So you thought this train would never come in.  Well, ran into a lot of wet leaves on the uphill grade and the coal in the tender was like Alabama swell belly.  Management sells the good coal and we get this "dirt".  Anyway, this post is not to tell you of the completion of the perfect track plan that will never have to be adjusted.  It is to tell you what has been done.

Continued the cleaning out of the storage room - some of the VHS tapes went into the trash.  Almost all of the film camera equipment and materials have been sold which freed up more of the storage room.  Doug Barry helped in disassembly of the "L" guider from the old layout and this wood will be used on the new layout.  Some HO engines and cars that are not time appropriate for my friends or myself have been passed onto eBay selling.  The shelving in the downstairs bath was completed and some G scale locos were put on display.

Comments on the lower level plan in the closet, which includes the yard, were provided by Keith Stillman and Dick Munnikhuysen - make sure there is aisle space.  

This plan is bad on two counts:

1.  A lot of aisle space is eaten up trying to put the turntable directly across from the yard.
2.  Reach to hand throw switches on the yard ladder is bad - reaching over tracks.




























This plan is better but the turntable still has not been located.  Bob Warren, Paul Dolkos and Doug Barry have all counseled "get cutting wood/buikding".  An excess 12" diameter turntable from a visit at Tony Koester's is providing the impetus to locate it on the layout at the end of the closet.  In the future I'll try to get plan photos that are easier to read.


Talked to Dan after Paul Dolkos's comment about "don't see the theme" and came up with "MINERALS".  So, in addition to the American Cyanamid plant at Piney River, VA, the Olin Mathieson plant at Saltville, VA, will serve as prototype inspiration for two major customers in the layout room. And it has since been discovered that the type of chemicals Olin Mathieson sold could have been used at the American Cyanamid plant. 

One of the "wet leaves" delays was reading about a now defunct short line in Kentucky.  One of the authors worked for the line and the book included an interesting description of switching a distillery.  Talking and emails with the book's co-author gave me incentive to look into including this.  With the location of the modeled portion of the V&T Rwy being in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennesse and Jack Daniel being located in Lynchburg, TN, in the dry county of Moore, the V&T may just have another major customer.

And there is still the connecting lines/branches/interchanges of coal and wood as well as a few local small businesses.

I started looking at space consideration in the closet.  Brackets for the lower level were put in place and shelving laid across the get a feel for aisle vs depth of layout.  This mess is a result of beginning to pull out and get an idea of track and switches on-hand.  Several sheet of plywood and Homasote have been purchased.  The screw-in connectors that go in the recessed lighting have been procured and initial information on track lighting obtained.  

From the last posting "FOR THE NEXT TIME" there is still much to do.

NEW:  FOR THE NEXT TIME

There is a 100 inch long piece of serpentine track from the old layout now in the basement for the checking of trains on different grades with specific locos.  ADDED: Set up Digitrax power supply to power test trains. Still need to do this.  It would REALLY help me to know if there is any advantage to use AC versus DC to power the Digitrax - your thoughts are solicited.

Drawing up scale drawings of track arrangement.  Still need to do this.

Establishing a line diagram for the modeled right-of-way and an "operating scenario".  Still need to do this.

Identifying the lighting for the train room and closet [probably fluorescent  or LED track lighting].  ADDED: Review electric current ratings supplied to the rooms.  Lighting identified but much work remains.

Clean out the train room that is currently totally full [this is from both Doug Barry and Steve Robbins - even the wife suggested a POD but it doesn't provide the humidity control that a lot of the "stuff" needs but some of it is going into the shed].

Thanks for reading - and Best of the Holidays to all.

Well, it's been under three months [just barely] since the last post.  And there has been action, but not as much as desired in the layout area.  The motorcycle was sold and what does this have to do with the V&T Railway? inquiring minds want to know.  It frees up space in the shed which provides more space for things in the basement to get moved into the shed which in turns provides more space in the part of the country to be served by the V&T Rwy.  Then in mid May Will, the younger son, come up to be the lead contractor for installation of the vertical supports in the closet AND the bath.  Why the bath?  I hear those gears grinding - well added some shelving to display some of the "G" scale "narry" gauge.    


Here Will is measuring to locate the vertical supports and then getting a level line so the three supports will be even and level.                                                                                                                                

This next photo shows how we got the supports in the closet to match the height in the trainroom - just punched a hole in the wall about where the track will be placed.  The yard located in the closet will be the widest area supported off the wall and it could be as wide as two feet so double channel was used along that one wall and the end wall.  Since the spacing of the slots in the double channel is 1 1/4 inch and the single slot is 1 inch, a key slot level was established at the height for the yard and that level brought through the wall and around the three walls in the closet [in the closet, two walls to have double slot, the other wall and all walls in the train room have the single slot].  
 

