Idaho Belt Freelanced plan

[basementcalling]

Weekend update. Sawdust everywhere. That's a good thing.

I found out that my window measurement was 6 inches off, so what to do with a planned stud wall for the central peninsula? Lowes to the rescue with some fancy metal bracing designed for decks.



The offending window, and the anchor stud, now beside the framing.



The angle bracket on the wall in the distance is hard to see, but the furring strips on the wall are obviously in place. These will be critical for the upper deck on this wall, which is along the top wall of the posted plan.



The plus of not gluing the old layout was lots of useful lumber saved from last weekend. L girders will become 1x4 for the open grid benchwork on the lower level. Chop saw is going to get a workout.  Glad I could save money by reusing almost every piece of wood in the old layout.



I had a 2 foot wide L girder peninsula in the old benchwork. It came in useful as a brace to help align, square, and brace the new partial stud wall before I disassembled the old pieces to make new shelving.



As you can see in this shot, the stud wall lined up perfectly with the frame of the window. The offset should work. It will be heavily braced. Luckily there was a stud in the right place next to the window.



Old L girders make good open grid shelving. This 1x14 piece is the lower deck on the top wall of the plan: the branch.  36 screws. Because I forgot to account for the furring strip width, I thought I would have to disassemble and recut 3/4 inch shorter, then reassemble so the front edge would actually fit on the braces. I used several furring strips attached on the back of the front piece to anchor the shelf to the braces, and screws through the back solidly drove into the studs. Luckily the rood was 3 inches wider than thought, so this aisle will be 2 inches wider than planned despite a shelf that is 3/4 inch wider than planned.



Score one for eBay. The Walthers Paper Mill is getting hard to find. I need 1 more. Anyone?



Lots of work done. Lots more to do, but about 1/3 of the new benchwork is now in place. The main yard on the lower level, serving as storage right now, has benchwork and track in.

Thanks for checking in on my progress.

Peter

[LKOrailroad]

Word of caution... You appear to have a laminate floor. Laminate floors float on the subfloor, they are not directly attached. The floating is necessary to prevent buckling. Your wall will be fastened down on the bottom plate I assume. This will penetrate the laminate floor and effectively lock it in place. That could spell big trouble in the future. Better to cut out the laminate to allow your bottom plate to fasten directly to the subfloor. Leave 1/4" gap between laminate edge and bottom plate.

[basementcalling]

Word of caution... You appear to have a laminate floor. Laminate floors float on the subfloor, they are not directly attached. The floating is necessary to prevent buckling. Your wall will be fastened down on the bottom plate I assume. This will penetrate the laminate floor and effectively lock it in place. That could spell big trouble in the future. Better to cut out the laminate to allow your bottom plate to fasten directly to the subfloor. Leave 1/4" gap between laminate edge and bottom plate.

Alan, at this point I am not planning on securing the wall to the floor, just the wall. I will have to use legs in a couple places as a result, but the wall is as much to provide backdrop support as anything else. I orginally planned to run the laminate around the stud wall and anchor it to the concrete slab, but concerns about resale value and fixing the j shaped gap in the new laminate (I put it in last month to improve the workspace. It was a horrible feeling room with only a concrete floor that didn't encourage me to use the space at all.) when the railroad came out if I started over again or when I have to move (Not likely soon, but not impossible) left me thinking better to let the layout breath with the floor. I'll have different length legs, but that's an easy thing to do. The wall will help make sure I only need 3 or 4 instead of a dozen or more.

I took a look at how you did your layout benchwork and love the ideas you used, so I modified some. The benchwork passes the wiggle test, though it is not yet totally rock solid because the grid work is not in place along the peninsula.  I did learn my floor is not quite level, but a height difference of just 3/16 of an inch is not too bad; the cement layers had a good day.

