More Progress

Nothing focuses your attention like a deadline. We've had an earthquake and a hurricane locally here over the last week, but the only thing that has been on my mind is my upcoming layout open house in two weeks.

So new benchwork has risen over the track arrangement that I lofted onto the basement floor last week.



The track plan was left on the basement floor as a guide for placing the benchwork as well as an aid in placing the subroadbed. I'll probably leave it there until the track is laid.

The left hand side of the benchwork is attached to the 2x4 supporting the stairs and to the adjacent section of benchwork; this section of benchwork has no legs supporting it. I'm going to try to keep this section clear as a 'crawl under' to get out of the dead-end aisle that is created at this section of the layout. When a crew brings a train to this point, the train will enter the central spiral which acts as serial staging and that crew's run is over. Therefore the the dead-end has no operational implications. But the crawl-under may be useful as a short-cut to get to the other side of what will be a double sided backdrop to retrieve a tool or a Coke.

Subroadbed was put into place next.



This part of the railroad is on the Cheat River grade which was literally blasted out of the side of a mountain. The subroadbed is on raisers so that on the aisle side of the track the scenery can fall away from the grade as it does in real life. the subroadbed is set level in this picture, as a next step I will raise the subroadbed to the 2% grade here. That will result in the subroadbed to being higher to the left as seen from this angle.

Here's a photo of a special piece benchwork under the straight subroadbed at the far end of the picture above.



This section of benchwork will be the future location of a model of the Tray Run Viaduct and in this area the scenery will extend significantly below the roadbed, almost to the floor.

Here's a picture of the real Tray Run Viaduct.



The Tray Run Viaduct is 443 feet long, has four 90 foot arches (the left most one is not visible in the 1974 picture above as the B&O has dumped fill over the side of the viaduct almost filling the easternmost arch), and stands about 105 feet high. I've been to this bridge; it's nestled in a deep and steep gorge and is a very impressive structure. My model will be about 65% scale size, making the model just about 6 feet long. Each of those exceptionally high track risers made out of 2x4 lumber will be one footing of an arch.

Right now all track risers and subroadbed in this section of new construction are held in place with clamps. When I adjust the subroadbed to final grade the clamps will be replaced with screws.

This new construction which intrudes into the center of the basement is the first departure from the around-the-walls route that has been the rule heretofore. It provides a hint of the involved benchwork/trackwork to come and really gives the feel that this is becoming a basement-filling model railroad empire.

Work On The Mainline Resumes

Although the staging that I've just about finished installing will greatly expand the capacity and operational potential of my layout, it has taken an inordinate amount of time to complete. My open house is just a few weeks away and I would like to finish some more of the mainline so that the usual crew of visitors will have more room to run on.

I've come up with a harebrained scheme to temporarily connect the end of the Cheat River grade with staging and allow trains to run in and out of staging, into the center of the basement, and around the walls to a point above staging; that should be over a scale mile of running.

To do this I have to finish the track on the Cheat River grade to the point where it would ordinarily enter the central helix (section in yellow on the track plan below). This section of the track plan is the most difficult for a few reasons. The only choke point (i.e. less than 3 ft. wide) in the operator aisle is located on this section of the layout (see #1 below). The track itself makes it's only close approach to structure in the basement where the track must pass between the supports for the basement stairs and a lolly column holding up the house (#2 below). Finally the bench work in this area is tricky. Do I build a double sided bench that holds both the Cheat River grade on one side and the top of Cranberry grade on the other? The grade separation between the two will be over 15 inches at this point and the two scenes must be separated by a double-sided backdrop which could make the bench work difficult. Or do I build two separate benches? If I do this the bench holding up the Cheat River grade will need to be somewhat shallow (16" or less) which could limit scenic possibilities and/or lead to problems supporting the backdrop (#3 below). Click on the track plan to enlarge it to see the details.



