[?] Hi everyone, my name is Arty and I live in Adelaide in South Australia. I have been “collecting” n scale locos, cars, freight cars, buildings etc for 10 years now. At last I have the room to try and build some kind of layout. I would like to model North American. Most of my rolling stock is either A.T.S.F or Union Pacific with a splattering of other road names. All my buildings are Nth American design. I have drawn some kind of a plan which is basically continuous running with industrial sidings serving around 7 industries (lumber mill,oil -fuel depot, quarry, toolmaker shop, grain silo, livestock yard and abbatior). It includes 2 towns, a river, a lake, a forest, grain fields, hills. I was thinking of an area like Colorado in around the year 1970. Would what I have fit in to this time and place? What type of diesels would have been operating at this time?. I have read numerous books and articles, but I am no closer to deciding what I should do. Any help or advice would be much appreciated. I get model railroader every month here in Australia and find the magazine great though at times it make me feel quite inadequate when i look at some of the layouts, prototype running etc.
In North America the road name of the rolling stock isn’t too important as almost all cars travel on all the railroads (we call it interchange traffic). The more important thing would be what the locomotives are. Relatively speaking few locomotives travel on other railroads tracks.
In the 1970s the Santa Fe would be in the southeast part of the state, while the UP was in the northeast. They meet only in Denver. The Denver & Rio Grande would still be the dominant railroad interchanging with the MoPac in Pueblo and the Rock Island in Colorado Springs. The CB&Q (Colorado Southern) would be the second biggest player with tracks along the front range from the North to South boarders (Route of the Texas Zephyr!), as well as the CB&Q proper coming into Denver from the east.
Colorado is a very diverse place.
The west slope is almost a desert except right along the rivers where there are lots of fruit orchards. There are mines and some other farming. There are oil reserves, especially in the north west. There are lots of ranches but by the 1970s almost all stock movement on the railroads had stopped. In fact, it was February 27, 1974, when the ICC authorized the cancellation of the carload rates on livestock in the west.
Then you have the mountains - mines and quarries but mostly just track passing through the rock.
The front rang
Hi Texas,
I believe you would call an abatior in the U.S the meatworks. It is a place where stock is killed and prepared for the meat market. My plan is to have a freelance type railroad which I am calling the ‘Helendale Railroad’. My plan is to repaint my locos to this roadname. I thought the colours of red and blue halves (front half blue, rear half red) with yellow lettering of the roadname on the locos. Not too bright I hope. I have never built a layout before so I am entering new ground. I thought I might run my layout using the Lenz100 DCC system. I have absolutely no idea how to wire up such a layout. I will be filling a space of 2sides 8’ x 3’ ; and 1 space 6’ x 2’5" (freight yard). This will be in a U shape. Again, any help would be terrific.
Ah, a packing house. That will fit well in Denver.
Well with a Lenz 100 it is easy. One wire to each rail from the J and K terminals. Can’t get any easier. The hardest part is figuring out how the Lenz wire connectors work!. I didn’t realize that plastic thing was a plug. I was trying to put the wires on while the plug was IN the unit. Not fun [:|]
How wide is the isle in the center of the U. You are immediately limited to 18" curves. Have you choosen HO or N?
Check out the Q Station at http://www.qstation.org/ for info regarding ATSF. THey have some really good data and someinteresting ideas…
UP and ATSF aslo ran through Arizona - if you’re looking for a different type of scenery - alot like Australia in places. Then there’s New Mexico, Texas, etc… All offer modeling and scenic interest.
Good Luck
My U shape layout will have a 6’ x 2’6" space on the left side ( freight yard and facilities), an 8’ x 3’ space at the top and 11’ x 3’ on the right hand side. My plan should allow an isle width of around 5’ to 6’ . Only the top section will be against a wall allowing me to gain access to my layout quite easily.I am blessed with a fairly large area for my layout even leaving room for other things to happen in the garage! I will be modelling in ‘n’ scale. I plan to run trains of approx 8 cars + engine and caboose max. Most will be around 6 cars. All the industrial sidings will have room for 3 cars max. My freight yard will have 2 arrival and 3 departure lines + 2 consisting lines ( lines where trains are sorted and made up for departure). There will also be a deisel maitainance area with turntable and engine roundhouse as there will be no trunaround line. I know what I want to do, it is just getting the confidence to do it.