nycjeff layout

[Keep It Rusty]

Love that gate, Jeff. It's one of those things that is trickier than it looks. Great work!

[nycjeff]

This is the rack that I had to build just below the cut out portion so that I had a place to put the cut out. It had to be close because the wires for the track power had to be considered.



Here is the rack with the cut out portion stored in it. When putting this all together, I first cut out the benchwork and then put it in place making sure it was all level. Then I laid the tracks across the area. After that I used my cut-off wheel to cut the tracks in place. Then the power wires were installed and all was well. Problem of the skinny aisle was solved.



Here is the area with the cut-out removed. You can see the cut-out in the rack below the benchwork.



And here it is with the cut-out in.



Here is a drone view of the end of the yard area. When trains come into the yard on the different colored ballast tracks, the locomotives can be un-coupled and run on to the stub track at the end of the arrival track. They can then be backed through the three turnouts to get to the run-a round track at the right. From there they can pull forward into the engine service facility at the top right of the picture.



This is a view looking the other way. The stub track at the end of the arrival tracks is at the bottom right and the two tracks leading into the engine service facility are at the bottom middle. I hope that all of that is clear as mud. If not, anyone is welcome to come and visit if they are ever in sunny Arizona, where it is in the 70's right now. Sorry, I had to rub it in a little. That's it for now, more later.

[nycjeff]

Love that gate, Jeff. It's one of those things that is trickier than it looks. Great work!

Hello Craig, glad you like the gate. Since it's right at the entrance to the train room and it is such a large moving thing, I had to take care when building it. All's well, that ends well I guess.

[ACL1504]

Jeff,

That swing gate is just wonderful. Very well done.

Tom 

[jerryrbeach]

Jeff,


Just getting caught up on your thread.  Not only is the swing gate great, and much more difficult to design and build than one would think, the removable track section to allow the gate to open wider is genius.  I would never have thought of that in a million years.  I like the use of space to have such a long yard to allow running realistic trains on a busy mainline.  Kudos on both your design and execution of both the gate and the layout as well.

[nycjeff]

Jeff,

That swing gate is just wonderful. Very well done.

Tom 

Hello Tom, thank you, the gate was a lot of work, but worth it in the end

Jeff,


Just getting caught up on your thread.  Not only is the swing gate great, and much more difficult to design and build than one would think, the removable track section to allow the gate to open wider is genius.  I would never have thought of that in a million years.  I like the use of space to have such a long yard to allow running realistic trains on a busy mainline.  Kudos on both your design and execution of both the gate and the layout as well.

Hey Jerry, thank you very much for the kind words. The length of my yard makes it easy to pull full trains from the mainline in. I'm lucky to have the space for my layout that I do. Thanks again for looking in.

Continuing on...



A closer look at the trackwork at the end of the yard. I had to have a way to get the locomotives from incoming trains un-coupled and into the engine service facility in a realistic fashion. It was a lot of trial and error on paper designs, but I think I came up with a good solution.



A look at the structures at the end of the yard. The interlocking tower is another Walthers and the middle building is a rooming house for railroad crews to stay in after their runs. It is a Walthers Mainline kit. The quonset hut is from Rix I believe.



A closer look at the tower and rooming house. I read in my NYC books that sometimes at division point yards there were rooming houses for crews. I thought that was a good thing to include on the layout and the Mainline kit fit the bill pretty well.



This is another scratch-built yard structure for the yard personnel.



And another scratch-built yard structure. I liked building these little structures, they were good practice for building larger ones in the future. I haven't finished blending in the scenery around this one yet. I have some ideas about yard trackside details and am looking forward to finishing up the yard area.



Here is a look at the benchwork under the peninsula. I used 2 x 2's for legs and 1 x 3's for the top horizontal pieces and as always used 5 ply 1/2 inch plywood on the top. When building the shelves under the benchwork I used 1 x 2's to hold up the plywood shelf. More in a minute

[nycjeff]

When designing my helix  to get to my upper level I found that if I had a long approach track to the helix I could eliminate one helix level. In effect, the approach track is an unwound helix level. This is a track level view of that approach track looking towards the helix.



You can see the approach track against the backdrop, the track is about 16 feet  long and has just under a 2% rise, as does my helix.



This is a closer look at the top of the approach track. The hillside is stacked foam pieces, carved and then painted to resemble a forest hill.



I reached in with my arm to get this view. I carved some foam to get a rock face tunnel portal look. I like the way trains seem to disappear into the woods.