I designed the track plan with 3rd Planit and, so far, the tack plan has been right on; everywhere the track was supposed to fit, it has fit. However, the track plan is only as good as the measurements that I took of the basement. If my measurements that positioned the structures in the center of the basement were off, then there is a possibility that the track will not fit. Heretofore this has not been an issue as the track has not been close to structure. Furthermore, when I measured the basement it was cluttered with 'junk', which has since been moved elsewhere, and I made at least three passes at measuring the obstructions in the basement and they did not all agree.

To help resolve these questions I decided to lay out ('loft' in nautical terms) the track arrangement for the last of the Cheat River grade on the basement floor. I began by lofting the curves and straightaways on kraft paper per the track plan. In this way I would not be tempted to cheat on the curve radius to make the track fit. I then taped the completed kraft paper templates to the basement floor using the track plan and measurements offset from the basement walls and existing track to locate the templates; again to prevent cheating by forcing it all to fit.

To my great relief everything fit, exactly as the track plan indicated. The picture below shows the overall view.



The lolly column in the center is the choke point in the operator aisle. The aisle should be about 2' wide at this point and is, but I'm a big guy and from actually standing there it feels tighter. However it is literally only one point that the operators have to pass, using John Armstrong's design principles this should be OK.

The next photo shows where the track must pass between another lolly column and the support holding up the basement stairs.



It should JUST fit. The leftmost line on the paper template is the left hand side of the allotment for that track, 2" offset from the track center line. Since I did my 3rd Planit using track center lines, but lofted the templates using the full clearance for the swing of cars, I believe that the two are in agreement. I'll have to test this point with both full length passenger cars and articulated locos when I lay the track, but I have no qualms about notching that 2x4 if I need more clearance.

This final photo is the overview from another direction.



The faux wood grain cabinet next to the lolly column (right) has been moved back to make sure that it does not contribute to the choke point.

Seeing the track lofted on the basement floor confirmed a decision that I had already made, I will build separate bench work for the Cheat River and Cranberry grades. This is partially a decision of convenience, I can get this section done faster that way and put off some vertical alignment decisions until later. I hope that I will not regret this choice later on.

Now back to building.

First Train Runs in Hidden Staging

This Friday (7/22) I was able to run the first train in hidden staging. It's taken a lot of work to get to this point (although the months of May, June and July have not been the best months for model railroading).

Here are some pictures of what hidden staging looks like:

Tracks 1, 2 and 3

Tracks 4 and 5

Yes, the track is not the straightest in the world. That's because the black-tie track is old (1970's) AHM sectional track. When I noticed that this stuff was not laying down straight; I ordered some Fast Tracks 'Sweep Sticks' to help me get it right. The track nearer the camera is better because of this.

The staging tracks were constructed in the aisle on the plywood sub roadbed and then slid under the mainline. When I did so, one of the pre-installed servo switch machines (see 'A Few Simple Solutions' post 6/15/11) had a benchwork joist right under it and there was no clearance for the machine. So it had to be re-mounted above the plywood. That's shown in the following photo:



The servo needed to be mounted far enough to the side to clear rolling stock which, in turn, required that the throw bar be extended. This was accomplished by soldering another length of PC tie below the original. The wooden tie that you see is there to support the longer throw bar so that it doesn't sag.

Here's a video of the first runs. The sounds that you hear in some clips are from a sound decoder equipped steam loco elsewhere on the layout; the air pumps were coming on at random. The beeps that you hear are the Lenz radio throttle that uses a cordless phone as the wireless link. I test all new track with the plastic diesel that you see in the video; having a plastic diesel derail and fall to the floor is less traumatic than doing the same thing with a brass steamer. This diesel has a very old MRC DCC decoder that is not a silent running type, ergo lots of motor noise.



Runs on Tracks 4 & 5 are followed by a run on the lead for tracks 4 & 5. Tracks 1, 2 and 3 were not wired up and ready to go on Friday night. I had hoped to finish them this weekend, but there's still more work to be done.

It's been a while

It's been quite a while since I have posted anything to this blog. That's partially the fault of the old guy to the right. No, not me, but the other old guy in the picture. I spent the last week of October in Newfoundland on a Caribou hunt planned two years ago.

