Tomorrow, June 27, the NMRA is broadcasting another twelve hours of model railroading clinics and layout tours on both Facebook Live and YouTube. Here is the information that you need to know:
This is the continuation of the photo series of my layout. First, a little more about my layout. The Dry Gulch & Western’s mainline is comprised of two large ovals. These ovals are folded over themselves creating four loops of mainline track circumnavigating the room. There is a “high line” that winds its way up to the mountains and a “river line” that goes down to the Hayes River area. The Hayes River area is 29 inches above the floor while the high line climbs to over 60 inches above the floor. There are several junction points where the loops of track are connected to get you from the high line to the river line. In this part we will travel further down the mainline and go past Newport, another one of my larger towns. There are three major towns on the layout. Allentown/South Allentown (partially shown in the first series), Newport, and Ellison. These comprise the three big cities but there are several smaller towns along the mainline. Allentown is virtually complete, but Newport and Ellison remain to have scenery finished. The track is all in and functional for operations. Only the structures need to be built, lots of them! Let’s get started.
Photo 6 gives you one last look at South Allentown with its busy industrial area. You can see the tunnel entrance at the extreme left of the photo. That portion of the mainline spirals underneath the layout and goes across the doorway to the Newport area as seen in photo 5 of the last series. You can get a good view of the row of “company houses” and the tilt can coaling tower at the engine facilities.
Photo 6
Photo 7 gives you a view of the tail end of Newport yard. The blue foam in the bottom left of the photo is part of the shipping channel. There will be a bascule bridge and side dump ore loader for dumping ore into small barges. Newport is a very active part of the layout and the Newport yard operator is kept very busy. Also, about dead center in photo 7 there is a siding. This is a small town that will be called Scopa. During operating sessions, a locomotive is parked on that siding. It is maintained there for pusher service on the spiral up to South Allentown.
Photo 7
Photo 8 shows better view of the Newport yard and control panel. Directly behind the yard is the car ferry slip. The large brick building on the left is Newport station (it is partially finished). Attached to the station is a large Railway Express Agency terminal. As we travel further back on the photo (where the city building flats are located against the wall) is a 3-track staging yard. It is 16 feet in length. This staging yard is a thru yard to allow for both east and west trains to stage. It is also electrically divided in half to allow for a total of 6 trains to be stored while they are not in use. Each of the 6 sections can be electrically shut off while trains are not in use. This yard was added much later in the construction of the layout. I found that if I was to allow for operations, I would need a handy place to store full trains and this yard provides such space.
Photo 8
Photo 9 gives a better view of the Newport yard and car ferry slip. The Newport station serves both the “high line” and the “river line” mainlines. The river line is located at the base of the station and goes directly behind the station. The high line is on the elevated track that you can see about halfway up to the right of the building. The big pink foam section in the middle of the photo can be completely raised up to allow for maintenance of track. This lift out section is about 2 feet by 5 feet in size. Now what is sitting atop that Sunray tank car?
Photo 9
Photo 10 gives a view of the yard throat lead along with the track leads to the car ferry slip. Newport yard is a tricky yard to operate. First it is a stub yard. Second, you enter two of the tracks from one direction while you have to enter the third track from the opposite direction. Operating this yard requires lots of planning of car movements. To the extreme left is Allentown (again, we will see that later in the series) directly in the center of this photo is the Ellison turntable (where the SP cab forward is parked, yes in this photo it is rather small in size!). I will be constructing a roundhouse and engine service facility at that location. Further back in the far corner of the room will be the city of Ellison. In this photo Ellison is about 30 feet away from you. To the left of Ellison begin some of the mountains that the Dry Gulch & Western trains have to traverse to get freight to their customers.
Photo 10
In the next series of photos, we’ll travel even further down the mainline and maybe even see part of that illusive city of Allentown!
There will be an online presentation this Thursday evening at 7 PM showing the history of how coal was moved in the 1870’s from Newcastle to Seattle. This was a major effort beginning with construction of a tramway and incline to move coal to Lake Washington. Coal cars were then moved on barges to Lake Union and then by another tramway to a pier at Pike Street for ships to San Francisco.
Members of the Newcastle Historical Society have put together an excellent program with photographs, newspaper articles and maps, many of which have not been shared before with the public.
Here is the link: https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/events/5ec9c4cd6ae8e7450013c80f
Please check it out. Russ Segner your 4D Superintendent
Due to Covid-19 restrictions most of our group can’t visit layouts or be involved in 4D group model railroad activities. Yes, video tours on Zoom do allow visitors to see layouts that would be problematic for “in person” visits due to traffic, physical limitations, or other hurdles. I decided to “display” my home layout via the Grab Iron. This will be conducted via a series of photos that will be put on this site over a period of time. With each photo I will include a description and general location in the room to provide orientation. When we get a little deeper in the photo series I’ll provide a layout drawing that will have the locations of where the photos were taken.
A little history. Approximately 6 months ago I decided to embark on a photo record of my progress on the layout. These photos would be considered photos of record, not “glamour shots” found in magazines. Just like John Allen’s panorama shots of his layout, this is what I wanted to achieve but using a standard photo size and not stitching the pictures together.
First, I’ll tell you a little about my layout for those of you that have not seen nor heard about it. It is called the Dry Gulch & Western and is loosely based on John Allen’s final Gorre & Daphetid Railroad. Just like his railroad it is HO scale and includes a short line of HOn3. It is not direct copy of his layout but more of modified version where I took bits and pieces of his design and added my touches.
