Pennsylvania & Western Railroad
Layout Construction
(This page last modified on 11/21/99.)
I will share some of the information on how I'm constructing the layout in this section. Details on my Backdrop, Table Construction, Staging, Roadbed and Trackwork, Electrical Work, and Scenery are presented in separate sections below. Hopefully, you may find something you can use on your layout. Or maybe something that I did will look like a big mistake to you. Seeing my goof might help you avoid doing the same! Let's only make new mistakes.
Backdrop
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The layout backdrop received a painted sky effect. I used the white paint/blue paint method that is discussed in a lot of the scenery books. They make it sound very easy. In my case, it tooks lots of trial and error. I probably did 8 or 9 tests before I got a result I was happy with. The method I used was to paint the top of the "sky" blue and extend some blue blobs lower than others (here's a picture). White paint is now put on the bottom of the backdrop and in between the blue blobs. It is all then blended with a brush (see?). To get this to work, the paint must be pretty wet. I used a spray bottle to lightly wet the wall first, painted about a 4' section, then lightly wet the edge before painting the next 4' section. A product called Floetrol was also mixed with the paint in order to slow the drying. I worked on a rainy day so the air would be humid and slow the drying some more. (I don't think my method would work on a Winter day with the air in the house very dry.) I was able to work my way all around the room (about 190' of backdrop) in a single Saturday.
Table Construction
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The layout is done in 3-rail O-scale, basically around the walls on 4' tables, with an 8x16' peninsula. I decided to use open-grid benchwork on 4'x8' tables constructed of 1x4 stock with 2x4 legs. Roadbed would be 1/2" homasote over 1/2" plywood in areas where the roadbed was at least double track wide, and 1/2" homasote over 3/4" plywood in single-track areas. This benchwork/roadbed combination has proved strong enough to walk or sit on, which is very handy during construction. My dad and I are shown installing one of the tables here. A series of 5/8" holes were drilled in all of the cross-pieces prior to assembly, to provide ready-made wire runs. Leveling screws (1/4" carriage bolts) were installed in all table legs. The tables are a uniform 39" high, except for 37" at Horseshoe Curve (for scenic reasons). Adjacent tables are connected using 5/16" bolts, and each table is free-standing on 4 legs, yet is also attached to the wall studs for stability. Tables are held together with Elmer's carpenter's glue (the yellow stuff) and drywall screws. I use these screws for table building, attaching them to the walls, and fastening down the plywood subroadbed. They can't be beat. I have a few other table pictures, of the Horseshoe Curve area, the wall beyond the Curve, and the future freight/passenger yard area. Table construction goes really fast if you have a standard design. It took my dad and I less than a week each to do the long walls of tables pictured.
Staging
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To support the kind of operation I want, I need staging yards at the East and West end of the railroad. Staging in O scale takes a lot of space, and I didn't want the complexity and difficult access of large under-the-scenery staging yards. A separate room was constructed to hold the staging yards. The East yard is at 42" and consists of 6 loop and 3 stub tracks. West yard is stacked on top at 58" and has a similar layout. Here are a couple of photos of East staging, before the upper deck was added. (photo1, photo2). I also have 3 staging tracks located under Horseshoe Curve that are reached after passing through a branch line town to the South.
Roadbed and Trackwork
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In order to get an appearance with 3-rail track that is anywhere close to scale, it is important to use small rail and wide radius turnouts (switches). I am using Gargraves Phantom flex track throughout the layout. The mainline is elevated on cork roadbed, while all sidings (including passing sidings) are laid directly on the homasote. This produces a mainline track that is higher than the sidings, as in most prototypes. I fasten the cork to the homasote using waterproof Elmer's glue (not the white stuff). The cork is held in place while the glue dries using 1/2" staples applied with an electric staple gun. Using this method, the cork roadbed goes in really fast. For appearance, I have superelevated most curves. Superelevation makes the train lean into the curve slightly. On the prototype it allows the train to run faster through the curve than if the curve were flat. On the model, it serves no funtion but looks cool. To do the superelevation, I glued balsa strips on top of the cork in a position directly under where the outside rail of the curved track would go. I used 18" of 1/16" square balsa to transition from the straight track into the curve on each end, and as much 1/8" square balsa as needed in between. This produces a scale 6" of superelevation which is pretty close to the prototype.
Turnouts on the visible parts of the layout are mostly Curtis Hi-Rail, along with a few Ross Custom Switches. Gargraves turnouts are used in the staging areas. I just counted and there are 98 turnouts on the layout! A few editorial comments about the various turnouts are in order. The Curtis and Ross products are top-quality. The point spacing is perfect, the throw bar moves effortlessly, and the individual wooden ties match the Gargraves track beautifully. The older Gargraves turnouts with the black stamped-steel point rails also work well, though they don't look nearly as good as the Curtis/Ross products. Used Gargraves turnouts can be found at train shows for only 10 dollars or so, so they are a good value if appearance is not that important. I think the newer Gargraves turnouts with the silver point rails are not nearly as good as the old. For one thing, the ends of the point rails are very thick and blunt, and unless they are filed heavily the wheels of certain freight cars will ride up over them and derail. There seem to be a lot of production variability problems, too. The clearance between the running rail and the point rail is sometimes much too narrow (less than half the clearance distance provided in the Curtis/Ross turnouts). What happens in this case is that one set of wheels on a car will "pick" the point rail and that end of the car will take the diverging route through the turnout. Obviously, if most of your train takes the main route while part of it takes the diverging route, that is not a good thing. I recommend to stay away from the new Gargraves turnouts, or at least open the boxes and examine them before purchase so you don't end up with the narrow clearance problem.
