Pacific South Eastern Railway

[Wiredup]

This will be my construction thread for my new layout. named the Pacific South Eastern Railway. Obviously inspired by the Pacific Great Eastern, now BC Rail.

My layout is a major passenger/freight terminal in a fictional municipality known as 'Great Falls' in British Columbia during the that is mostly overseen by Canadian National. The era is the transitional era. Other roads servicing this terminal will be Canadian Pacific and Union Pacific.

Anyways, here is the current track plan. There are a few very minor adjustments currently being made to it though.

 

[Wiredup]

Moved into the new house this past weekend and my measurements for the train room match up, so construction begins!

I've spent the better part of the last three days picking up materials and slowly putting the bench work together. The above is what I've got done so far.

the benchwork is lattice frame pine 2x2's. I've decided to bypass a plywood base and went with 2 inch thick foam base instead.

Next step will be the upper level of this section... to be started on in about an hour after the glue for the foam dries. :mrgreen:

Edit: sorry for the strange perspective. I'm using the fisheye lens on my camera because I wanted to get the widest angle possible for the room.

 

[Mountain Man]

Where do the tunnels at the bottom go?

 

[Packers#1]

Looks like a great start and a fun plan.

 

[Wiredup]

Where do the tunnels at the bottom go?

I'm confused at which 'tunnels' you speak of.

The two layers that I'm building currently (the terminal section) are as follows. The Purple layer are staging tracks, while the rest is the main terminal.

 

[steamhead]

WoW..!!! Nothing like getting right into it....Betcha the paint isn't even dry on those walls yet....!! :mrgreen: Good for you..!!
That track plan looks to be a lot of fun to build and operate. Look forward to seeing your progress...:thumb:

P.D. I believe the tunnels mentioned are those gaps in the foam....:cry:

 

[Wiredup]

Got a bit more accomplished before I went to bed last night.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to get the track plan onto the foam accurately from the Winrail9 printout that's currently showing me where everything goes.

I'm also debating if I should forgo the roadbed in the yard/terminal section and only do the roadbed for the approach into the yard...

I just wish Peco turnouts/switch machines didn't add up to so much money compared to these ugly Atlas machines....


picture time!

Benchwork completed for the terminal section of the layout. I even built my control panel section. I'm using DCC so it's just an MRC base station behind that wood plank... but the switch machine controls will be put atop it.

This little staging area under the layout will be tracked with kato unitrack for ease of operation/construction. For some reason I didn't think how low the 'ceiling' would be between the two levels in my track plan. wall1

The roundhouse takes up a bit more room than I thought it would... stupid Winrail9. Anyways... I'll be waiting for my 130mm Cornerstone Builtup Turntable on the way from our good friends at Fifer Hobby before I start construction here.

I'm collecting passenger trains. The Daylight special is one of them. It won't be in regular service on this layout, but I'll run it from time to time. Mostly it'll sit on a display shelf with the NYC Century Limited (with a Hudson pulling of course), and a few other choice trains.

This is my fake double cross over. Instead of buying a real one I built my own from atlas track. Anyone know if I can wire these all to the same switch machine and have them all switch to cross or go straight at the same time?

Just a view of what will be the main terminal. I gotta get some kits today... Union Station and Modern Coaling tower to be specific.

 

[Wiredup]

WoW..!!! Nothing like getting right into it....Betcha the paint isn't even dry on those walls yet....!! :mrgreen: Good for you..!!
That track plan looks to be a lot of fun to build and operate. Look forward to seeing your progress...:thumb:

P.D. I believe the tunnels mentioned are those gaps in the foam....:cry:

thankfuly the paint is dry. :mrgreen:

the trackplan should be a lot of fun. I'm taking the door to the room off to give me more room to build. Just don't tell my wife that k?

 

[Packers#1]

Wow, you got a lot of locos, lol. Looks great so far, nice "fake" double crossover, lol.

 

[Wiredup]

Wow, you got a lot of locos, lol. Looks great so far, nice "fake" double crossover, lol.

thanks! I plan on getting some track actually laid this weekend! I'm currently putting together a few kits to add some visual appeal as well.