Next step is to link the wall shelf to the base of the peninsula, which will help lock that stud wall in place. I did get to test the roll under area, and it is good width wise. I'll have to think about how high one brace needs to be. I may have to use a 1x2 to span the 24 inches in stead of a 1x4. Pipe foam insulation will be a must on that spot whatever the height clearance, but I had no trouble just nodding my head and rolling through repeatedly with an office chair set to the lowest height.

It may be a few days before I have time to get back to the basemen though, as there are 3 weeks of teaching left before school ends and the kids get weird. Lots of work to do to close out the year.

[basementcalling]

Progress update.

Testing week at school. It's good for one thing: few paper to grade when kids are pulled from class to take other end of subject tests all day long. That means more time in the evening for some railroad building.

First shot tonight is of the wall with the lower level branch. I am playing with clearances to the upper deck here and testing these shelf brackets from Lowes instead of pulling the furring strips for adjustable shelf brackets. Weighing the need to easily adjust or remove the upper deck during construction, especially when mounting a backdrop.



The layout heights work well for me. Lower deck is based at 46 inches. Track height through here will be 47.5-48 or so. The downward angle makes it look slightly higher than when viewed perpendicular.

I couldn't resist putting some equipment on a section of Atlas C55 flex to see what it looks like. Neither engine or car will see service on the branch, but they happened to be close to hand.



The second center stud wall. This one goes to 80 inches in height to isolate the central aisle. This view will be looking at the large bridge scene once things progress that far. That shelf in the background does a great job keeping dust off the collection of stuff below it. Plan now is to lower it 2 inches for this layout, as tests show I need to adjust the lower deck down 2 inches to 48 inch baseline for the main yard and run to the first town.



This is the view back up the central aisle. The tape measure is checking future aisle clearances. I found 3 extra inches of width in the room when I remeasured, which all went into expanding the aisles. 2 inches in here and one on the aisle to the left by the yard.



To be sure my intrepid exploring cat doesn't decide to knock anything over before the stud wall is completely locked in place, I put in a kick stand with a scrap 2x3. I also ran a 1x4 from wall to wall and clamped it down to be sure nothing wild happens tomorrow when I am at work. That's her hiding behind the broom, which she likes to chew when it doesn't scare her to death.



Sorry for the poor images tonight but I'm trying to make my bedtime tonight.

Thanks for viewing.

Peter

[basementcalling]

Spent most of 2 straight days in the man cave getting the benchwork squared away. Almost complete on the central "J" peninsula, which is the hardest part. The rest is basically a shelf layout.

Here's the outside of the J shot from the curve in the trunk. Open area in front is where a one loop helix will be totally hidden on the lower level.



The second shot is of the loop and wye at Plummer. The legs inside are part of the old layout serving as a mobile work station. I can measure wood from the old layout for chopping and take several pieces out to the chop saw outside.



Measure 3 times and cut once is is squared when having a multi deck layout.    I've been measuring from 3 walls to insure alignment, and even that there is one stud joist that is off by a bit, and of course it complicates a lower level track.

I also found a nasty sneaky "S" curve in the layout at Plummer and had to redo a section of track on the plan. Luckily I caught that before getting too much further or some plywood may have been cookie cuttered incorrectly.

Late here so that's it for tonight. Hope to have more progress to share tomorrow, but I probably won't get to spend all day downstairs as there are about 55 6th grade stories demanding a grade at some point tomorrow.

[basementcalling]

Legs. ZZ Top said it was all about legs. Looks like they were right. I am going to have to put in 4-5 legs in places to create the rock solid stability I need. Not all the grid work is in place yet, but their is an obvious shimmy in the horizontal when I bump the layout. It's very solid in the other direction, where wall attachments help lock things in place.

Bought a circular saw this weekend because a chop saw, no matter how good, is not real maneuverable when it comes to trimming verticals that are locked in place with Loctite Power Lock. It's the only place I used adhesive anywhere on the benchwork, so go figure.  Saw is nice, but man am I glad I put the chopper outside. Backyard looks like it snowed, but the inside is easy to clean with the vinyl flooring.

