The HO Central of Georgia Backyard Subdivision

[chessie system fan]

I haven't switched scales!  A local friend is building a new HO scale layout in his backyard train shed, and as I'm doing most of the work (at least until the scenery stage), I thought I'd start a thread for it.

The era is the early 1950s right after steam is gone through the early 1960s. 

There are a few "musts."

1. No curved turnouts.  They seem to cause too much trouble.  We have standardized on Peco code 83 track with Peco Unifrog #6 turnouts.
2. Trains will be approximately 6 feet in length.
3. Simple= a must! 
4. All trackage must be reachable.
5. He plans to flip the switches with his fingers (a perk of Peco's snap system).  Again, keeping it simple.
6. Shelf width in most areas is 2 feet wide until the end loops.
7. The ultimate point is switching industries.  The max number of people for operations is three, but two is more likely (a roadmaster and a yardmaster). On most days, it will be just him.
8.  There shouldn't be too many industries. No spaghetti bowls of trackage.

To his, I add:
8. Building it right.  I plan to build it to high construction standards.  And though the trackplan is freelanced, we want to be true to the feel of the prototype as possible.
9. Ease of assembly and disassembly.  He's retired and has Parkinson's, so the layout will have to come down eventually.  My hope is when that day comes, some or all of it can be donated to a local model railroading club for use elsewhere.
10. It can't be "model railroady."  So no things like switchbacks.
11.  It can't be boring. Either boring to run or boring to look at, because...
12. Ultimately, this is a 3D piece of art.  I want it to have that feel when someone walks in the room.

The layout will roughly follow the space where his previous N scale layout was.  It's a folded dogbone plan with an extended yard that is partially in another room. I haven't measured the main room, but it's about 11 or 12 by about 15 or 16 feet. The extra yard length is about 5 feet long.

I have a trackplan, but it's at his house at the moment. For now, here is the yard drawn out on brown paper to scale.  The mainline wraps around the outside. The yard on the right is the receiving yard and the one on the left is the departure yard. Freights will arrive (from either direction) into the two receiving tracks, the locomotives will go to the engine terminal (I still need to draw that area), and then the yardmaster will break down the train in the departure yard and get the next train ready to go (to depart in either direction).

The receiving yard will likely be about an inch higher than the departure yard, so there will be a slight grade in the loop on the bottom.

And in the view, I am standing about in the doorway to the building, so all of this is what people will see first when they walk in the room. The isle will be to the left and a wall is on the right.



So that's the progress so far. I shall post more in the coming weeks as we finalize the rest of the track plan and construct the benchwork.

[chessie system fan]

I built a yard shack this week.  It's technically a Southern prototype, but I'll paint it C of G off-white.  I'm discovering that working in HO is much easier than working in N.



It's a styrene kit by Smoky Mountain Model Works. The kit is milled walls, stock doors and windows, and a few styrene strips. So, really basic.  But I enjoyed building it, and with the essential chopper it wasn't difficult.

[chessie system fan]

I also retrieved my rough track plan sketch.  I had several criteria in mind as I designed it.

1. Each main line needed a purpose and they needed to have balance with each other.
2. There had to be switching options for trains traveling in either direction.



I'm pleased with my interchange track idea. It's theater, because it's just a no-frills track. It allows switching cars that may not have an industry on the layout.  It's tucked underneath the other main line out of the way, making more room for that main line.  And it's not a tunnel. There will be access as it will be near the layout's edge for most of the way.

I've done some rough placement in the layout room, and my rough sketch actually fits well.  The only modification is the loading dock track, which doesn't fit and will have to go the opposite direction.  And there is more room in the fuel tank farm area than I thought.

[davefoxx]

Aaron:

I hear you on poo-pooing curved turnouts, but, if it helps the track plan, I recently installed one of the new Walthers code 83 curved turnouts on my layout to add a siding.  My mainline is the tighter radius through the turnout, but I’ve been highballing all sorts of equipment through it with no derailment issues whatsoever.

Looking forward to following along.  Thanks for sharing.

Hope this helps,
DFF

[chessie system fan]

Good to know, Dave!  I'll pass that along. Given his age, this will be my friend's last layout. He wants it to function smoothly.  And given our lack of experience with HO, he's a little conservative. 

If there's a bulletproof version out there, I have several places that would be useful to use them.

[davefoxx]

Good to know, Dave!  I'll pass that along. Given his age, this will be my friend's last layout. He wants it to function smoothly.  And given our lack of experience with HO, he's a little conservative. 