When I returned, there was an end-of-year panic at work to get deliverables (and billings) out of the door. So essentially until the week of Christmas I had little time for the railroad.

And that was unfortunate because in early October I had committed to holding an open house for the Baltimore/DC O Scale group on Jan. 8. I deliberately committed to hosting because I wanted to use it to force myself to push construction work ahead on the layout. As luck would have it, my plans did not work out as well as I had hoped.

Now I was behind the "8 - Ball"; I had prefabbed some new sections of benchwork, but they had yet to be erected. I ordered flex track and roadbed and cleared my calender for the last two weeks of the year for some serious construction.

The benchwork sections that were completed are shown on this diagram in yellow and include the section from the September 8th post. (Previously completed sections of benchwork are shown in green.)



This short video sweeps through the bare benchwork, from left to right as seen on the diagram. The benchwork made out of plywood is the last section shown. (Click on "HD" to see this video in Hi Definition)



You may have noticed on the video, the benchwork steps down as it approaches the basement walkout door. Partially this was to accommodate the light switch that you see in the final frame and partially this was to match the benchwork height on the other side of the door.

What about the walkout basement door? My initial plan was to give the railroad the right-of-way and block the door. As time went on, I rethought that plan and decided that it would be better not to block the door. The gap in the benchwork for the door is the clear section between the green and the yellow on the diagram above (not drawn to scale). How to bridge the gap was the problem. Swing-out, lift-up, drop-down and lift-out sections were all possibilities. I opted for a lift-out section, based on the perception of simplicity.

Because I was pressed for time I did not stop to take in-process photos on how I bridged the gap and that's a pity; so I'll have to use photos taken after the fact. Here is the almost completed lift-out; you can see the basement door in the background:



The gap at door is about 40"; I spanned the gap with a 2' x 8' piece of 3/4" plywood set on the subroadbed risers. The plywood extended a little over two feet on either side of the gap. Although this is on the Cranberry Grade and is running 2% here, this section was set level as I did not want the rail gaps either side of the lift-out to be on a grade - too many chances for a derailment. For a similar reason, the track on the lift-out and for 17" either side of it is straight. I did not want the trucks to hit the gaps while going through any curve. Why 17"? That's the truck center-to-center spacing of an 85' O Scale passenger car, so my longest cars should be heading straight going into the lift-out.

Even though this was 3/4" ply, I was concerned about sagging of the lift-out, especially over time. So I built a frame out of 1"x3" red oak under the removable part of the lift-out. In addition, I reinforced the 3/4" ply either side of the lift out with the same 1"x3" red oak. The reinforcement makes the lift-out heavier than it would otherwise be, but the structural integrity is worth it.

Close-up of the frame under the lift-out:



The track risers at the opening would need to be reinforced so that they did not move or shift over time thereby preventing the lift-out section from aligning properly when it was replaced. I added longitudinal stiffeners attached to the last two track risers either side of the opening:





The far ends of the stiffeners butt up against a cross-member of the benchwork. To stiffen the benchwork in the lateral direction, I added cross-bracing to the last set of track risers either side of the opening. Here's one example:



At this point the 3/4" ply was still in one piece across the opening. It would need to be cut so that the lift-out could be removed. Before I did that I fabricated the two ledges on which the lift-out will rest. These were made out of 1 1/2" x 1/4" x 24" metal strap. These straps form a a ledge attached to the underside of the plywood either side of the gap and the lift-out rests on the ledge. Hard to explain, and unfortunately I have no in-process photos; but maybe you can get the concept from this picture (remember that this picture was taken after the lift-out was almost completed and the plywood deck has been cut through):



The location of the ledge is highlighted by the red ellipse. You may be able to see that the edge of the ledge has been rounded so that it will not catch anyone walking through the opening.