I've been triple checking deck clearances in places to be sure there is enough, and the mill scene on the Plummer branch may well lose 6 inches of depth because the mill against the backdrop will be all but invisible at normal viewing angles if the upper deck hangs over 18 inches. It can't be narrowed here because I need that width to line up for "Williams Loop," but I have an interesting idea on how to thin the support and keep all the strength.

Dinner time on the East Coast, and other tasks to do after I finish. 8 more days of work for this school year, and then I'll have about 2 weeks where I can work on the layout 15 hours a day if I want, 5 days a week.

[basementcalling]

Only one update tonight. I couldn't resist opening up the Walthers Paper Mill kits and start testing bashing options.

Here's what came of the first attempt just to create a wharehouse and fourdrinier building that will dominate one end of the paper mill scene. The SD70AC and the CP paper box car do sort of vanish into the scene even though it's dominated by pink foam. The building works out to 25 x 16 inches of real estate. Not sure how many N scale square feet that is as the shape is irregular, but it's a step in the right direction for this major producer on my layout.



About all I had energy for today after covering a math class because standardized testing for Geometry took several kids 6 and a half hours to finish.

Glad I wasn't the one giving that test. That long in a computer lab with little to do but monitor student clicks and supervise bathroom trips would brain fry me for a week. I'd need massive doses of train therapy to recover.


Peter

[basementcalling]

Been doing some route scouting on Bing Maps and have a couple possibilities to locate my railroad into reality. Not all the pieces fit quite yet, just like with the benchwork at this stage, but progress comes along in moments of inspiration or perspiration. 



Option one above is a line down the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. It would connect to the real rail network at Missoula, allowing some BNSF presence on the line. The entire route would head south into Idaho and join the UP line from Oregon to Utah someplace along the Snake River, probably near Blackfoot or Twin Falls. To some degree though this line already exists a few valleys over with the UP Montana Sub which runs from Idaho Falls up to Butte.



A second choice is to add an east west route in central Oregon that starts at Bend, OR, on the BNSF line through here, and travels most of the length of the upper John Day River to hit the UP main at Ontario, Oregon, on the Snake River and Idaho border. The western division of this route is above.



The eastern division would run from Canyon City, OR to Ontario, OR. Neither section has much current industry, as the region is primarily irrigated agriculture and wilderness - some wooded mountains, but most Columbia Plateau desert.

I will probably continue to search for a suitable location for the line. Another option would use Klamath Falls as the Eastern end and run up and over the Cascades to join Grants Pass via rail with Klamath Falls and then head to the coast to a new port facility.

Feeling like I am reinventing the wheel to some degree, as each choice as some similarity to a prototype that exists or did so, but doesn't offer all the features I want.

[basementcalling]

Warning, more poor quality jpegs from an SD card coming.

Snowstorms of sawdust continue to fly around my back yard as benchwork progresses. Nice weather comes to an end tomorrow though, so it may be a couple days before I can set things back up.

I screwed down the first piece of plywood today. Birch is so nice to work with it seems a shame to cut it up, but here's an 18 inch wide section ready for WS foam roadbed and track. Second plywood piece in back is part of a hidden loop that gains elevation and turns the mainline 90 degrees on the other side of the backdrop.



I got a bit worried when I saw where the subroadbed laid down until I checked the plans. Thanks to Alan and his LK&O website for the idea of printing the plans out 1:1 to use as a test. Much faster than multiple measurements with the tape measure.  This loop will be hidden behind a thin styrene backdrop leaving a visible shelf of about 6 inches for the 90 degree curve around the end of this side of the "J" peninsula. This is where Plummer Jct. will be.



This is an overview of the hidden loop. The legs are extra tall here to help support the upper deck. I left plenty of room inside the track location for access, though I am thinking I might should have added an inch to the inside width of the subroadbed to catch any cars that stringline. Might be time to think of some netting. This could also be a dispatcher's station using a small desk and an office chair. Getting in and out is easy with the chair in the lowest setting. Unfortunately the interior access hole will be capped by the top deck, preventing folks from being able to stand at full height here. But testing with the "roof" on, showed no problems for sitting in the chair. One simply sits, drops it to the low setting, then rolls in under the framing. Once inside, you can raise the chair back to normal height and it brings you right up to a comfortable level to rerail any cars that might come off.