The layout is located in my climate controlled basement in a dedicated room. It is around 32 feet by 33 feet and roughly triangular in shape. About 35-40% has completed scenery, another 30% has rough painted plaster terrain scenery, and the there is about 25% that is still bare plywood. The layout and scenery mimics mountain railroading with tight curves, high mountains, lots of bridges, and tough grades. The mainline is about 450-500 feet long and a train going at freight speed takes about 45 minutes to fully circumnavigate the room. There is floor to ceiling scenery topped off by a sky filled with clouds.
I use Digitrax digital control. There are a mixture of manufactures for the turnouts, most are Shinohara or Walthers but have some home made and Peco. Track is code 83, code 70, or code 55 Micro Engineering flex track. Switch machines are modified Tortoise machines. Like John Allen I have 5 separate control panels to use for switch machine control.
A little over a year ago I began operations on the layout and have created an assortment of jobs for operators. There are two yard jobs, fast freights, peddler freights, mine locals, mixed trains, and passenger trains. Some are easy but most are demanding, requiring the operator to carefully watch his/her train. I use car cards for car forwarding. When the layout is being operated by 6-7 operators it really comes alive.
Now, let’s begin the photo tour. Photo 1 shows the entrance into the layout room. A gate carries the mainline across the doorway. Photo 2 shows the gate out of the way. Down the entry aisle and directly in front of you in photo 2 is the port city of Newport. It will be a bustling city once all the structures are installed.
photo 1photo 2
As you walk into the room on the right is South Allentown (photo 3), to the left is the city of Allentown, this area will be seen later in this series. As you can see in photo 3 there is an engine service facility along with an industrial area. This area can serve as a dual purpose scene for operations. The mainline can function either as a true mainline or can be blocked with freight cars for switching of industries.
photo 3
Photo 4 shows how that mainline track forms a loop and spirals down grade. Photo 5 gives you a view of the second doorway and shows the upper and lower levels of the spiral. The upper track directly in front of the door carries a passing siding and engine house lead track. The lower track at the bottom left of the photo is on a gate, that track carries the mainline which goes to the city of Ellison.
photo 4photo 5
This is where I’ll stop and allow everyone to look at the photos. In the next set we will say goodbye to South Allentown and wonder down the mainline. I’ll continue this series every 3-4 days, so stay tuned to the Grab Iron!
Presenter is Lee Marsh. This is a great presentation of his beautiful HO Great Northern layout. He shares many ideas of how he built a large layout for photography and operation. All scenery is complete and as good as I have ever seen. There is a helix and hidden staging as well a main yard and engine facilities. Heavy electrics are featured with long trains – passenger and freight.
I have seen this twice now and am really looking forward to another look.
Here is the Zoom link. Call me if you have trouble reaching the site.
You are invited to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: 4D/PNR Eastside Zoom Meeting Time: Jun 18, 2020 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
The next Fourth Division layout tour will be held on Saturday, June 20, from 10:00 – 11:30 am. It will feature virtual layout tours by Joe Green and then Byron Osborn. The Zoom info will be sent in a Grab Iron email on Friday at noon.
Joe Green’s C&O Ryder Gap Subdivision is an HO scale, proto-freelanced switching layout set in the mountains of Virginia in May 1974. Four crews are responsible for serving the subdivision’s industries, including Back Creek Paper, Mill Gap Lumber, and Highland Chemical. The railroad uses scenes, track plans, and modeling that is heavily inspired by the prototype’s operations in Covington Virginia, Thurmond West Virginia, and Cass West Virginia. The layout is located in a large garage in Sequim, WA, and holds periodic operating sessions.
The Boeing Club layout is an HO layout 26’ by 50’ in size covering two decks of the fictional NW railroad Seattle and North Cascades during the 1950s. Construction began in 2011 with track work completed several years ago, operations with NCE DCC using car cards and way bills and scenery about 60% complete. The layout is located at the Pacific NW RR archives in Burien. Operating session are held twice a month but are on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic. The presentation will be made by club President Byron Osborn.
Announcing the Eastside Virtual Get Together Clinic to be held on THURSDAY, June 18, 2020 at 7:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Hello, everyone! Yes, the Eastside Get Together Clinic is alive and well during the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Although for the time being (and that may be a while), the Eastside Clinic has become the Eastside Virtual Get Together Clinic. Our first virtual Clinic will be held using ZOOM next Thursday, 06/18, (We are switching back to Thursdays by popular demand!). One of the benefits of virtual clinics and meetings is that the barriers of geographic distances (and traffic woes) are removed. All you need is a computer and an internet connection! So I would like to extend an invitation to ALL of the 4th Division and ESPECIALLY our fellow 4th Division members in the state of Alaska, to join our Clinic next Thursday, meet some of the modelers here in the Puget Sound area and see some outstanding model work that has been done in this area. Here is the log in info:
Check your Grab Iron email for the Zoom meeting information.
Our virtual Layout Tour will feature Lee Marsh’s outstanding layout depicting the Great Northern Railway’s Cascade Division during the transition era of the early 50’s. Lee is an outstanding modeler and that certainly comes out in his layout. Of late, Lee has gained additional notoriety by having his layout featured in the June 2020 Model Railroader magazine.
After the Clinic, we will have some time for other folks to show off their latest model work in our “Show and Brag” segment. The Clinic will wrap up with some administrative comments and quick discussion about our virtual Clinics.
This is Lisa Murray, 4D Communications Chair. With my new role, and the fact that I now have access to post things directly to the website, you will certainly be hearing more often from me. Thanks to Anton Faulk for getting me all set up.
As mentioned in the recent board meeting, I plan to post regular announcements about virtual meetings being held throughout NMRA. I wanted to get this one out ASAP, since it’s tomorrow.
Tomorrow, June 13, the NMRA is broadcasting twelve hours (yes, TWELVE hours) of model railroading clinics and layout tours on both Facebook Live and YouTube. Here is the information that you need to know: