Building the Central Preservation Railroad- A 'What if' American Heritage Railroad

[Edaville]

Greetings all,
After lurking a long time I figured I should finally contribute some content. I have recently begun building my first layout in almost 30 years and its been a lot of fun getting back into a much advanced hobby from when I was last 'in it.' I will begin by making two posts, this one to give a background on my railroad, and a second describing the layout itself.

CPR Background-
In the summer of 1955 a group of titans of industry gathered at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI for their 30th class reunion (insert Ivy League school of your choice here.) After a weekend of tours they concluded with a banquet and with much discussion realized they themselves were witnessing another large change in American life, such as the ones that inspired Ford to build his Greenfield Village. Cities were demolishing old neighborhoods in the name of modernization, transistors were replacing tubes, diesel locomotives were replacing steam, and the airplane was replacing rail passenger travel. A pledge was made amongst this august and wealthy group to create their own 'preservation society' with an emphasis on saving steam engines from the scrap yard. They each contributed a sizeable sum and created an endowment to acquire not only historically significant railroad equipment, but also to find a location that could be saved from the wrecking ball and house this collection.
The group was able to find a perfect location in the middle of the country in the small city of Victorville,NE (fictitious) which had been a rail hub for freight trains and had a decent service facility as well as a historic downtown. With the members being executives in many industries including some who sat on boards of railroad companies, they were able to acquire a sizeable collection quickly, and were able to hire the mechanics and engineers who had spent their entire careers in steam so the knowledge would be passed on. The railroad initially had a fair amount of freight from local factories, but as time went on and nostalgia for the past began to rise, the railroad became a major railfan destination and the local economy changed over to support the ever growing crowds. The city is near (yet to be determined) which is a popular sightseeing destination so regular passenger excursions are a significant part of revenue. There are also several 'heritage industries' operating out of historic factory buildings purchased by the railroad over the course of the years.
The engine facilities are also a tourist highlight as the art and science of steam never dimmed and engines from around the country come here for critical overhauls and newly machined parts. The railroad also boasts a collection of British and Continental engines that were saved when Europe turned away from steam in the 60s and 70s.

This 'what if' scenario is my justification (read:excuse) to create a bit of an anachronistic layout that allows me to run a wide range of equipment and also try to create an imaginary scenario of what could have been saved from that era (more than what we have today).

Next post will describe what the actual layout(and constraints), track plan, and construction are (I am about 3 months into building).

More soon,

Victor

 

[BigGRacing]

Looking forward to following this thread, have fun!

 

[SD40 Jim]

Looking forward to following this thread, have fun!

x2 . . . good read Victor

 

[migalyto]

Welcome to the group Victor.

Sounds like a fun build. I will defiantly be following along as well! Remember we as a group love photos!

 

[Edaville]

ound two: The nitty gritty

Guidance/points of constraint

Long term-The boss is happy to remind me often that this is not our forever house, so this build requires the ability to take apart and transplant at some point in the future

Time-I have two young kids so 'me time' is relegated to weekend nights after everyone is in bed. I also fix analog audio gear (former full time job) to finance the railroad and my musical pursuits so a very basic build concept was paramount to getting something built quick enough to get something running in order to keep me motivated for the long term.

Space- I cleared half of the basement for the project, roughly 20x12 feet of floor space. There is an unfortunate post that required a choice to be made. I also require storage space so a requirement of the build was that I could store things under it after wiring is complete.

Users- I will be the main operator but having two kids and a father in law who is also fond of trains, I wanted to have some sort of setup that kids could run while still having some more interesting aspects to keep my interest in the long run.

Goals/Interests- I wanted to have several features including a large passenger station (I have a fair amount of passenger trains), a roundhouse/turntable locomotive service facility, a freight switching yard, some industry action, and also some sort of downtown/industrial scenery to have a lot of detailing and building opportunities.

All of these things led me to settle on a layout based on 4 'modules' with two being 4x8 and two being 2x8 (I.e. a BOM of 3 4x8 sheets of plywood). This leads to 4 areas that covered all of my wants for modeling and also met my criteria of being able to be assembled/taken apart without too much pain. After some lurking on here I settled on using 1/4 subfloor plywood glued to 1 inch insulation foam. I was able to barter restoring an old Pioneer receiver in exchange for the guy buying and delivering me everything I needed to build the base of the layout.

