Trent Valley North American Model Show – Lichfield 15th May 2010

Heres a bit more about the show I mentioned last week.

The show is the first of hopefully many to be held at Handsacre Village Hall, Shropshire Brook Rd, Armitage, Staffs, WS15 4UZ.

Publicity: 
Show website (http://sites.google.com/site/tvnams/home),
RM Web – Exhibition section (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/)
UK Model Shop Directory – events section (http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/)
Stafford Railway Circle (http://www.staffordrailwaycircle.org.uk/)
Model Trains International forum (http://forum.mtimag.co.uk)
Cheshire Railway Modellers (http://www.cheshirerailwaymodellers.org/currentevents.htm)

I will be display a couple of structures including my Golden Spike Tower and a couple of dozen items of stock in Brass and plastic.

I hope to meet you there.

A Tower within a Tower

I will be displaying a few models at the upcoming American themed show at Lichfield in May. More about that later this week. One of the items I will have on display is the Golden Spike Tower. I have decided to make a second tower to replace this one. As it happens, the directors of the real tower were so impressed that they are going to display my model in the tower itself. I have been introduced to the company in North Platte that built the tower. They have sent me a full set of plans and pictures of the tower under construction. I am flying out to the States in October and will be presenting the model in person.

Nice View…..

…isn’t it?

Just a brief update.

This is the view from the eight floor observation deck of the Golden Spike Tower and Visitors Center overlooking Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska. Located on the souhern edge of the yard just east of the UP diesel shops, the tower opened in May 2008. I just missed the opening day as I visited in April 2008 but did manage to make it back in December. I spent two mornings of my eight day trip in the tower.

As it happens, I’ve been off work ecently awaiting an operation on my foot. With plenty of time on my hands I have found model making to be the ideal pastime as it doesn’t really need the use of my feet! With the layout room construction yet to begin I figured I would make a start on some of the signature building in the North Platte area. I don’t think a model of Bailey Yard would be complete without the tower so I’ve spent the last few weeks with scalpel and plasticard (and a few lego bricks!) building a HO version it. See the results below. Next time I’ll explain how I went about getting all the angles right.

See ya next time!

Model of a model

A couple of people have expressed confusion about my description of my benchwork plan in the last update below. Hopefully the next few pictures might help. I got the idea of building a mock-up of my layout room from Model Railroader. Getting all the benchwork in on three levels and biulding a tiny helix took some time. It would probably take less time to build the real one!

 

 

 

There is a 12″ grid on the mock-up. I cut the helix roadbed 12″ wide all the way down but it will be narrower on the real thing. In hindsight I should’ve coloured each level; yellow for UP and orange for BNSF, so it would be easier to make out each level. As I explaied, the gap etween levels two and three varies. On the right in the first two pics the variance is 16″, on the left it is just 4 or 5″. I hope those who were confused are not now more so!

While I wait for the funds for the room to become available I’ve been busy building the centerpiece for the main UP Bailey yard. The yard is overlooked by the eight storey Golden Spike Tower and Visitors Center. Look out for pictures in my next update.

And so it begins…..

I first visited the United States in 1999. I spent two weeks in and around San Francisco and immediately fell in love with the place. My only experience of US railroading was a short day trip out to Palo Alto on Caltrains commuter service. I had three F40PH’s for haulage and was I did not go back until 2004, again visiting San Francisco. This time I spent two weeks with my cousin and was able to make several trips to Martinez Amtrak station and even took a train down into Oakland and San Jose. My (then) wife and my cousin got on so well that I spent 8 out of 14 mornings down by the tracks. This is when I really got into US railroading. Since then I have made several other trips across the pond. Galleries of my trips are posted at www.rugbytownusa.fotopic.net .

My first proper railfanning trip was undertaken in September 2006. By this I mean my first trip where my primary aim was to see trains. I spent three and a half weeks starting and finishing in San Francisco with a 10 day outing to the Mid West. This is where I got to see Class 1 railroading at its best. The Union Pacifics Overland Route crosses Nebraska for over 400 miles. The state is also home to Bailey Yard, North Platte. At over seven miles long and featuring 160 tracks, this is the biggest classification yard in the world. Even in the current economic downturn, traffic is almost non-stop. UP’s famous ‘Triple Track’ stretches from O’Fallons Junction about 10 miles west of Bailey Yard through to Gibbon Junction a total distance of 120 miles. Double tracks continue east through Iowa and into Illinois towards Chicago. 40 miles east of Gibbon Junction is the town of Grand Island. Here the UP is crossed by the BNSF Ravenna Sub which takes coal trains across the flatlands and then northern Sandhills of Nebraska towards its hub at Alliance. From there trains make there way over Crawford Hill, through South Dakota and onto the Powder River Basin in Wyoming for loading.

My layout will be based on both the UP and BNSF west out of Grand Island. After mulling over several ideas I finally settled on a three deck plan with all three decks linked by a sizeable helix. I have more or less figiured out the basic trackplan and where exactly the benchwork will go. My approach has been to use Layout Design Elements. This approach is described in the recently published Model Railroader Layout Design and Planning annuals. Basically, you focus you design on certain elements of a prototype location, in my case the Triple Track and the Ravenna Sub and put these in your final design. Its not possible to fit 100+ miles of mainline into most layouts so you have to choose each element based on its merits. Some elements you choose because to model a particular stretch of mainline you simply have to include them. You cannot model the Nebraska Triple Track without including part of Bailey Yard. Again, with the yard being so big, I had to select elements of it to model. I had already designed a reduced version of the diesel shop so am including this in my design. I have also included part of the eastbound departure yard which is visible from the main road shkirting the southern edge of the yard and from the Willow Road overbridge (pictured above). I wanted to run both UP and BNSF trains and Grand Island seemed a perfect location to run both. It also brings the two upper levels of the layout together.

