nycjeff layout

Started by nycjeff, August 06, 2020, 04:15:29 PM

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nycjeff

Thank you James, Dave and Dennis for looking in. I appreciate your comments. It always seems that there are many ways to do the same job, no matter what the job is. I'm looking into getting some Scalecoat Rail Brown paint and thinner. It will be new to me as I've only used acrylic paints on my layout to this point. The use of cork roadbed to clean the tracks of ballast material after glueing has worked out just fine for me, though it's always nice to hear about other methods. I'll post track painting results when possible.    Jeff
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

deemery

Modeling the Northeast in the 1890s - because the little voices told me to

nycjeff

Hello Dave, thank you so much for the link for the micro brushes. I will order some tomorrow. Once again forum members come thru  !!!      Jeff
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

nycjeff

Up to this point I have posted several random pictures of my layout along with my track plans. I thought that now I would begin a layout tour.



Pictured here is the entrance area to my train room. My layout is located in my basement and the room has one door and no windows. Several train and New York Central photos are mounted on the wall. Also visible are two of my fathers kerosene lanterns that he used as a car inspector on the Central. The electrical switches located to the right of the door control all of the lighting and power to the train room, as well as two ceiling fans and an exhaust fan that leads to the outside. This is important since the room does not have any natural ventilation.



This is the door to the train room, it is a pocket door. Both levels of my layout cross this doorway. The top level is a duck-under with black and white warning stripes painted on. The lower level is a swinging gate that has been scenicked to be a river crossing. I will have more information about these locations as I go around the layout.



The tour starts with my staging yards. This area is located on the back side of the center peninsula and is approximately 18 feet long. It has two levels. The East staging yard is the lower level and it has 6 tracks, an entrance track and a loop track at the lowest level of my helix. The second level is my West staging yard which has 3 tracks, an entrance track and a loop at the second level of my helix.  My benchwork is framed using 2x2's for the verticals and 1x3's for the horizontal pieces. I use 1/2 inch  5 ply plywood for my flat surfaces. On top of the plywood is a 1/2 inch thick homosote or sound deadening board. I use Midwest cork roadbed under all of my track which is Atlas code 83. My turnouts are all Atlas #6 with Caboose hand throws. I did minimal scenery here in the staging yards, I painted the homosote with a tan colored paint and sprinkled on some of my base scenery material which is sifted dirt from my yard. My lighting started out with CFL lamps in plastic lampholders, but as these burn out I am replacing them with LED bulbs.



This is the helix end of the East staging yard. You can see the entrance track going into the helix and also coming out of the helix. The buildings are extra ones that I did not have room for on the layout.



This is a view of the loop track which is the lowest level of the helix. I will have more information about my helix coming up.



Here is a close-up view of the Atlas turnouts with the Caboose ground throws. You can see the track labels as well. That's it for now, more later
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

PRR Modeler

Wow looks great. I never realized you had such a large layout.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

nycjeff

Quote from: PRR Modeler on January 11, 2021, 02:57:09 PM
Wow looks great. I never realized you had such a large layout.

Hello Curt, thank you for looking in. When my wife retired we moved from the central city out to the country and I built the house we are living in now. My wife likes to say that I built myself a train room and as an afterthought I built her a house on top of it. I wasn't allowed to start on the train room until everything in the house was done. I started building the house in mid 2004 and we moved in in the spring of 2006, so I started in my train room in 2007.

Continuing on...



This is the other end of my staging area, I haven't finished the basic scenery here.



This is where trains enter and leave the East staging yard. The right side track is eastbound to the layout  and the left is for trains returning to the East staging area. This East staging represents the Cleveland area of my railroad world.



These switches control power to the East staging yard tracks, they are all DPDT center off style switches. My layout is a standard DC style control with two walk-around throttles.



This is a view of the West staging tracks, they are 3 inches higher than the east tracks because they lead into the second level of my helix which has 3 inch difference in height between levels.



This is the view from the other end of the West staging tracks.



This is where the west staging tracks enter and leave the helix. You can see the first level below these tracks. I cut some cardboard to fill in the empty spaces in the staging area to give it a more finished look. That's it for now, more later.

Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

nycjeff

One thing I forgot to mention is that in the middle of each staging area track length I installed an Atlas re-railer. I did this to insure that any truck not riding correctly would be put back on the rails.



This is a view of the west staging loop track exiting the second level of the  helix. You can see the east track also exiting the helix on the first level below.



These are the switches that control the power to the west staging tracks- the incoming track and the three outgoing tracks.



These two switches control the power to the first and second level loop tracks of the helix. With all of these tracks and switches I can store up to 13 trains in my staging area. Eight in the east area- 6 on outgoing tracks, one on the incoming track and one on the loop. In the west area I can store 5 trains- 3 on the outgoing tracks, one on the incoming track and one on the loop. A typical train on my layout can be 2 diesels or a steam locomotive and a tender with 12- 40 foot cars and a caboose. This size train can easily fit on any of the previously mentioned tracks.



Below the staging yards I built some shelves to store all of the boxes for my locomotives and rolling stock as well as some misc. other layout materials.