 
This photo shows establishing the height for the single slot support based on the adjorning double slot support.

The double slot brackets have two holes in them for screwing the wood benchwork to the brackets as shown below:






















Since the single slot brackets have no method for attaching the benchwork, there needed to be a "magical" answer.  Will suggested a pipe bracket but Chris Schieck suggested cutting angle into little brackets, drilling appropriate holes [intuitively obvious]  I decided that pop rivets would be a quick. solid and easy method to attach the little bracket to the single slot bracket.

Looks like its going to work.

From the last posting "FOR THE NEXT TIME" there is still much to do.

NEW:  FOR THE NEXT TIME

There is a 100 inch long piece of serpentine track from the old layout now in the basement for the checking of trains on different grades with specific locos.  ADDED: Set up Digitrax power supply to power test trains.

Installation of the wall shelving in the closet - uprights completed.

Drawing up scale drawings of track arrangement.

Establishing a line diagram for the modeled right-of-way and an "operating scenario".

Identifying the lighting for the train room and closet [probably fluorescent  or LED track lighting].  ADDED: Review electric current ratings supplied to the rooms.

Thanks for reading.  Comments and questions appreciated.

Except for failure to do posting, both planning and work have progressed in the past 3+ months.  On the planning side, received comments from a couple of you on the last post of layout plan. Mike Garber copied the pencil plans from the blob, marked them up and sent his thoughts and questions as an attachment to an email.  Thanks Mike, that made it very easy to respond.  And am sorry that some of you could not see all the information easily but am focusing on planning/building layout, not a blog.  However, have not reduced the file size for the photos of the penciled track plan as much as before, again took some time to try to enhance the photos and presented them in a large format to try to make it easier to view.

Also received a number of ideas from Bob Warren.  Most folks I have talked to prefer and are more comfortable with a single level layout and Bob is one of them.  With every track plan for the layout, he included a discussion specific layout plan, thoughts on operations and a line diagram:

 

I first asked for input on the yard in the closet and got the following:
  

Next came working on the entire area for a two level layout.  One of the things he tried to do is to increase the length of the run for the nolex by starting it at the far end of the closet instead of at the wall between the closet and train room. 

The first two plans were "B" and "C", the upper level the same for both of them.  Shown in order below are "B" [lower level], the alternate lower level "C" and finally upper level for both "B" and "C":

Next came the another two level design:

And another two level design:

And then a 1 1/2 level design with single end staging:

While the yard design was detailed and scaled out, much of the other plans were more of just the concept nature.  He certainly put more in the design than track arrangement by providing the discussion and line diagram.  The description of operation and line diagram has provided some pretty neat ideas even if my initial build remains little changed from the plan in the last post.

I have continued to gather ideas in the form of photographs of construction methods as well as both photos and emailed electronic documents of operating documentation like card cards, waybills, schedules, etc.  Below are photos of Seth Gartner's beautiful New York Central Piney Fork Branch that show what I have in mind for the nolex:

After looking at the construction Keith Stillman used for his upper level [using double slot wall shelving]:

and seeing Chris Artale's storage shelves in his garage using single slot wall shelving on 32" centers, have decided to go with the single slot wall shelving on 16" centers in the train room and double slot in the closet [the yard in the closet is going to be considerably deeper than any place in the train room that is against the wall].  And have also adopted Chris's suggestion of having the vertical supports tall enough to have a storage shelf both above and below the layout.

About a month ago I moved lots of stuff away from the walls in the train room and younger son, Will, came up from Williamsburg and we got "water level" marks in both the train room and closet and vertical supports in place in the train room.  I got the ceiling painted, some shelving in place at both the lower and upper levels.  

 
Recognizing that there is a desire to put as much operation/track into the limited space and also to provide realistic information for planning, I cluttered up more of the basement with a two level mock-up.  The large box provides a 10 inch height, the cardboard is 12 inches deep over the lower level in these photos and the lip is 2 1/2 inches high.  V & T Rwy track standards were derived from the mockup which provided information as to the closest that a track can be to a vertical surface and closet track spacing [1 1/2 inch and 2 1/4 but 2 1/2 inch better, respectively].   

FOR THE NEXT TIME

There is a 100 inch long piece of serpentine track from the old layout now in the basement for the checking of trains on different grades with specific locos.

Installation of the wall shelving in the closet.

Drawing up scale drawings of track arrangement.

Establishing a line diagram for the modeled right-of-way and an "operating senario".

Identifying the lighting for the train room and closet [probably fluorescent  or LED track lighting].

Thanks for reading.  Comments and questions appreciated.