The corner of the plywood deck for the Plummer stud mill scene will need to be trimmed off with the jig saw tomorrow.



Here is the back side of the loop. This is inside the central peninsula (inside the "J"). Things lined up nicely, though final track alignment will likely differ from the plans slightly. Clearance here will be a key point, as the grade depends on 2.5 inches from railtop to railtop where the lines will cross. I decided that I will bridge the gap in the top track crossing the lower with a slice of Masonite so the 3/4 inch plywood doesn't reduce that vertical clearance to 1.75 inches. This will also be a spot for a vertical curve in the grade, as it starts with the cut plywood under the track exiting the loop. The lower track will be hidden here, vanishing at the end of the lower deck scene after the turnouts, probably under an overpass against a part of the backdrop that comes to the edge of the benchwork to create a view block that ends one scene and starts another.



Here is a shot down the small yard scene where the branch joins the mainline. The cut end of the plywood loop subroadbed will be hidden from this point of view by the backdrop curving to the front edge just behind where the two spur tracks stop. They may be shortened some for better appearance. The transition from flatland valley running to the grade uphill through the mountains and over to the paper mill location, which is off to the right of this scene and not visible in this photo.



Speaking of the paper mill scene, here is a part of it on the top deck. The foam subroadbed with track is a test, as this deck will be plywood here to preserve the space from railtop to fascia bottom. With foam, the track is about 3/4 of an inch higher than it will be on the plywood, but in general I am happy with the separation here. Track on the lower deck here will be a small fiddle operation with cassettes to simulate trains running past the Plummer stud mill to a quarry. I nixed loads out/empties in operation here.

A large trestle/bridge scene will be on the opposite side of the backdrop here, where the drill is sitting.



Overall, progress on construction is going ahead of schedule. That probably means I forgot something important.    I am trying to take advantage of  a week with minimal work commitments to get a lot done each day. If only I could stop reading Railwire I might get even more done. 

Feel free to comment away with observations, suggestions, and general thoughts.

Thanks for reading my late night ramblings.

Peter

[basementcalling]

Bracketology

Spent all day Saturday on the river fishing, so today was all trains when day dawned rainy and gray with enough humidity to choke a camel.

I found and upper deck support solution I like. I will use the pressed metal shelf brackets in a few places, but in most I designed a bracket from 1x2 stock that I like. The length can be cut to whatever I need. They remain shallow to keep upper deck benchwork thin. And they are 2 1/4 inches wide when assembled, giving plenty of room to act as a splice plate between plywood or foam sections of upper deck subroadbed.

Here's one in place over the lower deck plywood.



Here's the lower deck with the roof on and a mill kitbash as a place holder. This model will not go here on the finished scene.



Are you on the level?



Test fitting the plywood for the upper deck. Obviously some warped wood to fix when fastening it down.



I really like how the canyon scene is shaping up. Here's the drop down section in the benchwork from a helicopter view, with some paper track plan printouts and a scrap trestle bent in place on the plan. The other shot shows the true height of the scene.





The upper deck in place with a place holder building just because I couldn't wait.



The support brackets have two attachment methods. Where I have stringers on the wall, I used an "L" shaped bracket and screwed one side into the stringer and used a metal right angle bracket on the other to add stiffness and support. Most of these areas will have foam as subroadbed. The Railwire page is always close by for reference when needed, and Pandora is playing Best of the 80s on another tab.



Here's the whole row of supports off the wall. Insuring they are level in two directions takes some careful solo work.



The lower deck will sit just above light switch level. I am considering getting an electrician to come in and move the location of this set of overhead light switches though, just to be safe. Fuse panel access is not an issue, luckily, as that spot on the wall has no layout attached.



