Superior & Seattle Railroad Build

[ACL1504]

HAPPY NEW YEAR JOHN!

Tom

[GPdemayo]

Happy New Year from the staff and crew of the Superior & Seattle Railroad.

And a big Happy New Year to you and your staff and crew from the gang at the St. Louis & Denver Railroad! 

[S&S RR]

I spent the day taking some prototype pictures for a design change I'm thinking about.

[S&S RR]

On my recent trip to California I spent some time in the hotel room making some design changes to the upper level track. It was time to finalize the design so I can get back to laying track. The new design allows for a continuous run through the different levels of mountain track by using a helix inside the mountains. Originally the design called for reversing loops at each level. I will be changing the drawings in the next few days and will post a picture.  This new design also allows me to extend the upper level narrow gauge line by 40 feet. I spent a couple hours this morning making sure it would all work. Now, it's time to get out the saw and go to work removing some of my old layout inside the mountains.

[GPdemayo]

Oh my gosh.....Langford's Syndrome has moved out to the Mid-West.....sounds like a plan we will look forward to seeing. 

[ACL1504]

On my recent trip to California I spent some time in the hotel room making some design changes to the upper level track. It was time to finalize the design so I can get back to laying track. The new design allows for a continuous run through the different levels of mountain track by using a helix inside the mountains. Originally the design called for reversing loops at each level. I will be changing the drawings in the next few days and will post a picture.  This new design also allows me to extend the upper level narrow gauge line by 40 feet. I spent a couple hours this morning making sure it would all work. Now, it's time to get out the saw and go to work removing some of my old layout inside the mountains.

John,

Way to go my friend. I look forward to what you plan to do. You won't be disappointed.

Tom

[S&S RR]

Oh my gosh.....Langford's Syndrome has moved out to the Mid-West.....sounds like a plan we will look forward to seeing. 

I'm afraid so - an intermountain ovalix - kinda sounds like a surgical procedure.  In this case it is sure starting out like one.  I will post a few pictures when I get far enough along to show something.

[S&S RR]

On my recent trip to California I spent some time in the hotel room making some design changes to the upper level track. It was time to finalize the design so I can get back to laying track. The new design allows for a continuous run through the different levels of mountain track by using a helix inside the mountains. Originally the design called for reversing loops at each level. I will be changing the drawings in the next few days and will post a picture.  This new design also allows me to extend the upper level narrow gauge line by 40 feet. I spent a couple hours this morning making sure it would all work. Now, it's time to get out the saw and go to work removing some of my old layout inside the mountains.

John,

Way to go my friend. I look forward to what you plan to do. You won't be disappointed.

Tom

Well Tom it's all your fault - it all started because I was looking for a way to extend the narrow gauge branch of the S&S.  I will post pictures and explanations later in the week but we now have a name for it.  See post above.

[S&S RR]

So here are a few pictures of the progress I'm making on the Brambell's build.  I'm back to jumping between three different projects but it just the way I like to work.





This is the fine dirts - almost like pigments - that I'm using for the top layer of dirt for the yards.  This has been sifted with four different progressively smaller metal screen meshes and then through a pair of nylons.  The results are like a fine dust.

[S&S RR]

Here are a few pictures of the yard after the dirt has been spread around and glued down.  You can see how much darker the color gets.


Some of this is from the glue and some from the sub layer of dirt. These pictures were taken before the glue was completely dry.











Note: add staining the back side of the fences to the fix it list.

[ACL1504]

John,

Brambell's is looking really good. Enjoying the build.

Tom

[S&S RR]

John,

Brambell's is looking really good. Enjoying the build.

Tom

Thanks Tom


I'm enjoying building it - Great kit!

[S&S RR]

I made more progress on the Brambell's build today - added the crane and more details.  I also decided to fit the build into the layout one more time before I glued the outbuildings down on the baseboard.  Here are a few pictures.








The large rocks in the background will be covered with "rock talus"  that is to-scale for the scene.

[S&S RR]

Here are a few more from different angles.

[S&S RR]

Now, for a few pictures to describe what I'm up to inside the two large mountains on the layout.  The original design for the layout was for the train to loop around each mountain at each of four levels and most of the change in grade would take place about 40 feet away - this required a train to pass through each scene twice to make a complete trip around the layout. I also have a narrow gauge branch line that is point to point at the upper most level on the layout but it was only about 20 feet long.  I have always wanted to extend the run for the narrow gauge line but had space problems because of the reversing loops on the standard gauge lines.  So I spent my evenings this past week reviewing the design and came up with a way to connect the different levels of the layout by constructing partial helixes inside the two large mountains. This freed up the space need to extend the narrow gauge line.  The only downside to this plan was that I built this layout on top of the benchwork from my previous layout. Let me see if I can explain with a few pictures. 


This is a picture of the benchwork from my previous layout.  The gentleman in the picture is my Dad - this is the only picture I have of my Dad in the train room so it has great sentimental value to me.  I lost my Dad to cancer 15 years ago, I still think of him every day and many of his tools are being used to build this layout.  This picture was taken somewhere around 20 years ago.