Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[C855B]

OK, I've been working on north Victorville to Cima. Might want to stir things up around the V'ville bridges a little, but there's lots to put there (as we know) so that area is subject to big changes.



Afton Canyon is paraphrased from satellite photos, per Gary's guidance. Craig Martyn will be very happy with me, as the prototypes for the BLMA bridges are the two types found in Afton. Fortunately I was able to grab one of his 150' bridges a couple of years ago. I think the 200' camelbacks are still in stock in some stores. Two maybe I can do, but all three?... that's pressing the budget a wee bit.

I may have to break my "no duckunders" rule. That area at the top of the new trackage near Cima, with the wye, is imagineering for two return loops. The connected track on the left leg of the wye is to allow loop running from Bandini via Afton.* The double tracks at the very top are for a backbone return that will eventually touch Ogden, Cheyenne and Gibbon, to make it possible to run the whole layout as one gigantic loop. This double track poking through the backdrops will blend nicely in the Ogden and Cheyenne areas, but they make no sense in Cima and will be incongruous to the scene. So they may have to be hidden at the back of Aisle 2, which means a duckunder for dealing with derailments and maintenance. Certainly open to suggestions there.

* - Not to mention make for an operable model railroad before the whole shebang is done, whenever that is! I plan to do something similar on the right side of the layout for another self-contained loop.

Running errands this afternoon put us close to a LHS we frequent. I mused this idea to Robyn, and she said "No. Save your train money for benchwork." She's a keeper!

[C855B]

After sleeping on this I clicked on the inventory tool, to discover that with this small amount of the layout already... uh... layed-out, I'm up to 78 sticks of flex and 46 turnouts. Granted, that includes my doodling down in "L.A." Regardless, that's still a lot of track.

Now... where do I put the helix?

[MichaelWinicki]

After sleeping on this I clicked on the inventory tool, to discover that with this small amount of the layout already... uh... layed-out, I'm up to 78 sticks of flex and 46 turnouts. Granted, that includes my doodling down in "L.A." Regardless, that's still a lot of track.

Now... where do I put the helix?

LOL!

No, it doesn't take long to add up...

Spookshow kept track of the building costs for his last couple of layouts and it figured out to about $200 per square-foot of layout.

And that didn't include loco's, cars and the power supply.

I skimmed through the receipts for my layout and the costs were in line with Spookshow's.

[C855B]

> $200 per square-foot of layout.

I sure hope not. But I keep running the numbers based on that estimate... YIKES! In my defense (he says, defensively), the GC&W scenery-to-track ratio is a lot higher than we usually run into. Also, my purchased scenic item budget for things like buildings is expected to be smaller than the norm because I'm mostly modeling the vast, unoccupied Southwestern desert. At least in my mind. And if I can contain my enthusiasm for yard density. And signals. (Nah. Not signals. Unlimited budget there. )

Of course, I say this as I prepare to drop big coin on a couple of BLMA truss bridges. Ouch. But there's nothing quite like having exactly the model you need available commercially. I see it as money well spent - instead of time trying to scratchbuild or un-foob something to fabricate a major LDE.

OTOH, the layout is already planned as a large percentage of my retirement budget, so I can see that number or one close to it emerging in the 10-year effort I see this taking.

[MichaelWinicki]

Oh, I understand the signal thing. 

And having some signature items like the BLMA bridges is necessary to give the layout identity.

You'll be able to eat this elephant one piece at a time.  The East Yard to Cima and back would be a decent run just on its own.  Maybe get that up & running & sceniced and then continue on from there. 

[GaryHinshaw]

Hey, that really is starting to shape up.   

I think the best overall metric to judge a layout by is number of turnouts.  This drives all kinds of things: cost, time to build, time to maintain.   A few questions about your plans:

* You may have mentioned it already, but what deck height are you planning?  This has a big impact on the question of duck-under access along the back (top) wall.   The lower side of my Tehachapi shelf has a track height of ~57" and about 4" of infrastructure underneath.   To date, I have not regretted the access holes I have in that shelf; the duck-under required to get to them is pretty easy.  But another 6-8" lower and it would be a different story.

* What function do you see the Yermo yard serving and how long a train do you plan to normally operate?  The yard tracks look to be about 10' long which is probably too short to hold a typical train on your pike.  (I find myself constantly wanting to push train length as I test things, and I bet you will too.)

And I agree with Michael, you have a pretty nice layout plan there already!
-Gary

[C855B]

Gee, thanks! The assistance is much appreciated, guys... definitely helps with the focus. It shows.

Deck height... I was originally thinking pretty low by modern standards - 44". There's not quite enough room for viewing ramps for the younger layout visitors I anticipate. But back to Greeley as my benchmark, they're at 48", and I guess one of the "aisles" could tolerate a ramp and platform, and the catwalk and observation deck keep the "littler fingers" away from fragile stuff. 48" I could deal with in terms of duckunders, considering my most recent frame of reference is the 40" of N-Trak. Now that's painful.

Yermo I envision as similar in scope to Mojave. You're not storing whole mainline trains in the yard, it's mostly for building locals, and during the time I'm modeling, storing idled power (vast strings of DDs in the '70s). The siding/yard lead begins at the switch from Daggett, so there's 15' of passing, even more if you count the 8' that goes back to what I should take the opportunity to call "Helendale". Anyway, 15' is my target max train, although we all know there will be limits pressed.

[C855B]

 OMG the world is coming to an end. Or Hell has frozen over. In other words...

...the roofer/metal barn guy just called and made an appointment to come by with the contract to do the roof. He will start next Tuesday. Once we get that important work out of the way he already knows what the score is on the other stuff and we'll be talking.

Did I fail to mention this is a new guy? There evidently isn't enough lumber in the world to light a fire under Mr. Good Intentions from before.

[MichaelWinicki]

OMG the world is coming to an end. Or Hell has frozen over. In other words...

...the roofer/metal barn guy just called and made an appointment to come by with the contract to do the roof. He will start next Tuesday. Once we get that important work out of the way he already knows what the score is on the other stuff and we'll be talking.

Did I fail to mention this is a new guy? There evidently isn't enough lumber in the world to light a fire under Mr. Good Intentions from before.

Your contractors sound like our contractors.

Stunning how the world of contracting works... Or doesn't in many cases.

[C855B]

Latest track planning. Mostly doodling (like adding the rivers), but a little bit of serious work:



Still working details in my head around Victorville Cement, just not committed to electrons yet. I expanded the "wart" slightly to make more room for the narrow gauge fun. Changed "Helendale" to Oro Grande, the location of another cement operation, and added the industry spurs.

Not happy with East Yard, and it's obviously incomplete - need to make room for the engine facility and piggyback service area. East Yard (the prototype) was a relatively unsophisticated operation as big-city terminal yards went. They had a small hump, and in the thinking about it, it might be nice to portray it (no way in heck will there be a working hump!), but running trains will use a hump runaround. The engine facility at the time was little more than half a shed, corrugated tin on top of phone poles. IIRC, it had room for about 16 locos on four tracks, at least under cover, or, rather, a roof. It was open air. How I miss the SoCal weather.

"Pico Rivera" is opportunity for an auto plant. Ford had an assembly plant there 'til about 1980, although it was primarily served by Santa Fe. Anyway, I have scads of Trainworx and Bluford auto parts cars, so better have a place to park 'em.

I'm contemplating moving Colton Tower to the north on the other side of the curve and moving Victorville almost on top of the cement plant, mostly to get Pomona further to the west for more yard lead elbow room. V'ville was a minor station, although it was sometimes the turnaround point for helpers over Cajon. Station is a memory from my teen years, and fortunately AMB has a kit of the Santa Fe station style, close if not exact. There are to be two stations at Pomona. I might be able to foob the SP station, sort of a mission revival style; the UP was this odd modern affair built in the early '60s and shouldn't be a difficult scratchbuild, provided that I can find pictures of it.

I committed the duck-under at Cima. This was (and is) a pretty desolate stretch, so as mentioned before, trying to work the backbone/return double track into it would have been a scene spoiler.

[C855B]

Little progress on the building this past week. Sort of burned ourselves out the previous weekend (sore shoulders!) trying to move the bathroom wall, and had big house projects over the weekend. New wall is framed and waiting for the demo of the old wall, which has been Sawzall'ed into sections and is ready for the hammer. Robyn is thinking the shortest path to getting the new wall and door up because of... well, the only toilet area having no walls is a bit of a problem.   She is failing to consider that when we're ready to re-skin the other walls and put down the floor that the fixtures will be removed altogether and it will be a week or more of no bathroom at all. Oops.

Standing by for the "starting work" phone call from the roof guy. Had to order a string of festoon lights for the back area so we'd have working illumination. Losing DST and encroaching winter sun is impacting our work time since my (remaining) job means I have to at least be available business hours if not actually working on something.

[C855B]

OOOOOoooooowwwww! Just heard from my roof guy! He cut a finger off last Thursday. How much, he didn't say, but he has surgery tomorrow to fix what can be fixed. He said "Thursday" to getting together on the contract for a start next week.

This guy has been super-attentive with the communications. What a refreshing change.

[GaryHinshaw]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about the contractor.   

The plan is coming along nicely, but my gut reaction is that the space is filling up fast!  If you're going for wide open spaces, I'd devote at least one side of an aisle to nothing but the mainline.  I might even go so far as to say that the entire run from Provo Canyon to Afton Canyon should be in that category, maybe with the exception of Basin.  (What happens at Kelso on the prototype?)  The mental image I have of this part of the LA&SL is this.  The plan you're heading towards could easily keep a dozen people busy with ops and maintenance, which is fine if that's in the cards, but daunting otherwise.

-Mother Hen


P.S. I like the access arrangement at Cima.

[C855B]

Yes, the space is filling fast. You do, however, echo my thoughts that Afton to Provo should be uncluttered. Ogden/SLC is going to move north and probably not have much of a yard (if any), just a junction and excuse to switch back to double track, and a wye somewhere in there to tie the east loop together with the backbone. IOW, St. George will move to the bottom of the peninsula, where a separate line splits off and runs close to the backdrop to somewhat reflect the St. George branch and then the separate lines approaching SLC from the south. I might move Cima to the right side of the aisle. I was thinking a train-length siding on the right side for two full sidings between Yermo and the branchline switch at St. George, but maybe we could have just Kelso for that and leave Cima to St. George a single-track bottleneck for operating interest.

Kelso is an important feature. Kelso is a beautiful station in the middle of nowhere, and, fortunately, has been preserved and is now a National Parks visitor center. So I have an extant prototype to model from. The spur tracks see nothing other than MofW gear, so they're scenic features rather than operating opportunities unless I assign somebody on my s---list a MofW train to run.

[MichaelWinicki]

Good points Gary about the number of people required to run the layout and the maintenance thing.

Having a solid crew of operators for a large pike is a must have.

Maintenance is one of those things that isn't often talked about but will definitely make it's presence felt.