Benchwork - onward and upward

The Placerville Branch ran from Brighton to Placerville with a ruling grade of approximately 2%. So it is with the modeled version of the prototype. With the room empty I used an inexpensive laser line tool from Sears. The tool is typically used for hanging photos, art work etc. evenly on a wall. I mounted it to an camera tripod and placed it in the approximate center of the room. I measured from the floor at the tripod, to the red laser line emanating from the tool. I used 40" inches as a baseline, which is the height of track work at Folsom. I marked this 40" line around the entire room and then built my benchwork relative to these marks. There is a 2" or 3" slope to the floor which is why I chose the center of the room as a reference point. Now my benchwork is nominally referenced from one point and not to a sloping floor line.
I'll talk about staging later, as well as each and every modeled element as I get further into this, but now a few words about general construction. As can be seen by this photo below I used 3/4" 8 ply furniture grade plywood for all basic benchwork construction. I got this idea from Phil Gulley who built the Sumpter Country Lines using similar construction techniques. It has also been suggested in the model press over the years. Furniture or higher grade ply is very stable building platform for my California environment.

 The photo of benchwork construction at Flonellis shows most of the cantilever type  benchwork building techniques employed including angle brackets sitting on wall mounted plates, as well as straight joists tied to a 2 piece bracket. The 2 pieces are made up of a triangle bracket, a gusset as it were, tacked to a side of rectangular mounting plate screw mounted through the wall stud. Then my support pieces run against the plate and along the gusset plate for a very strong support. This is another Phil Gulley design. I borrowed his template for making this 2 piece bracket and made them for the entire layout in less then a days work. If your going to use your wall studs as the backing for those mounting plates please remember to mark the center line of every wall stud somewhere on the wall where it can be seen and appreciated. You'll still need to drill a small exploratory hole in the wall to ensure that your line is accurate, but once that is understood you'll have a strong interface between the stud and your plates. Note that only wall mounted plates and risers for adjusting sub-roadbed height utilize screws. Everything else is glued, then nailed using an 18ga nail gun with appropriate size nails for the job. If I thought there might be adjustment needed to a particular benchwork element I used screws, mostly though its 18ga brads and glue. Lastly remember to drill or predrill your holes for wiring. My wiring was going to be pretty simple. Control wiring, tortoise switch power in Folsom and 115vac lamp wiring for lower level lighting. So 3 holes in each joist was all that was ever required.
Trackage has started to appear; this specifically being the staging lead going up grade to Folsom. We had to do this because that staging lead is under the first deck. There is no second deck as of yet.

the photo on wall is inspiration I guess - photos of Latrobe
and things to come

Another view a little bit further upgrade from the first photo. My trusty 2' level is on the bench top. A 1/2" dowel slipped under one end of the 2 foot level approximates a 2% grade when the bubble is between the marks. On a calculator take the % of .5 to 24" = 2.08%. I tried to stay on the low end of this, meaning under 2% through out, but I always kept at grade except where spurs, sidings or towns dictated otherwise.  I used mostly cookie cutter cutting techniques so that my road bed follows grade, but the surrounding area does not. Its not always this way in the real world so somewhere on the layout the entire benchwork is at grade..more about that later. There is only one leg to support the layout so far. The benchwork is over 30" deep at one spot in Folsom, but generally less then 24" and sometimes as narrow as 10." Found the photo's below this morning. I think they better represent the initial stages of benchwork support around the wall.
More later.

early stages showing bracket supports

boxes being built off the L girder

Folsom - one day!

Benchwork - some thoughts on my design process and modeling philosophy

S curve, Latrobe, Ca. Placerville Branch

Several modeling friends and acquaintances  helped with the layout design and planning process. Phil Gulley, patiently guided me through many of the pitfalls of yard design, as well as siding and spur help. Dave Bayless helped me early on with the general shape of the Placerville Branch within its long narrow rectangular boundaries, Dave Clemons suggested NOT USING A HELIX in my double deck design.  Other artistic and engineering talents have inspired me. From the artistry of Harry Brunk, George Selios to those that create entire railroads worlds like Tony Koester, Allen McClelland, and more recently Mike Confalone, as well as the small railroad designs of Iain Rice. Of course none of this would have been possible without my well worn copy of Track Planning for Realistic Operations by the late John Armstrong. I figure this is my last chance at this. I have no intention of  starting anew and doing it again as my age affects everything from balance, to eyesight, to manual dexterity. I still have many models to build, many scenes to create and though I never plan to "finish" this thing I would like a fully scenic, miniature version of the Placerville Branch that ran from Brighton to Placerville, Ca. Operations and the socializing it brings with like minded individuals is important to me as is the physical plant.
The following links, lower level Placerville Branch and upper level Placerville Branch will take you to my google drive. Scroll down the list to view the lower and upper level layout plans. The design, done in 2010 has changed over time, but the shape of it and its semi prototypical feel has not. Without a long, detailed and sorry, boring list of all my reasons for its design, I can summarize in a few sentences. I used what history gave me,  not on one day, but over a large period of time. I combined what I thought would make an operationally interesting model railroad, based a on specific prototype. So was there ever a yard in Folsom?, sure in the late 1800's when the CPR carried passengers from Sacramento eastward and home again. Was there a Latrobe Dairy Coop?, no, but if you visit Latrobe today there are still endless acres (yes they are disappearing) of livestock range land. A dairy COOP seemed prudent. Or the Amador Copper mine, which really existed, but was never rail served. Wagon loads of copper ore were brought by wagon train up to an open platform in Latrobe where westbound freights took them down to Sacramento for smelting. Dugan Springs lasted all the way out to the end of service in the mid 80's and Camino visa vie the Mich/Cal  lumber co. provided millions of board feet of prime sugar pine lumber to help build American homes. I like history and it was important to me to base this thing on some reality. This is a western Sierra Foothills railroad and my hope is that when you enter the room, under the porch, you'll get that straight away.

upgrade and westward toward Folsom. White Rocks, Ca

Latrobe curve

A quick note about the photo's. Taken in the hot, dry California summer months. If I took these same photos today (March) everything would be green.