I am using Caboose Industries number 208s ground throws for turnouts that are easy to reach from the aisles, and NJ International twin-coil switch machines for hard to reach turnouts, staging turnouts, and in places where I wanted a non-derailing feature like the Lionel switches have. The contacts on the NJI machines can be used to make the non-derailing feature. A wiring diagram to do this is enclosed with each new Gargraves turnout.
Electrical Work
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Let me say up front that I HATE electrical work. Visitors can easily see progress made in benchwork, trackwork, and scenery. But electrical work, which takes many times longer (at least for me) is invisible to most other people. However, these are ELECTRIC trains, so we need to do a bunch of wiring to make them work. As described above, I'm using all Gargraves track which means the 3 rails are all insulated from each other. I wire one outside rail as ground and leave the other for signaling, non-derailing turnout operation, accessory triggers, etc. as needed. You may have read in the hobby press that both outside rails should be wired together to use as a ground. In my experience this is not necessary. One solidly-grounded rail is enough. I have run a 10-guage solid copper wire around the layout to serve as the common ground run. I also install 12-14 guage stranded wire under the table and parallel to the tracks to serve as the power supply for the center rail. Both the center rail and the ground rail are connected to their respective bus wires at least every other track section. I don't want to rely on rail joiners to carry the current. The layout is divided into blocks, with 6-position rotary knobs to control them. Since most of the blocks are very long, they all have "dual control". This means there is a block control knob, a pushbutton, and a yellow LED at each end of the block. The block is controlled from the end with the lit LED. To change the controlling end, the button is pushed, a relay is activated, and the LED and track power are switched. In this way, an operator can always control the power to both the block he is entering and the block he is leaving. The circuit is in the Kalmbach "How to Wire Your Model Railroad" book. There are 4 mainline cabs on the layout, controlled by All-Trol walkaround controllers. These controllers plug into home-made 4-plug sockets placed about every 10 feet along the layout fascia. Power for the All-Trol units come from Lionel pre-war Type Z and Type V transformers. I am currently testing a new radio-controlled handheld from All-Trol which eliminates the need to plug into the layout. I really like it so far, since you can just walk with the train and not be looking for the next plug-in station.
As I've said, I'm using NJI twin-coil switch machines. I like these because they can operate on either AC (for the non-derailing feature) or DC for a "diode matrix" control. The turnouts in the approach leads to the staging yards have diode matrix controls for the switch machines. These circuits have appeared in several of the model magazines, and they function so that pushing a single button will throw all of the necessary turnouts to align for a certain track. The classification tracks in the yard at Annville will also use a diode matrix system.
The staging yard control panels have a row of pushbuttons to align the turnouts for the proper approach track using the diode matrix system, a row of indicator lamps to indicate the turnouts are thrown properly, a rotary knob to assign track power to the proper track, and a set of indicator lamps for each track. Red lamps indicate the train is fouling a turnout, yellow are "near foul" areas, and green means the train is in the clear. This panel controls six loop staging tracks and three stub staging tracks. No turnout controls are needed for trains exiting staging, as the "non-derailing" wiring throws the turnouts ahead of the train automatically.
Remote uncoupling is provided by the use of the uncoupling magnets from Lionel postwar O-27 uncoupling tracks. The magnets are removed from the tracks, a section of the Gargraves center rail is removed, and the coupler is glued into place(pic). The method for doing this is credited to Jim Barrett who demonstrated the process in one of the "O-Gauge Railroad - the Video" tapes. The magnets are all powered by a common 16 volt power source with a bus wire that runs under the entire layout. Control is by small Radio Shack pushbuttons located on the layout fascia.
Scenery
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The scenery methods I'm using on the layout are (were) new to me and may be new to you as well. I'm not using plaster or styrofoam for most of the hills. Instead, I'm using a 2-part resin-based system called geodesic foam scenery. This is sold by a company called Bragdon Enterprises in California. There is a link to their web site on my links page. Basically, the method produces scenery "blankets" of whatever size you want (I usually work with 1 foot by 2 foot pieces) that are hot-glued over the scenic forms. Here's a picture that shows me (my best side) gluing a blanket to the supports. Note that not much support is needed. The blankets harden in 20-30 minutes to form a hardshell scenery base. Here's a couple of pictures (pic1, pic2) of that. The second picture also shows some of the rock castings that are made with the resin (they are white in the picture). The best part of this method is that the rocks are also very flexible and soft for the 20-30 minute working time. In the picture, they curve around the mountain, following the curve of the track. This would be difficult with plaster casts. The rocks also can be easily cut with scissors while they are soft, so they can be any size or blended with other castings. When painted, I think they look really good (pic).
The horseshoe curve area is the first one that has base scenery fully installed. You can view an overview picture (pic) or a close-up (pic).
Additional construction details will be added later.