As for the lot of locos... I think I almost have my full roster. I have:
A Kato Mikado
2 Bachmann heavy mountains (that I'll be converting into U1F series mountains)
1 Bachmann light mountain (which will be my kitbashing guinea pig!)
Athearn Challenger
Trueline RS11
Atlas GP9
Atlas Shay
2 Intermountain F9A
Kato RDC1
Bachmann J-Class
Kato Daylight

I need to add:
Intermountain F9B
Kato Mikado
Kato RDC4
2 Consolidations
1 Hudson
1 Pacific
Lifelike F9A/B set (in CP colors)

So I'll have quite a few locos to pull my trains... hey it'll be a busy terminal!

 

[Packers#1]

yeah. Right now all i'm planning to add is a U23b, which will bring my roster to 5 total, 3 EMDs, 1 FM, and 1 GE.

 

[Wiredup]

political discussions are warranting a change in the track plan. The terminal has undergone minor changes shown below. But the rest of the route is being re-designed to allow for more stops and a more scenic ride.

And now for todays construction news:

Transferring the track plan to the foam took a while longer than expected... mostly because my method for doing so was cutting out the track from the winrail9 printout and taping it and tacking it down to the foam. I then decided I'd paint over it with my ground color.

While the ground was still tacky I started spreading the turf!

The terminal is now thoroughly turfed... next step?

Finish construction of my Modern Coaling tower
Dig a hole for the Turntable
TRACKAGE!
Wiring
RUN TRAINS!

 

[Packers#1]

Interesting, putting down ground cover then track, I'll have to try that sometime. Great work!

 

[Wiredup]

geeze... don't tell anyone theres a recession going on eh?

If anyone has any left over Code80 Atlas switches... please let me know... the $25 CAD for a powered, or $19 for an unpowered switch is really hurting me pretty bad as that will end up requiring me to spend almost $300 in switches just to finish this section of the layout... something I'm not looking forward too at all! (thankfully that will be 90% of the switches for the layout)


Anyways, no pictures yet... but progress has included construction of the Modern Coaling tower is near completed... and track has begun to be laid. There are issues with the code80 vs code 55 tracking between the turntable and lead tracks (I don't have a code55 dealer close by) and I'm trying to work around that.

I'm really waiting on a couple of structures to arrive at my LHS (union station and station platforms from Kibri) before I can start doing my scenicing.

 

[Wiredup]

Not a lot happening in terms of construction right now. I kinda hit a lull I think.

Here's the progress so far:

Nothings wired up yet for operation, but I wanted to get a sense of what things will look like.

So far the only issue I've come across is matching the tracks up for the turntable. Not only am I using code 80 and the bridge is tracked from the factory with code 55... but I think I messed up on one of the lead tracks and it's not lining up properly.

Oh well, fantastic model that Cornerstone 130 turntable is though.

 

[TruckLover]

Nice progress :thumb:

Looking forward to seeing more :mrgreen:

I like your idea of painting the base before installing and gluing the track down

 

[Wiredup]

thanks!

it seems like a double edged sword...because now that means my ballasting has to be have full coverage to cover the areas without the ground cover.


I figured out why I have this lul... something about not having snow in Edmonton yet at the end of November.... Still riding my bike!

 

[Mountain Man]

Would you like me to send you some of mine?

 

[Wiredup]

Would you like me to send you some of mine?

snow?

YES PLEASE! I love the snow. I'm actually really disapointed we don't have any yet.

 

[Wiredup]

I've decided that I no longer like the layout as it is on paper. ie: everything but the terminal.

so once I've finished the terminal I'll look at what I wanna do for the rest.

I was thinking a double decked layout... but the terminal already sits 40 inches off the ground! Thats pretty freakin high! so even if the deck was 16 inches higher thats way to much to be workable....

so what to do?

I was thinking a mountain scene where the train would go back and forth on the mountain through tunnels kinda spriling up and down. with another line going through the mountains lower down where the lumber mill and mine might be located... but I have no idea how to plan that properly and can't find a similar plan in any of my recent MRR mags'