Room Construction 3 - electrical notes and finishing off

In my last post I said I would write a bit about the electrical service to power up the railroad. Like everything else except for maybe scenery I run it as close to the bone as possible. Basically there are 5 outlets in the room served by 2 15 amp circuits. 1 circuit powers lighting, tools, vacuums etc. I used a 4 position lighting switch mounted right inside the doorway to access overhead room and partial layout lighting (the overhead fluorescents), a outside light above the door and then dedicated switches for nearby outlet power. First and foremost I have to say I'm happy with the amount of power available. The layout, the room doesn't require anymore then  30 amps to run. Have I blown a breaker on occasion? Yes....but only on occasion when power tools, vacuums, and a portable air conditioner were all in play. I really wasn't inconvenienced by it and never felt the need to power up the room with even 20 amp breakers. It works for an HO scale layout of this size. The other thing I  did was to ensure that the power to run my NCE control system was separate from the rest of the room. The circuit for this was run through 3/8" plastic conduit sitting external to the room walls so I can get to it if needed. The rest - lighting, outlet wiring are all inside the wall where they belong.

drywall

Next came the drywall. I enlisted help from my friend Phil Gulley to help with this. He assisted with all the mudding, sanding and so forth. An area which I have little or no expertise. All drywall is 1/2 inch and as can be seen from the photo I used water resistant material "just in case." Note also that the drywall does not run to the floor, so if rain or drainage problems cause water pooling on the floor it won't wick up thru to drywall, but simply wet the ledger or kick board at the base.

room before radiused/coved corners were installed

coved or  radius corners

Easier then you might think. I put 1/4' fill strips at either end where the coved masonite corners meets the 1/2" wall. Then I popped the curved 1/4" masonic in place, securing it with drywall screws on either end. Taping, mudding, and sanding followed. Note the straight room walls were already being worked as mud has been applied to cover seam tape and screw holes.

drywall in process and nearing completion

Note my attempt to add natural venting into the enclosed room. My home foundation is adjacent to the wall on the right. Before adding the ceiling a built wooden vent channels running from under the home to the room. It provide a bit of cool air in the summer time and didn't cost me anything to facilitate. There are three of these in place.

Just about ready for layout construction

The room been painted white and almost has a sterile clean room look to it. Hmmmmm - wonder who spent their career in high tech clean rooms? The ceiling by the way, since I haven't mentioned it yet is 3/4" composition or roof grade ply. Lastly I painted my sky blue Home Depot Monaco 550-3C blue. Phil Gulley chose it on his Sumpter County lines. I find it a perfect natural color sky blue.

So now the room is ready. Its time to get the benchwork started. See you next time.

Yet more room construction photo's

With the outside complete I turned my attention to the interior. Photo below shows insulation in place on the outside wall and furing strips being place on the far wall. At this point I was still using the original fluorescent's lighting.

I placed 2x3's to be used as furring strips against the west facing concrete wall. Once mounted, they became the support for dry wall.

 Once this was done I turned my attention to the ceiling. I knew I was taking a risk here. Remember that the ceiling to the Placerville Branch is simply the underside of my porch. On the other hand I had never seen a water problem - even so much as a drop of water come through topside.  I insulated the ceiling with 1" insulating panels, cut to fit the roof supports.

 The photo below shows the start of a series of 2 rows of working lights being installed, a box (upper middle) built around a cable that keeps the porch in tension. Hey I didn't build it! But someone must have thought that it was a good idea in 67. I built the box to hide the 1/4' steel cable and assorted hardware and it turned out to be a good place to hide my overhead lighting wiring as well.

 From this you can see the ceiling is complete and work is beginning on installing the lighting strips. I decided on T8 lighting which is bright enough to work under and provided adequate layout lighting later on. The lights are 6' double T8's with Philips daylight bulbs. You can read a ton of stuff about layout lighting on the web. Everyone has done lots of research on this subject. I wanted to have a bright light for my aging eyes is all. My choice gives me that. Later I moved both series of lights closer to their respective walls and centered them over the layout. Lastly I've started my wiring for outlets around the room. I'll write more about that in my next segment.

 I'll have one more round of room construction photos, then this section will be complete.
Stay tuned.

Beginnings - 2 More Room construction photos

After the joists were in place, we wanted to get up the exterior wall portion. We used typical T11 siding as is used throughout the rest of the home. 

Exterior eastward facing wall

Interior view of newly built tyvek wrapped wall

Note door flows inward as most do. This had to be corrected later on since a duckunder was in order. From this photo you can see the underside of the porch, a couple of florescent lights giving me minimal light in the space. Nonetheless the space is now defined. 27' long by 11' wide. A narrow rectangle for sure.

       

Entrance to my wine cellar, furnace room, house foundation,
soon to be modeling room and one day Dispatchers Office!

This entrance above had to remain for access so I lost several feet on this side of the layout room to make the zig-zag. I suppose when my furnace goes we'll have to take it out in pieces!

Painted and ready to go

Yet more room construction photos next time.