In the summer of 2000 we moved into a house with a basement. Part of the space in that
basement was allocated to a home office, part to a laundry and family room, and the remaining room
was given over to me as a layout room. The space was 10' 11" by 14' 6". That’s
not much space in HO scale, but for one guy, more than enough to keep me busy. As
soon as we made an offer on the house I began sketching track plans.
Design
There were certain features that I had to have. The most important was that I had
to have as accurate a model of Gordonsville as possible. I also wanted to model the
Louisa station as it was the only example of the C&O’s 1892 standard design
that I know of on the Piedmont Sub. The Piedmont was a passenger line, so I needed to
run passenger equipment. I therefore opted for a 30" minimum radius on the mainline
curves. This is a bit tight, but should be ok, and staying at 30" allowed me to
incorporate scenic features that I couldn’t have had I used really broad curves.
I also settled on Atlas Code 83 track and Caboose Industries ground throws. Those
were my givens. Anything else I could fit would be considered icing on the cake.
The most recent version of my track plan is shown in Figure 1. As it turns out, I
had to use 53" radius curves through the Gordonsville wye in order to get the train
sheds to fit properly (and even those may be a bit too tight). That really limited
what I could do with the rest of the room. My original thought was that the
double-ended siding between Gordonsville and Louisa could masquerade as both the wood
yard in Gordonsville and the vermiculite loader in Louisa, but it just isn’t long
enough. When I had to go to those broad curves in the wye, it really cut down the
length of this siding. I had to go to a Walthers curved turnout just to get the
length I did. I’d also considered adding either Bibb or Trevilian against the
right-hand wall, but it destroyed the rural character of the line and decreased the
separation between the towns to an unacceptable level. I think the current plan gives me
fairly accurate representations of Louisa and Gordonsville and a decent mix of
freight traffic.
Figure 1. The track plan for my layout. Click to see a larger
version and feel free to email me your comments. It’s never too late to
incorporate a brilliant idea.
Construction
This is the train room before construction started. The wall on the
right divides the trains from my home office. The over-exposed pole in the
right foreground was installed to hold a light switch for the layout area.
I’ve installed 3 outlets in the ceiling to plug in inexpensive shop light
fixtures. The switch controls those outlets. Note the heating vent on the right
side - it set the maximum height for the railroad. I wanted to get the track
as high as possible (to get a realistic point of view) but I wanted to make
sure that there was enough room that the vent wouldn’t show up in photos
of the layout. The final track height is about 55".
Here I’ve got the ceiling finished and the tile floor installed. The room
is already a more pleasant place to be. I decided to leave the cinderblock
walls alone as the layout and backdrop will cover them. Part of the water
heater that blocked the staging tracks is visible in the foreground. It has
since been moved.
In this photo, I’ve cut the subroadbed out of ½" plywood and laid
it in place to check the fit. Gordonsville is on the left in the foreground.
Louisa will occupy the right hand wall and Melton is in the far left corner.
Finally. My son Jonathan and I are assembling the first of the L girder
benchwork.
In this shot, the main benchwork is up. The next step is to install and paint
the backdrop. I built a frame for the backdrop from 1x4’s. The backdrop
itself was cut from 1/8" masonite.
The backdrop is up and the joints are smoothed. In this photo I had just
covered the joints with drywall compound. About a month after I had it up and
painted, I noticed fine cracks at each joint that worsened over time. Turns out
the Masonite isn’t dimensionally stable. I went back and redid the
affected joints with both joint tape and drywall compound. A year later the
cracks have not returned.
As you can see in this shot, for subroadbed I used ½" plywood. Over
that I laid the Homabed roadbed. I have to
say that the Homabed was a joy to work with, especially compared to the cork that
I’ve used in the past. Once I had the roadbed down, I sealed it with a coat
of cheap, dirt-colored paint.
I’m driving the first nail into the first piece of track.
The first train around the layout is just completing its run, much to
Benjamin’s delight (not to mention mine — everything worked as planned).
For track I chose to use Atlas code 83 flex track and switches. The switches
are controlled manually with Caboose Industries ground throws. These photos show
most of the track at Gordonsville. The left-hand photo shows the wye; the
right-hand photo the sidings and the main to Orange. The tracks that in this photo
butt up against the backdrop have since pierced it to reach hidden staging tracks.
