Chicago Division - Pemberville Sub Layout

[rthornton]

Well, after 10 years and alot of thinking, pondering, rethinking, moving, budgeting & ploting, the Pemberville Sub is finally taking shape.

Our layout started out being just a freelanced, no frills layout and has since become a mostly prototypical layout designed around the C&O's Chicago Division - Pemberville Subdivision which runs out of Walbridge yard in Walbridge, Ohio south to Fostoria, Ohio. We are just modeling the Walbridge yard to Pemberville, Ohio section. The era of our layout will be mid 60's to mid 70's.

We started working on the benchwork a few weeks ago and have advanced slowly. (The wife was running the drill last night and what a sight that was) The benchwork is almost ready with just some horizontal support for the legs needing to be installed. Haven't figured out when I want to install those since we want to keep the underside open as much as possible for future installation of staging, wiring, shelving or storage. One other item is the installation of the dogbone on the south end of the layout which would have been easier with a "L" girder design but we will make it work somehow. Don't laugh at the original height adjusters. (Who says books are only good for reading) I made up some totally awesome adjusters at work and these were installed today and appear to work great. The only real problem we ran into during the installation of the benchwork was that absolutely NOTHING is square. Not sure what I was thinking when I thought it might be Oh well, ballast and grass cover alot right?

We haven't decided on which DCC manufacturer we are going to go with but that will probably be decided in the next few weeks.

Future expansion of the layout will take place on the outside wall. This will include the actual Walbridge yard and hopefully a steel mill.

Well, hopefully I didn't bore ya to death and I look forward to some feedback. (Please make it positive. I can't handle bad stuff) Just joking. Below is a link to the first pictures taken of the benchwork.

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[P5se Camelback]

Rob ...

Use your Picture Manager (or whatever you have to edit photos) to resize your images to 640x480 and then upload them to Photobucket. Once they are there, notice when you pass the cursor over an image a short menu drops down. Move the cursor down over the one that saws "IMG" and click on it. Then in your post here, just paste it where in the text you want the image ... easy peasy!

Makes it easy for everyone ... the photos are all here in your post and big enough for some of us who are peering at the screen through substantial pieces of ground glass strapped to our faces to see what you and your family have been up to.

That said, I happy to see such great progress. But then, with the "family crew," getting everyone immersed in the project and having a feeling of ownership, I'm sure we'll continue to see noticeable progress, at least through the benchwork stage ... it always seems to slow down a bit once the lumber is standing!

It is lookin' good, though!

[rthornton]

Thanks for the heads up on the resize Bil. I will do that in the future.

I have to agree on the slowing down after the benchwork. We started measuring up mainlines last night to put an order in for track, cork roadbed & other items. The kids wanted to put the Bachman E-Z- click track that they have up on there. Not sure if they did as I came upstairs and tried to relax. Will be heading downstairs in a few to finish measuring stuff out. Walther's will be getting an order very soon. YAHOO

Got the first building for the layout yesterday in the mail. At least one of the towns will have a fire station.

Thanks for keeping the ever watchful eye on this newbie.

Rob

[rthornton]

Found some old track in the box and decided what a better way to figure out where things should go. Started laying out track to get a better idea of what I want and where I want it. The green papers are printable turnouts to try to figure out location.

This is the southern end of the Pemberville Sub. This is where the dogbone will be installed (hopefully) to give a more gradual turning radius. The village of Pemberville will be located here. Not much industry. Just a grain elevator, car dealership, sme shops, fire station and some house will be located here. Haven't figured out the turnout going into the elevator yet.

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This is where Luckey, ohio will be located. Luckey will have a grain elevator, houses, a couple of businesses and a scout camp. Our family is very involved in scouting so that's a must. The corner will be getting some additional surface area so the track is not so close to the edge. (All in time.)

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Sorry about the sun. this is the Lemoyne, Ohio section. The only thing in Lemoyne is a grain elevator, couple of houses, a post office and a mobile home park. Should be able to get that all to fit. I am also planning ahead for the future addition of Walbridge yard by putting a turnout in ahead of time that will run to the yard.

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More updates to come.

[rthornton]

I know this has nothing to do with my layout but have any of you ever gone to the train show in Saline, Michigan? It is coming up this weekendand I was just curious if it is a good one or not? Hopefully, I can pick up a few things there this weekend for the Pemberville Sub. Thanks

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I recommend the NCE power cab DCC system. It has the most features while costing significantly less than its competitors. My favorite part is the recovery programming and the CV Read-back. It walks you through programming most parts of the decoder so that you don't need to know all the calculations and CV #s. These have saved several "dead" decoders that would otherwise be lost in a confusing mess of CVs. It also is a hand held cab to start out with.