Grand Trunk Southern

[Bsklarski]

One thing that will really look good is get rid of all the angles in the benckwork. curve the fasia, ect. It will also make it look more open in the room and not make the track plan smaller.

[shark_jj]

Even though it is summer and golf takes priority, I have been working on getting the benchwork and backdrops in place.  Both are now pretty well complete and I am working on subroadbed.  I'll be glad when this woodworking phase is done and I can get the place cleaned up.

[shark_jj]

Wow, it has been a year and a half since I last posted.  Lot of water under the bridge since then including a significant redesign because I wasn't happy with that long reach at Parrysburg.  I will try and rework the diagram to show you what changed.  In the meantime, here is some updates.

Staging Yard installation:





Staging Yard throats being built "On the Bench"





The other throat with switches installed but still lacking track





I hope to have the staging yard fully functional within the next month.

[central.vermont]

Wow, it has been a year and a half since I last posted.  Lot of water under the bridge since then including a significant redesign because I wasn't happy with that long reach at Parrysburg.  I will try and rework the diagram to show you what changed.  In the meantime, here is some updates.

Staging Yard installation:

Epic yard!!! Gotta ask tho, what is the short passing track in the foreground going to be used for?

Jon

[shark_jj]

good question, that is the programming track, once a locomotive is programmed it can be run out either end.

[shark_jj]

Here is a quick tour of progress on the layout.  The main line is operational and track is being installed in other areas.

This is a large paper mill based on the P&G, Charmin plant at Mehoopaney, PA.  Cardboard mock ups represent the buildings which will have to be scratchbuilt.





Interchange yard with the Genessee and Wyoming for salt.  Main line passing above.



Beginnings of a deck girder to cross over the Susquehanna River

[shark_jj]

East end of the yard with the beginnings of the arrival/departure tracks and the classification yard in the background.  130 ft turntable will be located  behind the arrival/departure tracks.



West end of the arrival/departure tracks.  Station will be in the foreground.



East end of the small rural town.  Other than the mainline, tracks still have to be laid in this area.  The track leading off the front goes to a return loop above the helix that I threw in before Xmas so that I could keep a promise to my grandsons that they could run trains on Xmas day.  Operationally it will be an interchange with the D&H with a D&H train staged in the return loop.



West end of the small rural town



The yard throat at the west end of the staging yard in place.

[shark_jj]

Anthony at the Train Cellar in Mount Forrest, Ontario, custom painted 6 SD40's, 4 SD45's, 1 GP30, 2 RS2's, 2 RS3's and ABA set of F3's, and an ABBA set of FA2's for me.  Here are three examples that are now ready for detailing and weathering.

[txronharris]

Anthony at the Train Cellar in Mount Forrest, Ontario, custom painted 6 SD40's, 4 SD45's, 1 GP30, 2 RS2's, 2 RS3's and ABA set of F3's, and an ABBA set of FA2's for me.  Here are three examples that are now ready for detailing and weathering.

Really like the green with the red. Cool concept and scheme.

[shark_jj]

It has been almost a year since the last update.  Since that time, I have finished the staging yards.  Trackwork on most of the layout has been completed, and more importantly 87 Tortoises have been installed and wired.  Tortoises in the staging yard are attached to stationary decoders.  At some point I will operate these with JMRI.  For now I am using the Function/Switch function on my Digitrax throttles.  The tortoises on the layout are all installed and the frogs on the turnouts wired.  All of the drops to the track have been wired and the layout is now fully operational.  I have also after considerable thought started to install control panels.  Next steps will have the layout starting to look like a model railroad, fascia, scenery, backdrops.  Goodbye, plywood central.  Here are some progress photos with further comments on each photo.

The last Tortoise install was finished last Thursday and I had a small open house on Saturday morning for a local meet of the Golden Horseshoe Chapter of the Canadian Association of Model Railroaders.  I had two trains running on the main, at around a scale 30 mph while Ethan, the older grandson, switched in the paper mill.  Those two trains ran for two hours unattended, no derailments, up and down the helix and through the staging yard.  I was pleased, it was a good indication that the tracklaying is up to snuff. 