For brackets coming off the stud wall dividers, I used a "U" shaped bracket and 4 screws per side to lock things into place.



Here's one more shot of the brackets.



Maybe next weekend I can take shots of something besides dead trees.  I'm still trying to finalize an exact location for the freelanced railroad. Several options shared in a previous post above are still under consideration, and I am actively searching Bing.maps for other alternatives. Nothing feels completely right yet.

Peter

[GaryHinshaw]

A second choice is to add an east west route in central Oregon that starts at Bend, OR, on the BNSF line through here, and travels most of the length of the upper John Day River to hit the UP main at Ontario, Oregon, on the Snake River and Idaho border. The western division of this route is above.

The eastern division would run from Canyon City, OR to Ontario, OR. Neither section has much current industry, as the region is primarily irrigated agriculture and wilderness - some wooded mountains, but most Columbia Plateau desert.

I will probably continue to search for a suitable location for the line. Another option would use Klamath Falls as the Eastern end and run up and over the Cascades to join Grants Pass via rail with Klamath Falls and then head to the coast to a new port facility.

Feeling like I am reinventing the wheel to some degree, as each choice as some similarity to a prototype that exists or did so, but doesn't offer all the features I want.

By coincidence, I recently returned from a road trip through this part of the world.  One day in our northbound journey took us from Klammath Falls to Hermiston OR (site of UP's massive Hinkle yard).  The route we took is shown here:



At Klammath Falls, I saw a southbound UP train that clearly had a Canadian origin (lots of Canadian grain hoppers) so I assume it came in via Eastport ID, through Spokane to Hinkle.  From there it either followed a long pure-UP route west through Portland, then south over the Cascade sub, or it came down the Oregon Trunk Line (via the Deschutes canyon and Bend) on trackage rights over BNSF (I'm not sure if UP has rights there though).  In either case, it made me think that a straight route from Hinkle to Klammath would be a natural route for Canadian exports to the southwest.

The route we took was fantastically beautiful and highly diverse, especially from Bend to Hermiston: quickly changing from upland sage, to arid basalt-dominated landscapes, to some of the most serene sub-alpine forests I have ever seen.  However, it would make for a torturous rail route with all the unnecessary grades....  Nonetheless, I still think a scheme based on a secondary from Canada to the west coast through the great interior PNW landscapes would be neat.

If you really want an east-west route with a port, how about upgrading the CORP from Eugene to Coos Bay and make Coos Bay a major Pacific port?  This line could connect with Bend via the existing Cascade sub and the OT; then you build your east-west bridge to Ontario. 

Regardless of what you choose, I think you should separate the "macro" concept from the "micro" layout.  The latter sets the context, the former is the smaller portion that you actually model.  I don't imagine that you're thinking of modelling an entire  500+ mile line are you?

Cheers,
Gary

[basementcalling]

By coincidence, I recently returned from a road trip through this part of the world.  One day in our northbound journey took us from Klammath Falls to Hermiston OR (site of UP's massive Hinkle yard).  The route we took is shown here:



At Klammath Falls, I saw a southbound UP train that clearly had a Canadian origin (lots of Canadian grain hoppers) so I assume it came in via Eastport ID, through Spokane to Hinkle.  From there it either followed a long pure-UP route west through Portland, then south over the Cascade sub, or it came down the Oregon Trunk Line (via the Deschutes canyon and Bend) on trackage rights over BNSF (I'm not sure if UP has rights there though).  In either case, it made me think that a straight route from Hinkle to Klammath would be a natural route for Canadian exports to the southwest.

The route we took was fantastically beautiful and highly diverse, especially from Bend to Hermiston: quickly changing from upland sage, to arid basalt-dominated landscapes, to some of the most serene sub-alpine forests I have ever seen.  However, it would make for a torturous rail route with all the unnecessary grades....  Nonetheless, I still think a scheme based on a secondary from Canada to the west coast through the great interior PNW landscapes would be neat.