This is the Louisa end of the double-ended siding. I had intended it to represent
two industries - the vermiculite loader in Louisa and the wood yard in Gordonsville. However,
once I adjusted the curves through the wye, I had to shorten this siding and now I
don’t think it’s long enough. I’ve since added another siding on the other
side of Louisa to represent the vermiculite loader.
This is the Louisa station siding. The freight house will sit between the
siding and the main and the passenger station will be closer to the foreground
just beyond the edge of the plywood subroadbed for the siding. Because I
didn’t want to have the back of the station facing the edge of the layout,
I’ve modeled Louisa as a kind of mirror image of the original. If this were
really Louisa, we’d be looking east and away from Gordonsville. On the
layout, we’re looking west towards Gordonsville. The siding in the
background on the left will serve the small sand-loading facility located in
Louisa.
The Amerigas siding in Melton.
Here are some new photos of the layout. I’ve got the fascia
up all around. It really makes it easier for me to visualize how the scenery will
fit. Photo A shows the corner with the Louisa sand loader siding. My model of the
Doctors Road crossing will be to the left in that photo. Photo B shows the
Melton corner, with a couple of Walthers propane tanks set alongside the track
for planning purposes. Photo C shows Gordonsville, with a block of stores
from an old module, again to help me plan. Photo D shows the corner containing
timber products siding for Gordonsville.
These are my staging tracks. My first attempt at staging yielded 4 east-bound and 3 west-bound
tracks, each of which could hold a 7 car train with a locomotive and caboose. As I tried operating the
layout, though, that just turned out to be inadequeate. After intense negotiations with the land use
department (my sweet wife), I managed to get approval to bend around the water heater. The new tracks,
4 in each direction, will hold 10 car trains each with two locomotives and a caboose.
First Scenery: The Doctor’s Road Grade Crossing
The Doctors Road grade crossing is almost complete. THe top photo shows my 1970 model version, the
bottom shows the prototype as it exists today. In 1970 the road was gravel and there were only crossbucks to guard
the crossing. The general store that today stands on the corner did not exist in 1970. I still have some more detail
work to do and Route 33 isn't paved yet — it extends into the Melton scene and I want to pave it all at once. For an
account of how I built this scene, see Building the Doctors Road Grade Crossing.
The AmeriGas Siding
I decided to tackle the scenery in Melton next. There was only one building to scratchbuild and I
had the tanks from a Walthers Central Gas & Supply kit. I did have to make another trip to Louisa County for more
pictures — it turns out that however many I have, it’s never enough. There’s always some critical
bit I just can’t make out... This building is completely scratchbuilt except for the air conditioner in the
right-hand wall and the Miniatronics N-scale lighting fixtures. Next come the tanks...
The Gordonsville Bridge
I started construction of the Gordonsville bridge back in 2004. I finished much of the framing at that time,
but put the project aside while I learned how to make rivets. The bridge is now essentially complete and in place on
the layout. The photos show my model (top) and the prototype (bottom). The bridge, the abutments, and the road are
made mostly of styrene and are scratchbuilt. I did use Central Valley bridge ties (but cut them apart and removed the
guard timber in order to get the spacing used on the prototype) and streetlights from Walthers. The lettering on the bridge
is decals that I made. The signal in the background was built from an Oregon Rails kit. The traffic signs come from
two sources. The top sign was bought from an online source (http://www.traffic-signs.scale-train.com/
but the site doesn't seem to work correctly any more). The bottom sign I scratchbuilt using reflective tape and
a custom decal.
A Walk Along Route 33
Our hike along Route 33 starts just outside Gordonsville. The road to the left is Old Louisa Road. The Exchange
Hotel is (or will be) just out of frame to the left. The Melton AmeriGas facility is visible in the distance.
There was a Mack R series truck parked outside of the fencing at AmeriGas. I thought it looked nice, so I snapped
a shot. Note that, at the time, I hadn’t finished the gates for the fence. They’re up now.
Here’s an overall view of the AmeriGas distributor. The siding enters the facility behind the building. The
building was scratch built, as was the tank car unloading stand and all the piping. The tanks are from the Walthers
Central Gas and Supply kit. The fencing is also a Walthers product.
This is the grade crossing at Doctors Road. I’ve added more vegetation, but I still need more bushes and a
couple more trees. I’m also still missing a number of traffic signs.
Please note that, due to a huge volume of spam coming in on my email account, I’ve had to change my email address.
The new address is lzdaily@nospam.piedmontsub.com (but remove the nospam and the dot before piedmontsub.com).
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