First of all, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season and wish all of you the best.
To all of you good people who have really helped me over the last almost 2 years to resolve a variety of issues, I have decided to update you on my layout so you can see the payoff...and the latest progress that I have made.
The last of the structures (the passenger station/freight depot and truck-rail facility) and the Tomar RR crossing signals at the two street crossings have finally been installed. They came out great and make for a really realistic-looking layout.
I have posted a number of new pics at the following site:
http://s584.photobucket.com/albums/ss284/BradKT/
For those who wish to visit the site and who have not seen the earlier pics that I posted, they are there also and there are approximately 185 pics posted at the site.
To reiterate for those of who who have not seen the earlier pics that I posted, the basic theme is an industrial park, with oil refinery complex (Conoco oil refinery, storage tanks, natural gas unloading facility and tanker truck loading facility), rail yard, fire station, engine house (with overhead crane, passenger car washing station and diesel locomotive refueling station), cement plant, gas station, warehouse, construction equipment rental company, bus terminal, taxi stand, passenger station/freight depot and truck-rail facility.
The locale is either central or Southern California...in the eastern part of the state. The time frame is the early to mid-1970s. The flags that I run are Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Denver and Rio Grande Western and Santa Fe.
This is still a work in progress. I still have to do the following:
1: wire the street lights, wire the traffic light and getting the RR crossing signals working right; and
2. install the background around the 3 outer edges of the L-shaped layout.
Yampa Bob took the time to teach me how re-size the files and how to post these images and they are a manageable size so they won't slow down your computer trying to load them.
I hope you enjoy what you see. This has been a fun project and I couldn't have done anything near this quality had it not been for the contributions, cautionary notes and suggestions that so many of you have made.
Once again, thank you everyone. There is a part of all of you in this layout. Enjoy.
Brad
Thanks for the update. I love the layout and the UP Passenger cars.
I may have missed it but what size is the lay out?
Robert
Enjoyed the tour!
Thanks for sharing...
Regards,
Jonathan
Robert:
HO scale. The layout itself is an a "L" shape (9' x 5' on the left side and 14' x 6' on the other, with an access hatch). There are 3 tracks. The outer and middle tracks go around the shape of the "L" and in the rear of the layout the outer track is elevated. The outer track curves are 28" and the middle track curves are 22." The inner track is a large oval about 11 feet in length with 18" curves. All three tracks are connected by switches (#6 turnouts), which allow trains to be switched back and forth between tracks (there are two turnouts at each location so the trains can be switched off of one track and onto the other...each set of two turnouts is wired into and controlled by a single Atlas switch). All of the turnouts are powered by a separate DC transformer (also Atlas). There is a siding and small rail yard in the middle rear of the inner oval track. The 24" square access hatch is located inside of and on the left end of the inner oval track. Two more lines come off the siding to the small rail yard and engine house (these are #5 turnouts). At the front of the layout (where the controls are located), there is another siding coming off the outer track (#5 turnout), which is to allow cars to be placed on and taken off of the track.
There are some pics posted on page 4 of the photobucket site that show the track layout.
I had previously forgotten to add that there three sets of manually operated diesel horns that are also installed. Once any of the 3 switches switch is turned on, the horn(s) operates on a continuous loop until I turn it off. Each of the 3 horns gives the dash-dash-dot-dash signal that the train is approaching a crossing.
Enjoyed the gallery of pics. I like seeing other people's work. Your layout is looking good.
Sid