If you really want an east-west route with a port, how about upgrading the CORP from Eugene to Coos Bay and make Coos Bay a major Pacific port?  This line could connect with Bend via the existing Cascade sub and the OT; then you build your east-west bridge to Ontario. 

Regardless of what you choose, I think you should separate the "macro" concept from the "micro" layout.  The latter sets the context, the former is the smaller portion that you actually model.  I don't imagine that you're thinking of modelling an entire  500+ mile line are you?

Cheers,
Gary

Well, Gary, one day when I have a building the right size...    Seriously, no, but I am not sure how I will select locations. I have space for 7 LDEs, some scenic and others operational. I could model a tightly clustered set of locations and not a lot of compression of the modeled portion, or I could pick interesting locations along the length of the route ala Gary Hoover's old layout to try to convey a sense of distance. Certainly choosing locations in the different climate areas would create a modeling challenge to accurately represent the various types of scenery. That appeals to me, but might impact operations by making them less convincing, a concern with a free lance set up.

I hadn't considered a direct connection at Hinkle. I routed my John Day Division east from Bend to Caldwell/Nampa, Idaho, but I like the shorter more direct route from Hermiston soutwest to Klamath Falls for Canadian export traffic. That was one idea I pondered in choosing the freelance route was to use the increase in traffic through Eastport into the US as the impetus for new construction. Canadian power doesn't go south of Hinkle too often on UP, or at least it didn't used to.

All the things modelers love in a torturous route over multiple summits the real railroads avoid like the plague, unless there is money to be made. After all, freight rail invests billions of private dollars annually in the rail network, or so the advertisements on TV here tell us. I think I have enough invested in equipment to make a run at it.

[GaryHinshaw]

As nice as the drive from Bend to Hermiston was, that route doesn't really make sense as a candidate for a hypothetical trunk line, mainly because the Columbia Gorge / Oregon Trunk route is a much easier rail path that's only slightly longer.   But seeing the Canadian train in Klammath that morning reminded me that one of the narratives you outlined in the beginning was a secondary trunk serving the interior NW and reaching to Canada.  I still think that concept has a lot of merit.

That said, I'm still a bit puzzled by what problem you are trying to solve now. You have a pretty fully developed track plan and have even gotten pretty far on construction.   You have a rather recognizable LDE with the St Maries interchange.  At this stage of the game, what do you want from a prototype narrative?  Any or all of the following?

1) to affect your track plan (to the point of making significant changes in your plan)?
2) to help define the ops concept within the existing plan?
3) to help define scenic treatments?
4) to help constrain your locomotive and rolling stock purchases?   

If 1), I think you should really be pausing construction to sort that out.  Even if it's 2), you should develop some sense for how much traffic you'll have, so you can plan how much staging you'll need to support it.

-gfh

P.S. Nice progress on the benchwork BTW!

[basementcalling]

As nice as the drive from Bend to Hermiston was, that route doesn't really make sense as a candidate for a hypothetical trunk line, mainly because the Columbia Gorge / Oregon Trunk route is a much easier rail path that's only slightly longer.   But seeing the Canadian train in Klammath that morning reminded me that one of the narratives you outlined in the beginning was a secondary trunk serving the interior NW and reaching to Canada.  I still think that concept has a lot of merit.

That said, I'm still a bit puzzled by what problem you are trying to solve now. You have a pretty fully developed track plan and have even gotten pretty far on construction.   You have a rather recognizable LDE with the St Maries interchange.  At this stage of the game, what do you want from a prototype narrative?  Any or all of the following?

1) to affect your track plan (to the point of making significant changes in your plan)?
2) to help define the ops concept within the existing plan?
3) to help define scenic treatments?
4) to help constrain your locomotive and rolling stock purchases?   

If 1), I think you should really be pausing construction to sort that out.  Even if it's 2), you should develop some sense for how much traffic you'll have, so you can plan how much staging you'll need to support it.

-gfh

P.S. Nice progress on the benchwork BTW!