This led to actual track planning. One of my attached photos is an early draft of the track plan. I wanted two loops so a train can run on the outer loop while a second one can do some switching on and off the main/have a second train running if the kids are downstairs. There are also points for shooting off for future expansion if and when the space allows (this would be the sightseeing part of the passenger service). The sectional layout lent itself to having 4 distinct areas of focus: Passenger Station/Downtown, Roundhouse area, siding/staging yard, industrial area for some switching opportunities. I attached an early draft (not to scale) of possible arrangements and started with building the double mainline while I started to think about how to proceed.

Once I laid the basic double loop out I realized how quickly space gets eaten up when you are trying to keep minimum radii to be at least somewhat aesthetically reasonable. After some soul searching and multiple passes I ended up adding more 'surface' by adding 2 2x4 sections and 2 1x4 sections in the center to give me some more wiggle room, more area for buildings, and also allow me to shift the freight switching area into what was previously just room for 2 or 3 industry turnouts.

I used code 100 Atlas flex track and Custom Line turnouts (8s on the mainline crossovers, 6s and 4s elsewhere) on top of foam roadbed on the mainline, graded down to ground level for everything off the mains. I am using the ESU Ecos DCC system and have 12AWG buss lines under the layout that tap off to the rails via IDE type crimps.

Much more to say and share but the kids voices are getting louder so time to go play Dad.

Many thanks for the warm welcome!

Victor

 

[trailrider]

Great beginning! You say you like running passenger trains. What era or eras, and what roads? You might be able to show your kids some of the history of rail travel. Keep us posted.

 

[Twinboystrains]

I hope you have a way to access the rear which seems to be against the wall in your pictures. Maybe sliding it over some away from the wall if you have room. Duck unders can get to be a pain in the neck especially when you get older.

 

[Edaville]

Great beginning! You say you like running passenger trains. What era or eras, and what roads?

I mainly have mid century equipment from varied countries. For domestic I have an old Athearn BB Pennsy set with A/B Alco PA-1s, the Overland UP sets (A+B) of Rivarossi and recently put together a whole set of Balboa brass coaches in Armor Yellow (which will need a lot to get them to where I'd like but the price was right). I have several FEF locos and a Greyhound painted Challenger Bowser I built up a while back to pull those consists. For British rail I have the classic 'Blood and Custard' coaches and also some crimson LMS coaches with appropriate livery locos, and then I have a Rheingold and standard passenger sets for DB (German) and also a Polish (PKP) passenger consist and loco. My convoluted background story for the layout hopes to explain why you might see such a wide range of equipment on a railroad in middle America.

I hope you have a way to access the rear which seems to be against the wall in your pictures. Maybe sliding it over some away from the wall if you have room. Duck unders can get to be a pain in the neck especially when you get older.

An excellent concern! I attached some better angles to show the clearance around the layout. I plan on having anything outside of a 2-3 foot reach from the outer edge of the layout to be just static details (buildings/landscapes etc) to minimize the need to get into the center hole.

I drew up a quick and very rough sketch of what my plans are for what it will look like with some actual buildings, the area around the freight terminal is still fluid and the center hole will be lined with flat/background buildings with a 24" backdrop once those areas have been fleshed out and detailed. I have a pile of building kits so next step will be to start on those with the first focus being on the roundhouse/service area. If I have some glaring issues you might spot by all means let me know.

More soon!
Victor

 

[diesel]

That's a beautiful track plan. But it lacks easements (allowances for real life imperfect connections between curves/turnouts/straights. Unless you are using sectional track, when it comes to actually placing trackwork, you will definitely have some "big surprises". With flex track, you will never ever be able to transition directly from a curve to a straight.

For example here

The incoming curve is not at the same angle as the straight. That would mean, the radius may not be what you planned for, or else the length of the straight section with turnouts that you have there, exceeds what you planned. If it's flex track, the curve (especially the one leading off the turnout) won't begin immediately, and the effect will be that you don't have sufficient room for the radius that you would have otherwise.

 

[Colorado Midland Modeler]

Greetings all,
After lurking a long time I figured I should finally contribute some content. I have recently begun building my first layout in almost 30 years and its been a lot of fun getting back into a much advanced hobby from when I was last 'in it.' I will begin by making two posts, this one to give a background on my railroad, and a second describing the layout itself.

