Superior & Seattle Railroad Build

[S&S RR]

Moving farther to the West in this diagram we can see the complete Mt. Aiden trestle - the land bridge and then the new trestle that I'm working on currently. (see block 16A).


On the left side the track work goes through the tunnels which were strategically placed to serve as view framers.  This was the result of a comment that Wayne Olson made when the plaster mountains were all still raw white plaster.  Wayne made the comment that it was a shame not to have a view from this room all the way into the corner of the other room.  The mountain in this area had to be there to block a construction post.  So from this conversation the Wayne's hole tunnel was born.  See pictures elsewhere in the tread (remember the index on page 1 if you have trouble).

[S&S RR]

In this diagram we have moved farther to the left. In this area another large town will be built - the vision for this area is a town on a hill - starting at waist level and extending to a sky backdrop near the ceiling.  I plan on building a clay mockup of this area before construction begins. I know what I want it to look like but don't know about the proportions until I make a mockup. This is one end of the layout but will not be Seattle.  The tunnel portal that leads to the reversing loops under the city will read Seattle.

[S&S RR]

Moving farther to the west and back to the south wall we have Eagles Nest Yard.  This is the area that I'm currently working in.  The warehouse that I'm working on is in the lower right corner.  The trestle and the location for the Chippy's Hollow is in the top right.

[S&S RR]

Now that we have reached the West Wall we start moving to the North along the wall.


The scenic area of the layout ends with the hillside behind the Roundhouse and turntable. As part of the shelves for my work areas I have built in storage yards for rolling stock and locomotives.  There are two levels to these yards so the upper level is shown offset in the diagrams.


The first work area consists of three work surfaces and lots of storage cabinets. This is where I do most of my structure builds.

[S&S RR]

Moving farther to the North we reach my main workroom where I have 4 different workbenches, a paint booth, a laundry sink, and all the mechanical stuff for the house (water heater, furnace, etc.). In this room is also the reversing loop for all the trains on the layout.  This is temporary - until the Town of Superior gets built on the other side of the wall.

[S&S RR]

At this point we move farther North and into what is now the family room in our basement. As the family room turns into the crew quarters ( I hope the CEO doesn't see this) the layout benchwork will be chest high.  The big screen TV and Stereo will be built in under the layout along with some special storage and book shelves. There is room for staging tracks in the hall way. The plan right now is to model the copper mining areas that I explored while I was in college at Michigan Tech. The Portage Lake, the Smelters and on top of the hill the mine heads. This area was served by both standard and narrow gauge so the modeling can go in many directions.  Again,  this area will be designed as the current layout nears completion.









So since you asked, that's my plan for the layout as it stands tonight.    Any changes will be announced on a as need bases.

[S&S RR]

A few statistics about the layout design:


- The current design has 10 Power Districts.
- 104 track blocks.
- 72 turnouts.
- 9 reversing loops.


There are 11,638.785 inches of track = 970 feet = Approximately 16 HO Scale Miles. About 40 percent of this is currently installed and operational.

[cuse]

That looks like an exhibit for the campaign to bring the EXPO to the Michigan tundra 


Awesome. World class!


John

[ACL1504]

John,

Wow, that's a lot of work going on in Michigan. Great track plan.

Tom

[GPdemayo]

Thanks for the layout design posting John.....I've wondered how all those great scenes go together. 

[S&S RR]

That looks like an exhibit for the campaign to bring the EXPO to the Michigan tundra 


Awesome. World class!


John

Thanks for the kind words John. After going through the layout plan last night I reminded myself how much work there is to be done. I enjoy the doing, so it gets done when it gets done.

[S&S RR]

I got back on the Chippy Hollow build today.  My progress picture for the day is gluing the gutters "You just have to have the right stack-up".

[S&S RR]

John,

Wow, that's a lot of work going on in Michigan. Great track plan.

Tom

Thanks Tom 


The work is in the implementation of the plan. We have to work to stay warm up here. 

[S&S RR]

Thanks for the layout design posting John.....I've wondered how all those great scenes go together. 

Greg


Thanks for stopping by the thread - it was time to give everyone a feel for the layout design. 

[Twopoint2]

Looks very good John, you have your work cut out for ya. Now I know where the sink, water heater and workbench are lol.