As illustrated on my track plan the staging yard is on the top area of the center peninsula. The helix is located at the right end of the peninsula. The tracks leaving the east bound tracks are on the aisle side of the two track mainline run around the room. This track winds around and comes into the bottom half of the peninsula and enters the west bound staging area. After going around the lower helix level it comes back out on the mainline run on the wall side of the two track main. This gives me about a 90 foot mainline run once around the room not counting the length of the staging yards. It's a little hard to see but the train room door is located about halfway along the bottom left tracks. That's it for now, more later.
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

nycjeff

Continuing on...



This is where the tracks leave my west staging area and go through the backdrop. The top track is the incoming track which leads to the loop and then to the three west bound staging tracks. The bottom comes from the west bound tracks and leads back to the layout along the wall. All I did was cut out the top and side of the shape I wanted for the entry points and fold them back and glue it in place. At the bottom right you can see the incoming and outgoing tracks for the east staging tracks.



This is where the tracks leaving the east bound tracks go through the backdrop.



This is where the east bound tracks enter the layout through the backdrop. I tried to make this look like the NYC state line tunnels. It is stacked foam panels which I carved into a rock like formation and then colored with craft paints. I then added various ground covers and some trees which I made from bush branches that I collected from my desert yard. I have decided to place my layout time in the late fall when trees have lost their leaves and the ground still has some nice coloring.  My backdrop is masonite with the smooth side facing out which I painted with three colors of blue paint and blended together. I wanted to just have a sky like appearance which fades into the background. I, personally, am not a fan of detailed painted backdrops unless done by a professional artist which I am definitely not.



Another view of the tunnels with a passenger train led by an E8 NYC diesel coming through. The right side area of the picture only has about 2 inches from the track to the backdrop. I used carved foam to simulate a hillside and then painted a distant green hillside on the backdrop for some depth. When doing this distant hillside painting I blow some chalks onto the wet paint for some color and texture.



Here is the drone view of this corner of the layout. You can also see my KC's workshop Steelton Feed and Seed build. I did a build thread on this structure.



Here is a better view of the Steelton building. I really enjoyed building that kit. More in a minute
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

Opa George

Jeff,
I'm enjoying the tour.  Really nice layout!  The tunnels are my favorite so far.

--Opa George

nycjeff

These pictures are all from the top left corner of my layout track plan. There is a two track main coming from staging and leading to the long top wall on the plan.

Continuing on...



To the right of the Steelton building is this RDA Delaney Iron Works building which I also did a build thread on. This was a styrene kit that I heavily modified.



This is a close-up view of the area between the  Steelton and Delaney buildings. This area was previously a forest area with some rock formations that I removed to make room for my structures.



Here is the drone view of this area with the two structures. All of the track on my mainlines has at least a 30 degree radius and I placed some thin wood shims under the outer edge of the curves for an attempt at super elevation of the curves.



Here is a view of the curve behind the Delaney building. You can see the various ground cover materials I use as well as some trees and some manufactured pine trees that I bought. The foam hillside and the painted distant hillsides can also be seen.



Further around the corner is my scratch-built burned out barn. I have more than a few barns on the layout, this is rural central Ohio after all. I had fun with this build. All I used was various sizes of strip-wood and some craft paint and weathering chalks. It's hard to mess up a burned out building.



Here is the drone view of the burned-out barn. These drones are expensive, so you have to get your moneys worth out of them. You can also see the skinny depth of the foam hillside and you get a better view of my distant hillside as well. More in a minute
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

nycjeff

Quote from: Opa George on January 12, 2021, 04:17:17 PM
Jeff,
I'm enjoying the tour.  Really nice layout!  The tunnels are my favorite so far.

--Opa George

Hey George, thanks for looking in and also for the kind words. I know that you are a tunnel fan, I've been checking out your layout tour as well. You are doing some fine work

Continuing on...



Here's a closer look at the track curve in this area. I did some experimenting with the foam carving for the hillsides and I am pleased with how they came out.



We are coming into the straight track on the top wall of my layout plan here and there is a little more space on both sides of the tracks for some scenery here. The shelf of my layout is 18 inches deep here.



A closer look at my foam hillside. I carved a slot in the foam and stuck a real rock into the hillside for some texture. I like the look of real rocks on the layout. You can see how basic the painted distant hillsides are in this view. As I said I'm definitely not a professional artist, but it doesn't take much to give the impression of distant hills on the horizon. That's it for now, more later
Jeff Firestone
Morristown, Arizona
modeling the New York Central in rural Ohio in the late 1940's

Janbouli

Thank you for sharing , wonderful layout .
I love photo's, don't we all.

PRR Modeler

I totally agree with Jan.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

tom.boyd.125

Jeff,
That tower came out great and will be a neat addition to your NYC empire.
Tommy
Tom Boyd in NE Minnesota
tommytrains22@yahoo.com

Bernd

Hi Jeff,

Nice start on your layout. Just went through your postings.

I'm in the same situation, built my own house and the wife has the part that keeps the basement dry. Only problem is I'm still working on the house after 20 years. I think the wife needs to get the whip.  :(

Bernd
New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds

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