This photo shows one of the staging yard, with a 30 car train sitting in position.  The 14 staging yard tracks will each hold 2 - 30 car trains for a total of 28 trains and 840 cars. 



Middle of the staging yard.  This 30 car train is on the same track as the one in the previous picture.  As you can see there is still clean up to be done as far as tucking the wiring up and out of the way.



Other end of the staging yard showing the stationary decoders. 



These are the control panels I am installing.  They are all built and in.  I decided to use the toggle switches as they are more robust than push buttons and two of my primary operators are 10 and 7 and as I have discovered, particularly with the 7 year old, robust is a good thing.  The decision to use toggles, eliminated both a traditional control panel, unless I made it really big, or putting the buttons on the fascia as it couldn't accommodate the track plan in the area of the yard where there are up to 10 switches across.  The paper printed trackplans are temporary.  If you are familiar with the advertising panels that you see on bus windows, these are easy to make and fairly inexpensive.  My local printshop does them and after explaining what I needed they will do them for.  That will wait until I am sure there are no further revisions to the trackplan and I make up some fancy artwork to make them look good.  I like the look of these panels and will probably finish them with a wood stain.



this photo shows a couple of trains on the mainline as well as cars in the arrival and departure tracks in the main yard area.  The classification yard can be seen in the background.



As noted I have started putting down the pink foam to create the basic landforms for the installation of scenery.  This area shows the paper mill which is along the banks of the Susquehanna River. 

[Cajonpassfan]

Nice to see progress being made again! I know from experience how long it takes to get through the gruntwork stage of building a large layout, and it looks like you're there....all fun from now on! Right...? D
Regards, Otto K.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I agree with Otto! It's great to see progress.

[LIRR]

There's no such thing as too many staging tracks......

[Bendtracker1]

There's no such thing as too many staging tracks......

Amen!

[shark_jj]

Well it has been a couple of years since I posted progress on the Grand Trunk Southern, but this week I put up some photos on the Weekend update and received a really positive response to some of my early scenery efforts and my backdrops.  I thought I would share how I made the backdrops since it is a method I haven't seen described elsewhere. 

My first decision was to go with photo backdrops.  I know what I am skilled at and what I am not, and painting falls into the NOT category.  I looked at the various purveyors of photo backdrops and found LARC Products who are in New York State just south of me.  If you want to see their products just google their name and you will find their website.  In any event I measured the backdrop area and costed out what the backdrops would cost me.  It came in just under $2000 CAN.  WOW!  That was a non starter.   However, LARC offers all of their backdrops on a set of 2 CD's.  Over 900 backdrops.  They range in length from a couple of feet to over 10 feet long.  I contacted them and purchased the CD's.  $70 US plus shipping. 

I perused the CD's picking out those that I thought would fit with my Pennsylvania theme and printed them out in Black and White.  Taped them to my backdrops and looked at them in full size.  That process gave me some that made the final cut and some that were rejected.  Deciding that I wanted the highest quality possible I decided to get a professional printer to print them.  The next issue was how to attach them to the backdrop.  I had experimented with spray glues and wasn't enamored with the results.  Their are a number of blogs I follow on the Internet and one fellow talked about using full page Avery labels for backdrops.  I talked to my printer and he had those in stock and we ran off one backdrop as a test run.  I installed it and was happy with the results. 

All of the backdrops you see in the following photos were taken from the LARC Products CD's printed on a Laser printer by a Print Shop on Full Page Avery Labels (which have sticky backs) and applied by me.  I also worked out using my Black and White samples how I was going to transition between different backdrops.  When all was said and done, I spent just under $300 CAN including the cost of the CD's for almost 90 feet of backdrop. 

I hope this is explanatory and if I can add anything please ask.