Another view of the end of the approach track. I don't like hidden tracks on a layout, so this long approach track to the helix seemed like a good way for more visible train running. Next up is my engine service facility. That's it for now, more later.

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

Looks just beautiful. When I had RR I also modeled NYC. Still have all my rolling stock And locos.

Karl

[Bernd]

I like your un-wound helix. It's a nice length to show off some of those nice NYC passenger cars.

Bernd

[PRR Modeler]

Very nice modeling Jeff.

[nycjeff]

Hey Jeff:

Looks just beautiful. When I had RR I also modeled NYC. Still have all my rolling stock And locos.

Karl

Hello Karl, thanks for stopping by. There's a lot to like about the NYC. Anyone who is of a certain age and grew up in the Northeast can't help but remember their beautiful trains.

I like your un-wound helix. It's a nice length to show off some of those nice NYC passenger cars.

Bernd

Hey Bernd, I'll have to take a picture of one of my NYC passenger trains on that track. They look really good going up that incline and it's length lets you see the whole train.

Very nice modeling Jeff.

Hello Curt, thanks for the nice comment and also for checking out my layout tour thread. I know that I'm certainly enjoying yours. That's one of the great things about the forum. It lets us visit each others layouts.

Continuing on... 

Next up on my layout tour is my engine servicing facility. I spent more time planning this area than any other. The space is at the heart of my layout and I wanted it to reflect what happens with real locomotives when ending a run.



Here is the drone view of the entry area to the facility. As you can see there are seven tracks. I will attempt to explain the purpose of each track as we go along.



As my drone continues over the area we begin to see the busy service tracks for both steam and diesel locomotives.



This shows the end area of the facility with the turntable and the roundhouse. As you can see three tracks make it to the turntable- the diesel inbound and outbound track and two steam tracks, one inbound and one outbound.



This is a closer view of the roundhouse. It is a Walthers kit, as are most of the structures in this area. They have done such a good job making this type of kit available. It is the three stall kit. I scratch-built a fourth open air stall. The fifth track goes under a gantry crane, which is a Walthers Mainline kit. I really liked this kit when I saw it and had to put it in a prominent place on the layout.



Here's a closer look at the interior of the roundhouse. I used some detail castings from my stash and scratch-built the others. I want to add more when I can. I don't think I will ever put the roof on, I don't want to hide the interior. I'm thinking about completing the wood framing and maybe showing a roofing crew starting to put a solid roof in one corner.



A closer look at the gantry crane track. The wheel sets on the flatcar are from Tichy and I can't remember where I got the junk pile casting. The wires sticking up on two of the roundhouse tracks are track feeders waiting to be soldered. More in a minute.

[nycjeff]

I had a small triangular area left behind the roundhouse that I needed to do something with, so I put another barn there. You just can't have too many barns, this is central rural Ohio after all. I have noticed that George Sellios has a lot of diners and bars on his layout, well, I have a lot of barns on mine. I like the look of them and they are fun to build.



Next to the roundhouse along the backdrop is one of two shop buildings. Both of these buildings were kit-bashed from the same kit, the Walthers car shop kit. I didn't have room for the whole kit so I cut it up to fit along the curved backdrop. The smokestack is from Walthers and the large black tank is from Rix. On the roof is a small water tower, also from Walthers.



Here's a closer look at the entry to the first shop building. I left a door open and put just enough inside to suggest a busy interior. I like the small jib crane, but can't remember where I got it. I'm going to claim senior privilege on all these can't remembers. The truck is from Classic Metal Works.



The second shop building is my car repair shop and it was made with the rest of that Walthers kit I mentioned before. I had to cut the roof card for this building to fit the curve of the backdrop and I put some detail castings on it. I want to do some more detailing of the car shop in the future.



Along the front of the scene is the Office building, this is also a Walthers kit. I added the NYC decal from a decal sheet for NYC locomotives that I got at a LHS.



I filled in another little area with this old time conveyor kit. I have several of these little kits on the layout, I just like the way they look. Behind the conveyor you can see the end of the supply track for the coaling tower. I got the idea for the short retaining wall on this inclined track from the great Cliff Powers Magnolia Route. I liked the way he did his and I tried to copy it here. That's it for now, more later.

[Janbouli]

What a layout Jeff , lots of details even if it looks like it's a very large layout, keep the photo's coming.

[PRR Modeler]

Excellent modeling Jeff.

[postalkarl]

hey Jeff:

Great pics of the layout. Really like the turntable area.

Karl