CPR Background-
In the summer of 1955 a group of titans of industry gathered at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI for their 30th class reunion (insert Ivy League school of your choice here.) After a weekend of tours they concluded with a banquet and with much discussion realized they themselves were witnessing another large change in American life, such as the ones that inspired Ford to build his Greenfield Village. Cities were demolishing old neighborhoods in the name of modernization, transistors were replacing tubes, diesel locomotives were replacing steam, and the airplane was replacing rail passenger travel. A pledge was made amongst this august and wealthy group to create their own 'preservation society' with an emphasis on saving steam engines from the scrap yard. They each contributed a sizeable sum and created an endowment to acquire not only historically significant railroad equipment, but also to find a location that could be saved from the wrecking ball and house this collection.
The group was able to find a perfect location in the middle of the country in the small city of Victorville,NE (fictitious) which had been a rail hub for freight trains and had a decent service facility as well as a historic downtown. With the members being executives in many industries including some who sat on boards of railroad companies, they were able to acquire a sizeable collection quickly, and were able to hire the mechanics and engineers who had spent their entire careers in steam so the knowledge would be passed on. The railroad initially had a fair amount of freight from local factories, but as time went on and nostalgia for the past began to rise, the railroad became a major railfan destination and the local economy changed over to support the ever growing crowds. The city is near (yet to be determined) which is a popular sightseeing destination so regular passenger excursions are a significant part of revenue. There are also several 'heritage industries' operating out of historic factory buildings purchased by the railroad over the course of the years.
The engine facilities are also a tourist highlight as the art and science of steam never dimmed and engines from around the country come here for critical overhauls and newly machined parts. The railroad also boasts a collection of British and Continental engines that were saved when Europe turned away from steam in the 60s and 70s.

This 'what if' scenario is my justification (read:excuse) to create a bit of an anachronistic layout that allows me to run a wide range of equipment and also try to create an imaginary scenario of what could have been saved from that era (more than what we have today).

Next post will describe what the actual layout(and constraints), track plan, and construction are (I am about 3 months into building).

More soon,

Victor

What a great layout premise! I sort of have a similar theme for mine, but it was primarily accomplished thru (fictional) mergers, and I didn't think it out this thoroughly. I'm impressed! I look forward to seeing your layout progress.

 

[Edaville]

Time for a semi annual update of progress on the railroad. Lots of futzing and moving things around have yielded what I think is the best balance of functional as well as fun. Figuring out the 'Industrial switching' area took a while but I think it will end up being both aesthetically interesting as well as creating an action area of the layout that can be operated completely independently of activity on the main lines. There will be 6 industries, a freight terminal, and some siding space for storage. I'm planning on working my way from the center of this area outwards when it comes to actually landscaping/ballasting etc and will first get the remaining buildings built up to a point where I can place and landscape before I add all the fine details that are most likely to break if things are getting shifted about.

The engine service terminal has also begun to take shape. Currently only the roundhouse and machine shop have live track. The rest of the track around the turntable is just for being able to take all the engines I've collected out of boxes in the closet. Once the industrial area is fleshed out I will get the area sorted I.e. coaling tower placement, water tower, sand house etc. Very long term project will be to restore and install DCC into the engines I am planning to run, while others will remain on permanent 'Static' display.

The last area of focus will then be the passenger terminal and a Palisades style cityscape going all around the center hole of the layout.

Another project I'll be pursuing in the background will be to weather and upgrade the freight cars and passenger cars I have. Really want to get the industrial area to near finished before I start deploying freight cars and doing some switching.

Hope to have a meaningful update some time in the next 6 months or as time allows.

 

[BigGRacing]

This is looking great, what type and size is that turntable and do all of those steam engines fit on it?

 

[migalyto]

You have gotten a lot done. Its all looking great!

That's an impressive stable of steam locomotives!

 

[Edaville]

This is looking great, what type and size is that turntable and do all of those steam engines fit on it?

Thanks! Its the 1st gen Walthers 130’ turntable which can handle even a big boy. My layout is too small to run any big articulated locos but i still wanted the option of shuffling them about.

You have gotten a lot done. Its all looking great!

That's an impressive stable of steam locomotives!

Thanks! Its been mostly in short bursts aka wife and kids are out of town for a day or two. The stable grew out of keeping an eye on the auction site for as-is/for repair brass and bargain stuff like old bowser kits. Admittedly they will be mostly for show both for the tight radius on the layout as well as me wanting to really repair and repaint them. In my calculus they will be on the to do list sometime in about a decade from now.