After the ledges were in place and secured to the fixed benchwork, I set my circular saw for a 3/4" deep cut and cut through the plywood deck to free the lift-out. The lift-out section was able to be removed and replaced easily and accurately. Which implied that the ends of the fixed benchwork had not moved; but the real test will come if it's still accurate after several seasonal changes in weather.

Now was the time for laying track. I've seen movable sections where the roadbed and flextrack was laid directly on the plywood top. This did not seem to be sufficiently rigid in that the track and roadbed could be moved very easily or even expand/contract over time resulting in a misalignment of the track. I'm an engineer and very much a belt and suspenders type of guy so I wanted to come up with a better way to fix the ends of the track.

You can see my solution in the following picture. I made anchor blocks out of 1/2" plywood, beveled on the sides for the ballast profile, which are placed either side of the rail gaps where they are secured with glue and screws. The flextrack is secured to these blocks with adhesive and brads.



The scheme that I came up with to keep the ends of the rail in alignment can be seen in the following photo. I put brass screws under the rail before the track was laid. These screws were adjusted to just touch the bottom of the rail. After the track was laid I soldered the rail to the screws to prevent the rail ends from moving.



Only two of the three tracks that cross the lift-out will be in place before the open house. Nor will I cut through the rail until the third track is laid after the open house. Then I'll know if all of the preparation that I made to keep the track in alignment has worked.

It took three days of my two weeks before the open house to finish the lift-out, much more than I had anticipated.

Benchwork Experiment

This is my latest section of benchwork. I have been wanting to build some benchwork out of 3/4 inch plywood because I am tired of picking over the lumber pile, even the premium lumber pile, to find straight dimensional lumber. I've have been dragging my feet building new benchwork until I could try this experiment; now that I have, the experiment has had decidedly mixed results.

People have written about how they have had their lumber yard rip a sheet of 3/4 in. ply into 3 1/2 or 4 inch strips. Call around as I might, I could not get any yard to rip the sheet for me. So I picked up a sheet of ply at Home Depot (this could be my first mistake) and ripped it myself.

I do not have a table saw, so I set-up and ripped each strip using a circular saw and a saw guide. This resulted in some annoying dimensional differences between strips. Furthermore, each strip had two beveled, not square, edges where the hand-guided saw tilted beyond 90 degrees. Worse still, as each strip was cut free, it immediately curled!! WTF!!

This was not what I had expected. I stopped cutting after about half of the sheet was consumed. It produced a number of wide strips plus two 1 1/2 inch strips for leg braces. The legs of the benchwork would still be premium 2x4s.

I placed the strips on the basement floor for over a month in the hope of straightening them out - no luck, they were still curled, although not as much. The strips were every flexible, so I believed, rightly, that they could be built into a reasonably square structure; but their utility over dimensional lumber was fading rapidly.

The strips were very lightweight, which also did not bode well. When the basic frame structure was assembled it was light but not very rigid at all. When the legs were attached and the benchwork attached to the concrete basement wall at three points, the structure was easily distorted with little pressure. The fact that the rearmost longitudinal member is a two-piece affair to fit around the drain pipes that you see in the picture probably did not help. The benchwork was more than strong enough to hold up the railroad, but at this location that was not enough. This section of benchwork is to the left of the basement walkout door and has to be rigid enough to maintain the alignment for the lift-out section to span the doorway.

To salvage the section, I doubled up the rightmost two cross-members with 1x4 dimensional lumber to make it more rigid in the area where the lift-out section will attach. More leg cross-bracing was added to help stiffen this area, and the section will become more rigid when the benchwork sections to the left are added. These sections will be made out of conventional 1x4 lumber.

If this is not enough I may add some cross-bracing in the plane of the grid to add stiffenss by the door. If all else fails, I may be able to hang the subroadbed from heavy-duty metal brackets attached to the wall thereby making the alignment independent of the benchwork altogether.

More Progress Photos

Here are some pictures of the Cheat River bridge and some in-process pix.

The Cheat River Bridge - still unfinished!!

The Cheat River Bridge looking 'west'

The Cheat River Bridge looking 'east'

Looking west at bridge level

Looking east at bridge level.

