado Springs, and that looks dead on for the Front Range. I have always admired the work.

[grandeman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csmith9474

Awesome!!!! I live in Colorado Springs, and that looks dead on for the Front Range.

That has to be the ultimate compliment. Thanks! I lived in Longmont back in the mid 80's and would love to return with the family to see Colorado again and do some railfanning.

[trainboyH16-44]

Nice, I was wondering why it took so long to load! I would give you a tour, but if I took the pics now, hey wouldn't come back for up to 3 months....
Matthew

[csmith9474]

QUOTE: Originally posted by grande man

QUOTE: Originally posted by csmith9474

Awesome!!!! I live in Colorado Springs, and that looks dead on for the Front Range.

That has to be the ultimate compliment. Thanks! I lived in Longmont back in the mid 80's and would love to return with the family to see Colorado again and do some railfanning.

The Joint Line makes for some great railfanning. It doesn't hurt to have Pike's Peak in the background either.

[tstage]

grande man,

You do VERY nice work. The layout and detailing looks GREAT!

May I suggest that because ot the downloading issue for most of us with a dialup modem, it woiuld be best if virtual layout tours had one "enticing" picture and a link for the remainder pics. That way you could have a number of virtual tours all on the same post and you wouldn't have to wait till June of next year to download the page. For that reason alone I rarely view the Midweek or Weekend Photo Fun posts.

Just a suggestion...

Tom

[Anonymous]

Grande man,

I love the pictures of your loco's and the fine detail work you've shown in your pictures, but when you said there was going to be a virtual tour I figured that we would see more shots which show your layout, from...not so close-up. I Love what you've posted and appreciate the time and effort it took to do this, but it would be great to see the layout from perspective that would show the run of your tracks, and the scenery from a broader point of view.

Just my 2 cents worth,
Trevor

[railroadyoshi]

very nice

[grandeman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TrevorG

Grande man,

I love the pictures of your loco's and the fine detail work you've shown in your pictures, but when you said there was going to be a virtual tour I figured that we would see more shots which show your layout, from...not so close-up. I Love what you've posted and appreciate the time and effort it took to do this, but it would be great to see the layout from perspective that would show the run of your tracks, and the scenery from a broader point of view.

Just my 2 cents worth,
Trevor

Trevor, more info, just for you...[:D]

The layout is a small one. It's basically a 4x14' main table that we moved to our new home last summer that houses a heavily modified Atlas track plan that we ran for several years. I was in the frame of mind to scrap everything and start over, but my 10 year old wasn't to keen on that so we added on to it and went with a shelf type addition that's anywhere from 12" to 30" in width. Actually, for the room we had, the modified Atlas plan is good, save the tight radius curves. What we ended up with basically has outside dimensions of 14x10' but the side parallel to the main benchwork only extends 10' from the back wall so a diagonal section connects it back in to the main benchwork. A new section of track runs behind and then under the main setion and emerges on the opposite side where the mine scene is located. There's a duckunder and staging is on three levels behind the backdrop (rt side of pic) Grades are steep, but what the heck, this is mountain railroading! The climbs actually add to the illusion, IMHO. Here's ho hum pic of the overall layout as best I could fit it in. Please excuse the loose insulation on the HVAC duct and construction junk laying around (this pic was taken some months ago during construction). [:0] I really hate this pic because perspective really isn't a good thing when you're modeling a western open expanse in a corner of a basement! [:D] With a small railroad you have to view a scene in front of you and if you turn 90 degrees imagine that you're a great distance from where you were. We did manage to keep the scenes separated well. The town has view block scenery so there's no "around in circles" feeling while running trains.

[Anonymous]

Very nice, GM! The tour idea is very good! I hope it catches on. Again, very nice work!! [:D]

[csmith9474]

Pike's Peak

[Anonymous]

Looks great , you should send some pics into MR, their always looking for shots of smaller sized layouts. Your level of detail is great, I really like the chain link fence you did looks like the real thing. Hope you share some more photos in the future.

[grandeman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csmith9474

Pike's Peak

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/csmith9474/000_0296.jpg

Awesome pic!That makes me want to take a road trip even more.[:p]

[csmith9474]

QUOTE: Originally posted by grande man

QUOTE: Originally posted by csmith9474

Pike's Peak

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/csmith9474/000_0296.jpg

Awesome pic!That makes me want to take a road trip even more.[:p]

I did that just to be mean![;)] I don't know if you saw the pics I posted before where the Rio Grande used flatcars as a retaining wall near the Air Force Academy siding. These are really old flats, even have trees growing through the deck. There was also a thought that there was a derailment there and the flats were just abandonded. If you want to see 'em let me know via e-mail or otherwise.