I do tend to over analyse things. The cart isn't before the horse yet, but it's in danger of getting there perhaps.

1) to affect your track plan (to the point of making significant changes in your plan)?

At this point, the layout needs a home on the map in reality if it is going to function as a part of the rail network. I'm not suddenly going to switch to an East Coast industrial short line serving port industries, although...    But I do need to nail down the NW state and at least end points of my line, or the layout will be lost operationally.  Track plan details can change some, though the benchwork configuration is pretty well set, and after years of doodling for that particular basement I haven't come up with a way to pack a longer run into the space that doesn't have other impacts I don't want.

2) to help define the ops concept within the existing plan?

Number 2 is the biggie. Ops is new territory for me. Previous layouts were much smaller, or I contributed a couple modules to a huge NTRAK layout that was dispatched and run, but certainly not the way I want to run a home operating session. Without knowing location, interchange traffic, trackage rights, and other foreign road considerations are left unanswered. Also undecided is the question of whether to freelance within an existing railroad - a new BNSF or UP line for example - or to create a new railroad that I paint locomotives for.

3) to help define scenic treatments?

Scenery is what I do best, or used to. Been a while since I slung plaster or planted trees. I don't anticipate too many local folks nit picking tree types or rock formations and colors given the region I plan to model, but knowing I was off would bug me.


4) to help constrain your locomotive and rolling stock purchases?   

Constrain? That word? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means!  I have enough rolling stock to open a hobby shop myself, though some locomotives are the wrong era for a truly modern railroad, but there are enough SD70s, AC4400s, SD90/43MACs and other high horsepower units sitting in the stable downstairs to haul a lot of merchandise freight.  At one point I wanted to model Sherman Hill or the Wahsatch grade, but the former proved pretty dull operationally, and the latter is being well done by several other people. Of course, I'll have enough turnouts and track to buy for the foreseeable future that aquisitions will be cut back in other areas.

I am now debating waiting to buy Atlas number 7 and 10 turnouts, or taking the Fast Tracks plunge and attempting to make my own, as who knows when the slow boat from China will show up with the right container. Of course, if I model the Coos Bay to Ontario version of the schematic, ya'll can blame any shipping delays on my new railroad. 


One original idea for the run was to start in Spokane and come southeast, theorizing that the branch lines running through the Palouse region were cobbled back into and upgraded to secondary mainline status. The historical context would go back to the mid 90s merger meltdown when UP basically ground to a hault from badly managing the SP merger. More capacity was deemed essential and so it went.

The line would head towards southern Idaho, but again, the terrain is pretty daunting for a new line to make any real sense. But maybe I just need to pick a plan and post rule number 1 - it's my railroad.

[basementcalling]

Anyone who has successfully used styrene sheet as a backdrop material care to share which thickness material you used and how you mounted it to the layout?

I've seen some folks using 0.040 and others 0.060. I was quoted $31 for 4x8 sheets of 0.060 which seems a bit steep to me. I should have gotten a quote for .040 thick pieces too. Have to give them a call back.

I've been researching mounting methods and seen several shared, but also some folks having issues with getting the styrene to stay attached to wooden benchwork, probably because of different thermal expansion properties.

I'm thinking I screw thin plastic strips to my wooden supports in my peninsula and then use styrene compatible glue to attach the backdrop to the screwed strips. Along the walls I may try BCRail FSJ's trick of using velcro and foam backing to support things. I love his trick on his website of using velcro strips to hang the backdrop on his Fort Nelson Sub layout.

Most of my scenes will have short backdrops, but one peninsula - behind the paper mill and along the canyon scene have potential to have a higher backdrop around 16-18 inches up to 24 for the canyon. Most other places will be limited to 12 inches in height by the deck separation.

Given those tight quarters I think backdrops, especially for the lower deck, need to bump up the task list so I am not trying to wrestle the equivalent of N scale glaciers into place over trackwork on the downstairs scenes. I imagine the styrene would be about as destructive in places as ice sheets scraping the earth clean.