illinois Central Chicago District - Monee Rebuild

[vinceg]

OK, the contractor finished. I decided to go with the more conventional route of mudding the joints and painting the Masonite. The furring strips are all up, the Masonite stapled on (contractors have cool toys), joints and staples are mudded and a first primer coat is on. You already saw a few pics of some 1x2 furring strips on the walls. I won't bore you with more of that. Instead, I will bore you with a brief overview of the track plan for some context:



Starting with the peninsula, you can see Chicago and Kankakee staging. This staging will actually be hidden - 14" or so below an upper level that will represent the Amtrak service facility and finally a passenger service terminal. Union/Central station-esque (protolancing, after all). But, there's no construction on that, yet. More on that story in another year or two.

Chicago staging represents all points north and west for trains heading north. Proceeding left out of staging you come upon Hazel Crest and Markham Yard - the major classification point on the railroad. Continuing south, are the towns of Richton Park, Monee, Peotone, Manteno, Indian Oaks (which is really Bourbonnais, Illinois), and finally back into staging that represents Kankakee and all points south. I also included a connecting loop between Kankakee staging and Chicago staging to facilitate continuous running and perhaps some simplified staging for eventual operations.

The mainline is mostly double track except as it goes into and out of staging. Space is tight there and I opted to favor larger radii curves. Markham track is all laid. Indian Oaks shows some significant industrial trackage, none of which is there (as you can see in the pictures). Still planning there. As I mentioned, my goal is to load that area up with a lot of kits. Need to think through that a lot more.

Similarly, the mini-peninsulas at Peotone do not yet exist. Those will again be constructed to accommodate kits and especially some topography that will support the waterfront kits and multi-level kits (AKA South River). To the north (left) of Peotone, you see the first peninsula I will build. Significant creative license here. There is a Rock River in Illinois, but not here. It's much further northwest, running through the town of, surprisingly enough, Rockford. There *is* a Rock CREEK north of Peotone, but the only activity you would find there would be along the lines of radio controlled boats, not anything that would look like commercial marine traffic. But, I wanted some waterfront scenery. This seemed like a somewhat less egregious cheat. I am also planning to build this peninsula first as it will help me complete my "Monee Build" which is the focus of this thread.

One more reality violation to point out - Manteno. You see a small yard here representing a Metra (the Chicago suburban commuter service) terminus. In reality, Metra does run down the old IC tracks but the terminus is at University Park - between Richton Park and Monee. Worse yet, it's an electric line. But, I am not interested in catenary. And, I love bilevel commuter cars so I needed a longer run for my commuter traffic so that I can enjoy seeing the trains on a longer run.

By the way, I mentioned that the mainline is all laid. The wiring is still in progress. In addition to having some interest in operations, I am interested in automation (my background and career has been software and electrical engineering). So, as I am wiring, there is some significant extra work being put into blocking and occupancy detection. Not only takes more time and effort, but also ends up burning me out (because it takes more time and effort). But, when it's finished, I hope to be able to watch ("rail fan") through freights, Amtrak runs, and commuter service even when I don't have a dozen friends in my basement (like I could come up with a dozen friends  ).

OK - so much for the "brief" overview. Next up, back to business with a couple of status pics.

[vinceg]

Here are a few pics of the Masonite backdrop, pre-mud and primer. First, a shot of North Hazel Crest.



This is me standing just behind Chicago staging and pointing to the north end of Hazel Crest. If you take the track plan above and turn it upside down, you will be aligned with this view. The two single track lines coming from the bottom are the staging leads. On the left, you're heading upgrade and north out of Kankakee staging. The right hand track is the south run out of Chicago staging and heading upgrade to Markham Yard.

That little cubby hole you see to the left of the backdrop is right below the fireplace in the family room above. Not sure what I'm going to do with that, yet. But, I was sure that I didn't want backdrop back there.

Here's a wider shot of Markham Yard:



The backdrop stops at the basement window that is the emergency exit. What you can't see are some very large styrene structures to the right where the benchwork angles away from the wall (to accommodate the e-exit as well as a sump pump in the corner). I will probably attach some backdrop directly to the benchwork there (or not have any at all as the buildings create a significant view block).

[vinceg]

Richton Park:



If you look to the far left of the picture in the middle, you can see one of those styrene buildings I mentioned earlier - constructed with City Classics modular components. Still needs significant work to complete. The window you see is not the emergency window I referenced before. That is another one.

[vinceg]

Here is south Richton Park/North Monee. You've seen this before but without the backdrop. The sites for Ware Knitters and Rugg are still intact.



At the bottom right of the pic you can see the turnback loop between Chicago staging and Kankakee staging.

Man, I gotta get rid of all those old Model Railroader mags.

Here's a wider shot of Monee.

[vinceg]

I'm skipping Peotone and Manteno - I posted pics of them before. The backdrops *were* finished but now they have primed mud blobs all over the place where they were anchored to the concrete walls. In the meantime, here's Indian Oaks:



Again, the Tannery will not go there. Just trying to keep my few dioramas out of harm's way as the contractor wandered around the basement brandishing eight-foot wood and Masonite products.

