HOn3 Rio Grande Southern First District 1938-1945

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Dave,

I have been following your progress on Youtube and then I stumbled on to this site.  Great layout, can't wait to see the rest.

Scott

You poor bastard. Welcome to the zoo!

[Hawghead]

You poor bastard. Welcome to the zoo!

Thanks Ed.  I'm used to sites like these having a thread to introduce yourself to the rest of the group but, near as I can tell, that's in the crew lounge and I need 25 posts before I can access that, unless I'm missing something.

Scott

[Philip H]

Thanks Ed.  I'm used to sites like these having a thread to introduce yourself to the rest of the group but, near as I can tell, that's in the crew lounge and I need 25 posts before I can access that, unless I'm missing something.

Scott

You did - we hide it int the N scale forum:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=13773.msg619673#new

[Hawghead]

You did - we hide it int the N scale forum:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=13773.msg619673#new

Thanks Phil,

I found an intro thread in the narrow gauge forum, it was just buried a couple of pages down.

Dave,
May is almost over and no update on youtube.  Time to get crackin'.  Always gotta keep on top of the Air Force guys.

Scott

[Dave V]

I've gone a while without an update, although I've been working nonetheless.

This week was cold and snowy in Colorado Springs (7" fell Monday night alone...yes, in late May) so I pushed to get Ridgway to a more finished state.  I still need to scratchbuild the roundhouse and a number of ancillary structures, but at least now the first thing a visitor to my basement sees is something other than bare Styrofoam painted tan.



This is almost an identical (although compressed) version of the track arrangement at Ridgway minus two enginehouse stalls.  The turntable lead that wraps around the sandhouse should align with a stall, but I just didn't have the room to make that work correctly.  No worries...doesn't bother me in the least.



The turntable comes from Kitwood Hill Models...a very well-designed laser micro-plywood kit.  It comes with a finely geared slo-mo motor that I control with a repurposed N scale Digitrax Atlas GP38-2 drop-in decoder I had on hand.  It's actually a model of the Durango turntable (65') rather than the Ridgway turntable (50') but the real Ridgway turntable couldn't turn any of the 2-8-2s.  As I have a fleet of K-27 2-8-2s and no wye north of town to turn them on, I went with the longer turntable.





I did not have room for the half-scratchbuilt version of the Ridgway office building I was working on after I realized how big the roundhouse would be (my frenetic construction pace sometimes causes me to get ahead of myself!).  For now, this Main Street Heritage Models yard office is filling in until I can build a compressed version of the prototype that fits.  It's placed temporarily, hence the "gap" between foundation and dirt.





Lastly, the fun stuff.  After I finishing wiring all the frog juicers I noticed I must accidentally have pulled one of the power leads to the turntable decoder.  Time to fire up the soldering iron again!

[wm3798]

You can always tell the retired guy... he has time to paint the underside of his benchwork...

[Dave V]

You can always tell the retired guy... he has time to paint the underside of his benchwork...

Alles muss ordentlich und ordentlich sein!

[wm3798]

You and your Teutonic precision...

[Dave V]

[Dave V]

My May 2019 layout progress update.

[Dave V]

No work this weekend...just played with trains:

[wm3798]

When that Railwire Book comes out, it should have a chapter by Dr. Hotballs about the creation of a plausible time and place on a model railroad.  I remember you did a good essay about that on the Juniata Division, which was full of compromises by its very nature, yet completely believable. 
The RGS appears to be far less compromised, having a bit more space to work with and lacking the need to travel... but you still pull off a layout where you can literally smell the smoke and feel the mountain peet under your boots.

Outstanding work.
Lee

[Dave V]

When that Railwire Book comes out, it should have a chapter by Dr. Hotballs about the creation of a plausible time and place on a model railroad.  I remember you did a good essay about that on the Juniata Division, which was full of compromises by its very nature, yet completely believable. 
The RGS appears to be far less compromised, having a bit more space to work with and lacking the need to travel... but you still pull off a layout where you can literally smell the smoke and feel the mountain peet under your boots.

Outstanding work.
Lee

Thanks, man!  High praise from the salty sage...!

[Rich_S]

Dave, When you announced the Juniata Division was done and you were going back to your first love of Colorado Narrow gauge, I was heart broken. Since I have a soft spot for the slim rails in Colorado, I've been following this build thread of your HOn3 Rio Grande Southern.  What you've accomplished with this layout is a work of art and is very inspiring, thank you for bringing us along for the ride.

[Dave V]

Dave, When you announced the Juniata Division was done and you were going back to your first love of Colorado Narrow gauge, I was heart broken. Since I have a soft spot for the slim rails in Colorado, I've been following this build thread of your HOn3 Rio Grande Southern.  What you've accomplished with this layout is a work of art and is very inspiring, thank you for bringing us along for the ride.

@Rich_S , thanks for the kind words!  I'll be honest, I held on to the Juniata Division longer than perhaps I should have, largely because so many folks were vocal about being disappointed were I to move on.  In the end I had to follow my own heart and I have no regrets.  I loved modeling Pennsy and now I love modeling the RGS.

On my short list of other things I'd love doing:

1)  An Arizona copper mining line around 1910, along the lines of the real United Verde & Pacific RR.  On30 or HOn30.
2)  A Penn Central industrial layout in HO in urban eastern PA.
3)  A Reading RR branchline in Lancaster County, PA.  HO scale.
4)  O scale PRR 3-rail.  Not gonna happen but I love to dream about it! 

N scale did a lot for me when I needed it...and I hope I returned the favor to N scale through my articles, posts, and shows.  But it no longer brings me joy the way larger scales do.  This is not a ding on N scale in the least...I admire great work in N as much as ever.