Western Pacific's "Feather River Canyon" in N scale

[R Edington]

 
I originally designed this basic mushroom design in 1992 for Sherman Hill (mushroom design was unheard back then) for the house that I wanted to start building then. Went trough a divorce and was finally able to start building in '98. Took me a year and a half to build the house, doing almost everything by myself. Was sooo burnt out, that I didn't get started on the layout till the winter of 2003.


Once the house was built and I was thinking about the new layout, I was always trying to think of a way to add some more interest to the hill till one day I remembered a UP calendar I had seen with Williams loop on it. Out of curiosity I started looking at the canyon area and fell in love with it.
   
On this layout, I'm just trying to capture the feeling of the "Canyon" and not 100% prototypically correct. But there are 3 signature spots that will be very close to correct, "Keddie Wye", "Williams Loop" and "Clio Trestle". I'm also building in a lot of switching opportunity's in and around Oroville and Portola that isn't following the prototype.

I'm modeling 1955 and in my world, the UP had just merged with the WP, SP and DRGW.



  Layout room measures 26'8" by 51'8", with 9 foot walls,
  Layout height 53"


Wants incorporated into the layout

Minimum of 24" radius and #10 or larger turnouts on the main.
Track: Micro Engineering code 55 with some code 40 on a logging line east of Oroville

Staging yard that will hold 10, 100 car trains. 
Minimum passing siding length 60 cars

Oroville and Portola yards
Minimum of 4 inbound/outbound tracks
Minimum of 7 classification tracks
Diesel and steam shops
Minimum of a 40 car icing dock in Portola. 

Operations;
contentious loop
point to point
loop to loop
Staging to staging
or any variation of the above


  I didn't have a track plan when I started the layout, but I did do some sketches of the benchwork to see if it would all fit together. I did although have a basic plan in my mind. After a few requests, I finally drew one up when I had track laid up to Keddie. The track plan is a picture of the drawn plan and it's not very clear. I'll try to get a better one up sometime. Staging not shown in the plan but it is at the top of the helix.

Lower section








Upper section




   


Rodney

[ACL1504]

Rodney,

This is a big project and the track plan looks very interesting. Including the "big three" locations in the Feather River Canyon will be wonderful.

Where are you on the layout build at this time?

Tom

[R Edington]

Rodney,

This is a big project and the track plan looks very interesting. Including the "big three" locations in the Feather River Canyon will be wonderful.

Where are you on the layout build at this time?

Tom

Thanks, Tom and yes it is a huge undertaking.
Right now, all the mainline in and operational, Oroville yard is almost done. Scenery has been started around the wye and west Oroville.

[R Edington]

 
I'm using CVP's "Easy DCC" for control of the trains with wireless and tethered throttles.











When I started building the layout, the basement wall and floor was bare concrete with bare floor joists above. I started with installing all the raised floor areas, then I started hanging sheetrock on the ceiling on the Orovile-Portola end of the basement.   

The Helix was first part of the rr to be built, as it has all the connections with all the other parts of the rr. It has nine and a half turns and raises from 53" off the floor to 90" off the floor. Outside it measures 60" X 83" with 28" and 26 1/2" radius curves. The grade on the outside track is just a hair under 2% grade.  There will be a control panel inside of it for the Staging yardmaster.
   


 












Leaving the helix to the staging yard.

[R Edington]

  Staging Yard

It is a "L" shaped with each leg about 16' long. The curves on the loops are about 30" radius and in the corner has a 36" minimum radius. It has 10 tracks that each will hold a 100 car train for staging.
The helix will hold at least 6, 60 cars train for staging also. With all this staging, I can comfortably stage 16 trains with no problems.


The complex track area that is just under the HVAC was built first on the floor and then raised into position.









  The two tracks to the left is coming off the helix and the other is a return loop connection for continuous running in the staging area. In the above photo, the track in the lower left is this same connection.  This connection will probably come back out as I now see no need for it. 







This is looking the other way, toward the helix







Rest of the staging yard

[ReadingBob]

Holy Cow!  That's very impressive.  I bet it'll be a lot of fun to run trains on that when you're finished.  Well done so far.  Keep up the great work. 

[R Edington]

   Leaving the helix into Oroville.








There is a return loop at the bottom of the helix and the foreground track is part of that.












Structures are just staged here. Almost all the structures on the rr will be scratchbuilt.

[R Edington]

Holy Cow!  That's very impressive.  I bet it'll be a lot of fun to run trains on that when you're finished.  Well done so far.  Keep up the great work. 

Thanks Bob

[cuse]

Impressive undertaking. I know Jan is happy to see some more N scale here since I abandoned him. ACL Tom, it appears this layout has an "Ovalix" too.


Really nice work. Glad to see you sharing it here.


John

[R Edington]

Impressive undertaking. I know Jan is happy to see some more N scale here since I abandoned him. ACL Tom, it appears this layout has an "Ovalix" too.


Really nice work. Glad to see you sharing it here.


John

  Thanks John.
I've started reading Tom's thread, but it'll take me awhile to read through the whole thing.

Ironically, the area Jan is modeling is about 70 miles from me. 

[R Edington]

       Oroville Yard
6 arrival/departure tracks
9 classification tracks
I'm in the process of redoing this area of the classification throat and lead. 

[Zephyrus52246]

Wow.  That's a lot of track.  How long does it take a train to traverse the helix?


Jeff

[Powersteamguy1790]

Beautiful layout Rodney. Have fun building it.


Stay cool and run steam......

[jimmillho]

Very impressive layout.  Hope to see more of it soon

Jim

[ACL1504]

Rodney,

WOWSER and then some. I'm very impressed with the project. I know just how much of your self you've invested in the layout to this point.

I have a helix on the Atlantic and Southern RR but as it is oval in shape I call it an Ovalix. Mine is 1% incline.

Great stuff Rodney.

Tom