Here is the benchwork plan.

Level one is all staging. The boards are set at a constant height of 36″. Each staging yard will have 8-10 tracks which will be about 24′ long. The door to the room is on the left hand wall in this diagram. For the upper two levels, a lift out section will be built. Level two is reached via the helix. This will be doubled tracked to level two and single tracked to level three. Level two (UP) starts at 44″ from the helix and climbs through North Platte going clockwise around the room once again reaching the helix at 50″. Level three (BNSF) leaves the helix at 60″ and descends clockwise around the room crossing over the UP at 54″ and then jins the helix again at 53.5″.

The gradient on the UP in my design actually mirrors that of the prototype. This had to be done to accommodate the scenery at North Platte. The BNSF crosses the UP at Grand Island with a grade seperation of just over 4″. With the UP going downgrade and the BNSF going up from this point, the grade seperation at the other end of the run is 16″. This is more than enough room to fit in the elements I intend to include at North Platte. The gradients on each level will equate to 1% to 1.5%.

The helix goes through six full turns raising from 36″ to 60″. The gradient on the helix will be just under 2%, each full turn taking the track up by 4″. The outer track radius will be 34″. The inner track radius will be 31.5″. I have spent a lot of time researching helix design and construction and think I have come up with the optimum design for the space I have available.

Next time I will tell you more about the track plan and benchwork.

Past Plans

So, what do you do with a space of 35’x10′? Its something I’ve spent months going over in my mind. My modelling interests, like most of us, have changed and changed over the years. I became interested in railways at an early age but settled into following English Electric Class 37’s around the UK rail system in the mid-80’s. I have had a plan in my mind for years to build a layout based on a fictional railway but in a real location, that being Inchnacardoch, about midway between Fort William and Inverness. My plan was to imagine a line linking these Scottish towns. I made an amatuerish attempt to build this layout in abut 1990 in my parents loft. It measured It didn’t last long before I ripped it up though. Maybe I could put my 35′ to good use and build a bigger version of Inchnacardoch.

I had also previously started a project to build accurately a model of Eastfield Traction Maintenance Depot in Glasgow, Scotland. I once got as far as building the framework for the depot buildings, the centerpiece being the thirteen road service and maintenance shed. The model building was 2’6″x3’6″ alone. A house move soon after I completed this meant I had to abandon the project but I did sell it on. My new layout room would easily accommodate a model of Eastfield but one of the flaws in my original plan was that at its widest the baseboard would have to be about 5′ across.  As it was considered, I recently posted some pictures of the building at www.eastfield-tmd.fotopic.net .

To be honest, I figured I would have space to build both Inchnacardoch and Eastfield one on top of the other with a shared staging yard. I could even attempt to build a small American switching layout about the staging or maybe even dig out the baseboards for my UP diesel shop. I once owned about 200 American freight and passenger cars but sold these some time ago. About 20 remained. I also still own about 140 HO American diesels but ultimately I couldn’t bring myself to sell most of these and finally settled on planning a large US railroad. This decision was made at the beginning of 2009. In my next update I will cover my plans and show you the prototype trains and locations that I am going to model.

Where to start?

 How do? I registered with this site almost two years ago and its about time I made use of it.

I’m going to use this blog primarily to document progress with my layout. I’m shortly going to be erecting a rather large outbuilding in my back garden to accommodate an equally large layout – well, large by UK standards anyway. I’m fortunate to have visited three spectacular layouts on US soil in the last couple of years and my previous efforts seemed tiny in comparison. I’ve always wanted to operate sizeable trains and now I have the opportunity to do that – nothing like scale length by any definition but certainly long enough to have the desired effect.

The decision to erect a layout room came when my girlfriend and her daughter moved in this year. I own a two bedroom terrace in Peterborough, Cambs. It was built as a three bedroom property in the late 1890’s. I bought it in 2006 after the previous owners had spent a considerable amount of money and time refurbishing it. The bathroom downtairs had been ripped out and made way for an extension of the kitchen. The third bedroom was turned into a new bathroom. The second bedroom used to house the beginnings of my last layout – a somewhat small Union Pacific diesel shop in HO. That layout was only 12’x2′ and didn’t really get off the ground before the girls moved in. This room became my girlfriends daughters bedroom. The loft is only accessible through bed 2 so once converted, this will become a ‘den’ for her too. I could’ve built a layout up there but invading a 10 year olds room to get to your trains isn’t wise! All of my railroad models and books are currently stored in the loft but these won’t be in her way until the loft is kitted out properly. There are so many jobs that need doing to my house and keeping her happy is certainly motivating. I suspect that the relatively small cost of sorting the loft out will make my house very appealling when it comes to resale. I don’t see myself moving for a long time though. If I did, I wouldn’t be considering putting lots of money and effort into making a layout room.

So as you can see, there is no space in my house to put a layout of any size to accurately represent Class 1 railroads in the USA today. Thankfully, I have a 100ft garden!

The garden backs on to the Nene Valley Railway, a heritage/museum railway running for 7 miles west out of Peterborough. My property is actually on the branch linking the NVR to the mainline. It doesn’t see much traffic – the occasional GBRf 66 on a test train, Hanson Tractions 56’s, that sort of thing. I have been woken up on a couple of Sunday mornings by one of the NVR’s resident Class 14 shunters on a works train.

I already have a 10’x8′ shed at the back of the garden but this will be moving next door. The layout room is going to be 10’x35′. Once all the other home improvements have been completed work can start on building the base. I’m looking at starting this in the Autumn.

Laters.