[grayfox1119]

Grande man, super job!! And as a grandfather, I love seeing fathers get involved with ANY hobby with their children ( MRR especially of course ). If only more fathers took the time to do this, maybe we would have more dual parent homes today. You are to be commended dad, GOLD STARS for you and your son !!!!!!!!! And your son will have many happy memories as he gets older won't he !!!

[grandeman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by grayfox1119

Grande man, super job!! And as a grandfather, I love seeing fathers get involved with ANY hobby with their children ( MRR especially of course ). If only more fathers took the time to do this, maybe we would have more dual parent homes today. You are to be commended dad, GOLD STARS for you and your son !!!!!!!!! And your son will have many happy memories as he gets older won't he !!!

Thanks grayfox. Little Grande Man is a bonafied train nut. He's fixing to turn eleven and has been into the hobby for 6 years! Over the weekend while working on the RR, out of the clear blue, he said "Dad, I'm sure glad we got into this hobby." That makes it all worthwhile. I love trains, but have had a sense of urgency to get the RR up and running while he's still little. We're both REALLY looking forward to our future operating sessions. We're gonna make a big deal out of them. [:D]

[grandeman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csmith9474

I did that just to be mean![;)] I don't know if you saw the pics I posted before where the Rio Grande used flatcars as a retaining wall near the Air Force Academy siding. These are really old flats, even have trees growing through the deck. There was also a thought that there was a derailment there and the flats were just abandonded. If you want to see 'em let me know via e-mail or otherwise.

I'd love to see your pics. You can email them to me, I'd apprieciate it. Are you a member of the DRGW Yahoo Group? That would be a great place to post them as well.

[csmith9474]

QUOTE: Originally posted by grande man

QUOTE: Originally posted by csmith9474

I did that just to be mean![;)] I don't know if you saw the pics I posted before where the Rio Grande used flatcars as a retaining wall near the Air Force Academy siding. These are really old flats, even have trees growing through the deck. There was also a thought that there was a derailment there and the flats were just abandonded. If you want to see 'em let me know via e-mail or otherwise.

I'd love to see your pics. You can email them to me, I'd apprieciate it. Are you a member of the DRGW Yahoo Group? That would be a great place to post them as well.

I will email them to you. I am not a member (I am one of those Santa Fe guys), but if you want to post them over there, feel free.

There is no e-mail on your profile page. I kinda need that info. If you don't want to post your address here e-mail me at [e-mail].

[Anonymous]

Ah shucks! Just for wittle ole me?

Now that's what I'm talking about. I love pictures like this one. You get a real feel for the layout. All of the pics are great and I'm a big fan of your work (or is it play?). Thanks for posting "a wider perspective"



X-Cell-Ent,
Trevor[tup][tup][tup]

[ereimer]

grande and grande jr. ... real nice work fellas , it's a treat to see your layout [:)]

[Anonymous]

Hi GM/LGM, I just happen to be in the neighborhood so I thought I'd drop in and sign your Guestbook too...[:D]

[Anonymous]

Impressive to say the least. You called my layout Fantastic. Man thanks for the compliment. I either need to learn to take pictures or add more details. Anyway, you need to get your layout in the pages of MR. Great layout.

Lane

[selector]

Thanks for the tour, GM. I really appreciate the humour on top of the careful thought that went into each scene. Very nicely done. I can think of only one improvement..........................................................................ready?................................................STEAM!!!! [:o)]

[grandeman]

A big thanks to all for your comments on the RR. If you can't tell, we're a little EXCITED to be able to operate per the original vision. [:D] I'm gonna post a few more pics and then let this one ride. I really hope to see more "tours" here since I love looking a MR pics. There's some fine talent here, take us on a visit to your layout. Pleeeeease...

Old meets new. F3 powered mixed freight coasts downgrade past GP30 led coal drag.


Wow, what an opportunity! The Grande's latest, a GP35, poses for a railfan's camera.


Friendly CB&Q engineer waves for the camera.


Brakeman enjoying the view and crisp mountain air from the ultimate vantage point, a GP7.


And just for you Crandell... You can almost smell the acetylene from the torch... The number plates are already someone's souvenir...[:D]

[wctransfer]

Wow, beautiful layout. Cnat really say more , but wow, some very nice stuff you have GM. Keep postin them.

Alec