Also note as I mentioned above that only the mainline is in place at this point - no industrial trackage, yet.

[vinceg]

Finally, here's the south end of Indian Oaks and the path downgrade to Kankakee staging.



You can also see the other side of that fireplace cubby hole here.

The lighting on this shot is also good to show the staples. Those compressed air guns are fun - katork, katork, katork, katork. Done. Air pressure set just enough to recess the staples that you can then easily mud over. BTW, all the Masonite is fastened to the furring strips with Liquid Nails Heavy Duty in addition to the staples.

That's it....everything except the staging yards on the peninsula. not showing those as they are buried under lots of stuff right now (again, to clear the work area for backdrop work). I'll post something on that in the future.

As I mentioned, the backdrop is finished to the point of having a first primer coat. I will do a second primer coat and then two coats of sky blue. I won't post any pictures of that -- doesn't add much value. So, when I come back here again we should be able to get back to the business of building Monee. One extra benefit of having some contractor help - I took advantage of the fact that he has a truck and I was able to buy some 4x8 styrofoam sheets. So, should have everything I need to start terraforming Monee.

CU soon.

[Janbouli]

What a great space Vince , looking forward to years of keeping us informed 

[jerryrbeach]

Vince,


That is quite an undertaking.  I like the thought process behind the plan.  Your backdrops look really solid.  I'm looking forward to watching your layout take shape.

[deemery]

I'm a bit surprised you have square (inside) corners, rather than coving them to round them off.  Did you consider that? 


dave

[PRR Modeler]

It's going to be outstanding.

[vinceg]

I'm a bit surprised you have square (inside) corners, rather than coving them to round them off.  Did you consider that? 


dave

Thanks Dave -yes, indeed. I spent a bunch of time thinking about that. The contractor even asked the same question after seeing that I had coved the corner with the valence over the Richton Park-to-Monee transition (see the pics above). In fact, my initial assumption was that I would cove all of the inner corners in the backdrop. The benefit is clear - no line to grab your attention in pictures. Also saves some work in terms of having to do the corner-mudding thing. The downside I saw was that I would be consuming available horizontal real estate - maybe even a lot of real estate depending how generous I made the radius of the backdrop. And, a 22" slab of 3/16" tempered hardboard isn't super flexible, although I know you can do things with water to help that like they do when making grand pianos.

In the end, I reasoned that since the thing I loved most about model railroading (at least at this point in time) is creating rich scenes with lots of structures (of course, you'd never know that to look at where I am so far). That meant preserving as much horizontal real estate as possible, especially with the relatively narrow benchwork I created for maintenance purposes.

What finally sealed the deal for me was my visit to NNGC 2018. I visited a lot of layouts - many of which had sharp corners. I made a point of evaluating whether that "ruined" the look for me and decided that it didn't. They may compromise a few photos along the way, but I didn't find it distracting in person.

We'll see how I feel about it in five years.

[vinceg]

What a great space Vince , looking forward to years of keeping us informed 

Thanks, Janbouli. Sounds weird when you say "years" but that's what it is. Makes me think I should have created an ICRR Chicago District thread rather than a Monee thread 

I guess I'll worry about that excellent problem after Monee is finished.

[vinceg]

Thanks Jerry and Curt. Nice to know a few people are watching. Not only provides some gentle pressure but I am hoping to also get some help along the way. Looking around at other threads and even other forums, I can see there are many people out there that have solved problems that I don't even know about, yet.

[deemery]

I think my coves were 4" - 5" diameter, so that didn't cost me very much real estate.  In the current layout, the one inside corner (where real estate is tight) will have a quarry - one of the few scenic elements I can think of that has that shape :-)  I still have a couple other inside corners to think about, but I'm far away from worrying about backdrops right now.


dave

[vinceg]

I think my coves were 4" - 5" diameter, so that didn't cost me very much real estate.  In the current layout, the one inside corner (where real estate is tight) will have a quarry - one of the few scenic elements I can think of that has that shape :-)  I still have a couple other inside corners to think about, but I'm far away from worrying about backdrops right now.


dave

Wow - that's a 2" or 2.5" radius. Super tight. Not sure you could get hardboard to do that even if you soaked it in water overnight. But, as you said, perfect for a quarry.

When I started thinking about this over a year ago, I researched all sorts of stuff like using styrene or vinyl flooring for the backdrop (better turn radius). I thought so hard about it that it took me more than 3 months to get started. (For fun, get my wife started on the discussion of how I overthink things. Be prepared to listen a while.) Interestingly, despite all that "thinking," I still did the wrong thing by using Liquid Nails only for the furring strips - no anchors. Subsequently it fell off the wall a year later. Ah well. Live and learn. Hopefully I saved someone else from making this mistake.

BTW, even though I am at peace with leveraging or hiding the inside corners, I do still have two convex (outside) corners that I am not sure what to do with. There were some suggestions earlier on in this thread to use overpasses, tunnels, and/or mirrors. It also occurred to me to use a building flat on the two corners. Not sure what to do yet but that decision isn't far off.