If there's a bulletproof version out there, I have several places that would be useful to use them.

Those new Walthers turnouts also have that Peco-like spring thingie to hold the points.  I only mention it, because curved turnouts can save so much space in a track plan.

I’ve been back in HO for eight years (wow, time flies), so feel free to pick my brain for any guidance.

DFF

[chessie system fan]

I finished that yard shack today. I painted it with Tamiya deck tan for the shadowy areas and then painted it white.  I then weathered it with Vallejo German black/brown, dark sea gray, off-white, USAF medium gray, and wood.



I like how the dirt along the bottom (Vallejo wood color) simulating raindrop splatter turned out.  I don't see that modeled very much.

[chessie system fan]

Central of Georgia photographs from the 1950s are difficult to find!  The best resource I've found is J. Parker Lamb, who I'm told died a few weeks ago.  His photos of Opelika, Alabama inspired my layout design.

CG, Opelika, Alabama, 1954 by Center for Railroad Photography & Art, on Flickr

CG, Opelika, Alabama, 1954 by Center for Railroad Photography & Art, on Flickr

CG, Opelika, Alabama, 1952 by Center for Railroad Photography & Art, on Flickr

CG, Opelika, Alabama, 1954 by Center for Railroad Photography & Art, on Flickr

CG, Opelika, Alabama, 1955 by Center for Railroad Photography & Art, on Flickr

There's a mixture of pines and deciduous trees, cuts and fills, cinders and weeds for ballast, wooden highway bridges, new diesels and old ventilated boxcars. What's not to love?

[eja]

And PURE ity.     What's not to like.

I can smell the pine trees now.

[davefoxx]

What I like, in addition to the C of G’s paint scheme, is the train lengths, allowing practically prototypical operations.  I’m referring to the first two photos in your post above, e.g., four-car passenger train and approximately ten-car freight train.  Nice!

DFF

[chessie system fan]

I was able to do more trackplanning work this past week. 

Earlier, I had posted the yard.  Here is the next section that is along the rear wall, with the yard to the right. This will be a town area, with a depot (probably--if I can build it!) along the inner, lower line near the siding.  The track along the rear will be higher, with a grade as you go left, and the industry will be a coal supply facility.

 

Continuing around the room, we come to the area where the tracks will cross. The dashed tracks will be hidden from main view after the bridge.  The industry where that GM&O boxcar is will be a produce warehouse.



Moving along, we come to a small town industry area. In the rear is (probably) an interchange track. Next is a pulpwood loading area. Behind the covered hopper and green boxcar will be a large cotton loading industry.  One of the dashed lines is the lower mainline. The other dashed line is a spare passing siding or a pretend industry.  There will be a hill right in front of the caboose to hide the lower tracks, but the rest of it will be open.



And here, on the left, I'm trying to convince my friend to have a curved turnout for the lower level.  That would help with the geometry.  I might have convinced him.  Right outside of it is the tunnel entrance (which I have crudely drawn).  After the tunnel will be a grade up to the higher level.  The industry track going into the center of the loop might get another curved turnout so that there can be two industries there.  One will be a fuel transfer facility like on those photos of Opelika.



And finally, here is a picture of the loop.  The sharpest curvature will be in the back left corner and will be slightly more than a 22 inch radius.  This loop will be a mostly rural area.

[chessie system fan]

I also learned an operational tidbit.  In Georgia way back when, it was illegal to ship freight on Sundays unless the train was hauling animals. So C of G trains would include a stock car with them and ship a mule to get around the rule.    They dropped the car off at the Alabama border while the train continued onwards.  So somewhere in the yard will be a mule loading ramp.   

[Specter3]

My wife is from the Opelika area and her parents have an aerial photo of the downtown dated 1956.

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[chessie system fan]

That's fantastic.  Thanks.

[chessie system fan]

We made some progress this week.  We acquired enough lumber to last us a while, and then it was time to start building!



Maybe it's overkill, but it seemed like the easiest way to mount the layout is to install a belt rail that the layout frame will sit upon.  The frames will then screw into the belt rail. That seems easier than making sure each modular component gets exactly level with each other independently--as well as ease of disassembly one day and having to unscrew a bunch of screws from the wall.

Next, I assembled the first frame.  This one is 5 feet by two feet.  It'll go against the rear wall about where the red stool is.  As it'll be almost the only section that's a true rectangle, it seemed like an easy place to begin.