Until I enlarged this photo preparatory to uploading it, I had not noticed that the guard rails on the westbound (left) track at the far end of the bridge are quite crooked. You cannot see this when looking from above. I'm finding that the camera is an excellent tool to check your work.

Roadbed laid for the outer track west of the bridge on the Cheat River grade.

Double roadbed construction, cork over foam

Smooth curves on the outer track, not easy to do with Micro Engineering so-called 'flexible' track

The outer track is progressing

Further on down the line

To The West!

Now was the time to build to the west (by the B&O timetable) out of M&K Junction, through the town of Rowlesburg, WV and up the Cheat River grade. This section of the basement is in front of the water heater and well tank; the lower left hand side of the track plan (see Jul. 24, 2009 posting). It will also pass by my workbench.

Here's what it looks like leaving the Cheat River Bridge - what a lot of clutter!




More benchwork sections had to be built as can be seen here:




First is the view towards the water heater and next is the view towards the workbench:



The section beside the water heater will be filled in as well to support either a coal prep plant or the Alpha Portland Cement plant that is across the Cheat River in Manheim, WV on the M&K sub of the B&O. These sections of benchwork can be seen next to the water heater in this photo:


These sections are designed to be removed in the eventuality of the water heater needing replacement, therefore they have no main track on them. If the water heater goes these sections will be removed, the water heater can then be tilted over and laid down to the floor and rolled out from under the main benchwork.

This last photo shows the subroadbed cut to match the curve of the track in this location. Ordinarily I would cut a similar curve in the outer edge of the subroadbed, but this location will have the town of Rowlesburg, WV on it so I have left it square.

Up Cranberry Grade

In July of 2008 my brother in law was visiting with his family and looking at the progress of my layout thus far when he made some comment to the effect that "I wonder why all the layouts that I see have no turns in them?" Now I don't know what layouts he was talking about since most layouts have too many turns. But I took it as a thinly veiled reference to my layout; yet I still managed to hold my tongue.


However, the incident spurred me to start the first section of the three tracks up Cranberry grade with a projected completion date of before Christmas. Cranberry grade is along the right wall as seen in the track plan. This section would involve building four new benchwork sections and laying out two 90 degree curves and two S-curves.

The radii of the curves on Cranberry are 64", 68.5" and 73". They were originally intended to be 64", 68" and 72" , but when I adopted Atlas switches in the M&K Junction area, I had to adopt their 4.5" center-to-center track spacing. These curves will handle big B&O steam like the EM-1 2-8-8-4 and the S1 2-10-2.

The curves were laid out using a homemade beam compass. At one end of the beam that I made for the beam compass are holes to hold a pencil to draw: the center line of the track; the limit of the roadbed on both sides of the center line; and the limit of the sub roadbed cutout on both sides of the center line. On the other end of the compass beam, and measured from the pencil hole representing the center line of the track, I have holes at 64", 68.5" and 73" that accept the pivot nail on the center column of the beam compass. Using this beam I could draw the five lines representing he 64" radius curve, move the pivot nail to the 68.5" hole and draw those five lines and finally lay out the 73" radius curves in a similar manner. By using a red pencil for the center line, green for the edge of the roadbed and blue for the 'cut-to' line at the edge of the sub roadbed the lines drawn on the plywood sub roadbed do not get too confusing. The picture that follows shows the guidelines laid out for two parallel curved tracks.




The beam compass was aligned square to the tangent (straight) track at the point where the curve was to begin (the Point of Tangency (PT)) then the pivot point of the compass was offset about 3/4 to 1 inch towards the inside of the curve to provide for an offset for an easement. Once positioned to my satisfaction, the pivot point of the beam compass was not moved until all curves in that location were laid out. This kept all curves concentric. I lay out my curves while the plywood sub roadbed is still flat.


