Category: Construction
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Describing Middleburg Operations
The community of Middleburg is a passing siding and interchange connection on the mainline. Its primary purpose is a passing siding, but in a crowded train room, I hate to miss a chance to have an industrial spur. So I have one at each end of this passing track. Now this presents location-naming challenges.…
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Illustrating Holden Train Staging
All the photos in this chapter were taken while standing in the 2×6 foot operation pit. Holden Train Staging (located directly below Hillton) is hidden from spectator view and is only accessible from inside the operation pit at Yardley. It is a 4 track hidden storage / train staging yard. It holds 4 trains…
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Holden Control: Simple Controls for Complex Trackage
About the drawing and photograph for Holden train staging yard. At first glance this drawing may appear quite busy. Perhaps the following explanation will help your understanding. The drawing helps to explain 5 different aspects of Holden Train Staging option: 1) trackage, 2) turnout control, 3) track power, 4) electrical planning, 5) construction. The…
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Holden City Scenery
How I arrived with this scenery turns into a long story. This area of the layout has been re-done at least three times, either because of method failure (pasting printed paper building flats onto cardboard that warped over time) or that a better idea has surfaced, I guess I continue to learn by doing. …
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Yardley Freight Classification Yard and Engine Facilities
Controls and Operation: The two best design features I like about operating my classification yard is it allows me to stand or sit right next to the action without having to reach over mainline running trains to tend the yard as with some other layouts. Another thing I like is that my yard has…
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The Yardley Passenger Station Dilemma
The town of Yardley got into the passenger train business long after I had my freight-handling layout built and well into operation. I then realized that there was no place for a passenger station at the town of Yardley. However after acquiring a complete B&O heavy weight passenger train with 2 matching F7 A units,…
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Surmounting Troubles Scratch Building a Roundhouse
After deciding that I could use a compressed space roundhouse, because none the proper size were commercially available, I came to the realization that I would have to scratch build my own. This began a period of over 15 years of procrastination. During which time I had acquired a large sheet of 1/16 thick white…
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Homemade Turntable
There are several requirements to making a good operating turntable. Among them are a good center support bearing, a good motor gear reduction unit, and a properly mounted and aligned rotatable bridge. This sounds simple enough at first glance, but requires precisions not easily acquired when working primarily with wood as used in model layout…
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Lighting a Dark Corner
My double-ended staging yard is over 7 feet long and 5 tracks wide with an overhead clearance of just 8 inches. It has always been a bit dark to see what cars were under there. Finally after years of wondering how to get some light on it, without having it shine in your own eyes,…
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Using Two-faced Building Flats on Two Different Levels of the Layout
Hopefully this post will help your understanding of how this scheme may work elsewhere. Remember, on the backs of the tall buildings at Holden City (lower level) shown above, are the single story businesses of Hillton on the upper level. Now we move the camera to outside the operation pit to see the other side…
Model Railroading on the Cheap 