All of my curves are eased. I initially tried to lay out easements using a cardboard template actually calculated using the cubic spiral formula. However, even in O scale the offsets calculated using the cubic spiral formula were so small that I worried that the effect on trains would be minimal. So I reverted to using a batten (a thin, narrow strip of wood) to lay out the easements.

Once all of the curves and easements are laid out, I take the plywood sub roadbed outside and cut to the blue lines, which represent the edge of the sub roadbed. Doing the cutting outside eliminates sawdust in the basement. Once the plywood is back on the benchwork, I begin adjusting the risers to the grade, if any.

Here is the track at the start of Cranberry grade.




These tracks are on a 1/2 percent grade which will increase to 2 percent to the left of this scene.

After this first 90 degree curve in the corner of the basement, I had to begin the back-to-back 'S' curves along the short wall of the basement (right hand side in the trackplan). Why such a complicated track arrangement? Because photographs, track diagrams and personal on-the-ground inspection show that there is little straight track on Cranberry Grade, and S-curves are common. A secondary, but very important, reason is to have a scenic attraction at this spot on the layout.


Now S-curves are supposed to be one of the toughest things to do on a model railroad; therefore I proceeded very deliberately. I used the guidelines in John Armstrong's "Track Planning for Realistic Operation" and laid out generous easements into and out of the 'S'. Armstrong reccommends that every S-curve have a section of straight at its center at least as long as the maximum truck center spacing of your longest rolling stock; in my case 85' passenger cars.

But generous easements and long straightaways left little of the sinuous 'S' curvature that would be a scenic attraction. So I minimized the central straightaway as much as I believed that I could get away with. To make sure it would work with the minimal straight sectgion I laid the flextrack on the plywood first and tested each S-curve on all three tracks with a passenger car coupled to a 30' hopper to accentuate the offsets of the couplers (per John Armstrong) to avoid a mistake that would be difficult to correct later.

Well, to make a long story short, by attending to detail it seems to have worked OK. My test trains seem to traverse this section of track quite well. Although I cannot run a through train yet, I run trains forward and reverse along these S curves with no derailments. Here’s a video of such a run (the train appears about 25 seconds into the video)




The train is moving up a 2% grade and rises about 10 inches moving along this section of track.

The Bridge Over The River Cheat

By June of 2008 the tracks that will become M&K Junction had reached the gap that will become the Cheat River, as you can see in the first photo below. Also in this photo you can see the jumble of trains, tracks, tools and materials that constitutes a layout under construction. About halfway down in this photo you can see the bridge abutments under construction on the table.

The other side of the Cheat River, which you can see in the next photo is being readied for two short tracks which will mate with the bridge and will establish the grade and alignment of the bridge. I hold my raisers and track board in place with clamps until grade and cross level are established then everything is screwed together to make it permanent.

The bridge that will go into this location is the Atlas O scale double track through truss bridge. At the real Cheat River crossing there were two through truss bridges until a flood in 1985 took out both spans. My bridge will be a single span because I do not have room for two spans. The bridge will be set level and the Cheat River grade will start about 1-passenger car length beyond the bridge on this side of the river.

The next photo shows the left (east by timetable) bridge abutment with the bridge deck in place above. Unfortunately, I did not take any contemporaneous photos of the bridge after installation and to take one now after the area has changed would not show the proper sequence of construction. (I have plenty of more recent photos of this location after the backdrop was installed - it's my favorite photo location so far)

The commercially available bridge abutments for the Atlas bridge are all cut stone and do not match the abutment that was in this location. On the other hand I could not find a clear picture of the abutment that was there in the '50s. The mid-river piers were cut stone until the flood, but I do not believe that by the '50s the abutments were still cut stone.

Therefore I was on my own. I downloaded a turn-of-the-century (twentieth century, that is) book on railroad engineering from Google Books and found a diagram for a NYC concrete abutment. Using selective compression and modeller's license I reduced and simplified the large prototype structure to fit my available space. The result is what you see in the following two pictures.

The abutment itself is scratchbuilt. I initially tried to make the entire thing out of MDF figuring that the uniform texture of MDF would shape easily - wrong! MDF does not take a raking angle cut (as is needed at the wing-wall to center section joint) no matter how many times I tried. I eventually gave up and fashioned the wing walls, with the trim, from 1/4" aspen bought at Home Depot. The parapet cap is also aspen, sanded and shaped to fit. The whole thing was given a coating of Rustoleum Multicolored texture paint and further colored with a wash of Floquil Aged Concrete. At some point before most of the other scenery in the river bottom is finished I will apply dirt, grime, rust, etc.

In these pictures the bridge does not have its truss structure in place and as of the date of this post it still does not. The trusses are painted and weathered, but will not be installed until this area is essentially fully finished. Otherwise I could just see myself, klutz that I am, destroying the trusses while doing the scenery or the backdrop.

I made the gap for the 40" wide bridge 48" wide figuring that this would be enough for abutments and approaches. If I had to do it over again, I would make the gap almost twice the span length to allow for the sloping of the river to the bed, the approach of the tracks on an embankment and closer to full-scale abutments with wing walls that allow for earthen embankments that are more nearly at the angle of repose.

Benchwork 2

By late 2007, benchwork had been completed along the west wall of the basement (the lower wall of the track plan) as shown in these two pictures. The upper picture is looking towards the water heater (lower left on the track plan) and the other picture is looking in the opposite direction.

In the picture above, there is a funny section of benchwork in the foreground and you may be wondering what this is all about. That particular location will have a river spanned by a double track truss bridge (Atlas') to represent where the B&O crosses the Cheat River in Rowlesburg, WV. The depression in the benchwork allows for the scenery in the riverbed. We'll see the track approach, and then finally cross the gorge in later photographs.

You might also be wondering why such slow progress? Several reasons actually. First, I am a slow and deliberate worker. Second, at this time I had not built a layout in almost 40 years, since I was a teenager; and although I had read about every advance in layout design and construction during that time, this was my first opportunity to put that knowledge into practice. Finally I took a hiatus from building the railroad in June, July and August of 2007 because of preparation for, and then taking an overseas trip.

In these photos, I have not yet installed the layout lighting or lighting valence. The basement, as built, had limited electrical service. I was able to bring only one more circuit into the basement as there was only one available circuit breaker position in my main service box, and I did not want to get into replacing the main service. Furthermore, lighting a layout of this size would have taken at least 3000 W of incandescent lighting, quite possibly a lot more. And I still plan, eventually, on moving (you never know in today's job market) so I did not want to invest in a lot of immovable infrastructure. The solution that I came up with was to light the layout with 4' long, dual-tube, "shoplight" florescent fixtures and tie these lights into the existing overhead lighting circuit. While this works well, I really hated to give up the dramatic and directional lighting possible with incandescent illumination.

A minor side benefit of florescent is that I could use 5000K color temperature lights which render colors much more accurately than incandescent. These lamps are not particularly expensive when bought in 10 packs at Home Depot for about $30. I made sure that I purchased shoplight fixtures that could use T8 bulbs. The T8s are the narrow ones which only use 32W vs. the T12 'fat' tubes at 40W; and the T8s actually give off more light.

Benchwork

Here's the first section of benchwork and typical of the design that I started with.

A word about the benchwork. The benchwork is open grid which I designed to be free-standing, with removable legs and in sections no longer than 7 feet. The sections are bolted together. Why all of this complication? Because in 2006 it was mine and my wife's intent to move to another house that we would custom build; and I intended for my railroad to move with me rather than start from scratch, which in O scale is too expensive. By keeping the sections to less than 7 feet they could fit into a U-Haul or PODS and by being freestanding they could be reassembled into any future basement.

The change in the economy in late 2008 and a job change in 2009 will keep me in this house for a while; but I'm still building with a future move in mind.

I have since changed my design to use 2x4 legs rather than 2x2 because I could not get straight 2x2 lumber - it would always twist and curl. Premium, straight 2x4s are always available and I have had only 1 go bad on me.