Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO)

[steinjr]

On July 24th I wrote:

Now I just gotta get going on the building tomorrow

Took a while. After trying for almost three weeks to rip plywood into strips with a hand saw out in the driveway in those brief moments it was not raining, I finally saw the light and went back to the lumber store and had them rip two sheets of 1/4" plywood into 3" wide strips on their table saw. Took 20 minutes to do the job on the table saw, and the result was far better than the stripes I had cut by hand. The right tool makes the job a _lot_ easier!

I then tried the router I got for xmas, to cut slots, so I could fit the strips together into a lattice of like this:


Then cut the top to size and started gluing the sectional benchwork together:


Tomorrow I hope to paint the ground brown and start laying track on this section.

Grin,
Stein

[ocalicreek]

Excellent! Glad to see someone trying the lightweight ply construction, and thanks for letting us learn from your learning - to have the lumber yard cut it!

Galen

[steinjr]

Well, it has been five weeks since my last update on my layout construction. I have now finished the basic carpentry work on the six sections my layout will consist of, and has started gluing on 2" thick foam on the top of the modules.

Some of the things done lately:

1) I used a 1/4" router bit to cut slots in 3" tall ripped pieces of 1/4" plywood and then slotted the pieces together like this:



2) I tried to put in enough such pieces that I got no lengths longer than one foot that doesn't have a supporting vertical strip of plywood under - for some of the modules (like the one pictured below), even more vertical strips (due to a miscalculation about where a cutout needed to be ...):



3) Then a 1/4 plate of plywood went across the top of the honeycomb of vertical strips, helping to make the structure even more rigid (the honeycomb of 1/4" plywood fit into 1/4" slots is already very rigid before this step):



4) Now I am gluing on 2" blue foam on top of the sections - this will allow me to carve away the ground outside the RR tracks to create some dips and bumps on the landscape - the landscape won't be totally flat here:



Tomorrow or Friday I will need to pick up some more 2" blue foam. I have also picked up a handful of extra curved turnouts, and some Woodland Scenics 1/2" and 1" risers, plus 2% inclines, to be used to make the track go a little up and down along the lowermost wall.

Still haven't found a source of sculptamold in Norway. Hope I can find it in Sweden. If not, I'll just have to order some over the net from the US.

Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

Moving along a little faster now (hopefully) - got foam on four out of six modules, and have picked up some Woodland scenics .5" and 1" risers, some 2% inclines for the track subroadbed once all six modules have been covered in foam.

Elevation plan:


I have also ordered bridge kits for the four bridges (3 road bridges/overpasses and 1 RR river bridge - reference numbers in circles on drawing).

This is what I chose:

1) Road overpass ("River Yard Overpass") - sort of inspired by the Lyndale Avenue Bridge crossing over Great Northern and M&StL tracks in Minneapolis, made by putting together a 175' (24" in H0 scale) overpass from two Rix 150 foot Vintage Highway Bridges.

2) Road overpass ("Third Street Overpass") - inspired by this prototype photo: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresour...eid=130586, showing a two lane road truss bridge spanning over a single RR track.

I am hoping that the Walthers double span truss bridge will be a reasonable approximation (with a road deck added).

3) Landwards spans of river crossing road bridge ("Cedar Avenue Bridge") - I considered several options here, there was no shortage of beautiful Mississippi River crossing road bridges in Minneapolis in the late 1950s, in many different styles.

I was tempted by both of the two furthest away bridges in this picture: (http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresour...eid=201276), but in the end I just landed on "use the last two 50' sections of the second Rix 150' kit), and say we have a reasonable approximation of the landwards spans of the second bridge from the front" (which can be seen better in this picture: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresour...eid=112893.

4) Mississippi River railroad bridge. Long (for my layout - almost 40") bridge. I don't want to try for something like the stone bridge - too iconic - wouldn't look right here. So I looked at this prototype photo for inspiration: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresour...eid=188605

The near bridge, which seems to be a combination of a deck girder and a truss bridge, seems more interesting, but it is probably safer on a liftout (that can get bumped during a session), and just put together a bridge similar to the one in the background - in this case made from two Walthers single track thru truss bridges.

I am already looking forward to my bridges in the mail in a couple of weeks :-)

Now - back to gluing foam and using inclines and risers !

Grin,
Stein

[steinjr]

Good grief - seven weeks since I last worked on my layout. Getting into shape again takes a lot more time than I thought - I have been spending about 6-8 hours a week on working out for the last two months. It is helping pretty good - have lost about 20 lbs of weight and am in far better shape, but the layout has been totally dormant during this period.

Time to get back to the layout. Today I cleaned out again all the storage stuff that magically gets put into my train room by someone when I am not actively working on the layout, so I have some work room to extend the edges of the sections up to also cover the side of the styrofoam, so I get a totally tight fit between two neighboring sections and still can take em apart and put them back together.

Hope to start laying track for my warehouse district on Sunday.

Smile,
Stein

[LynnB]

Hey Stein the layout does look good. So what was the reason for starting a workout wasn't working on the layout enough work? Serious though I know what you mean , my shift work definately cuts working on my layout way down.

[ocalicreek]

I've got this vision...of a workbench attached to the handlebars of a stationary bike. You could attach a dremel motor tool, minus the motor, to a chain drive so that as you pedal you can grind, cut, etc. OR, your work light is powered off a belt-drive generator. OR, belt-drive a Unimat lathe. Lose weight while you model! How many calories can you burn while building a frog & a set of points?

But seriously, great work so far. Now get back to it!

Galen

[steinjr]

Hey Stein the layout does look good. So what was the reason for starting a workout wasn't working on the layout enough work?

Guess I made the sections too light weight - not enough exercise lifting them :-)

I've got this vision...of a workbench attached to the handlebars of a stationary bike. You could attach a dremel motor tool, minus the motor, to a chain drive so that as you pedal you can grind, cut, etc. OR, your work light is powered off a belt-drive generator. OR, belt-drive a Unimat lathe. Lose weight while you model! How many calories can you burn while building a frog & a set of points?

LOL - sounds like a good plan to me! :-)

But seriously, great work so far. Now get back to it!

Galen

Aye, aye, Sir, will do.

This last week I have been working on the layout again. I've worked on the interfaces and alignment between the sections for the main city scene area, and drawing up on the foam where to put the tracks - tomorrow I will try to pick up a new tube of latex caulk so I can fasten down some WS foam as roadbed under the tracks before I pin down some tracks there.

I have also put together the deck and some pillars for a Rix highway bridge that will cross over layout at the right end of the warehouse district tracks, and form a boundary line between the warehouse district scene and the milling district scene.

Not huge progress, but finally some progress again, after a very long pause - yihaa!

Grin,
Stein

[steinjr]

Hah!

We finally discovered where the kids had left the digital camera the last time they borrowed it - between the couch and the wall. Not the first place I thought of looking ...

A couple of progress pictures from the new sections:



Edge between two sections. I initially built "boxes" of thin (1/4") plywood and then glued the insulation styrofoam on top. That was a mistake. The end pieces need to be more robust than 1/4" plywood, and they need to go so high up on the sides that they cover the styrofoam, so styrofoam doesn't rub against each other when I take sections out or put them in again.

So I modified them by adding an end piece of 3/8" plywood om the outside (and cutting down one section to make up for the extra width of the other sections) , making the ends pieces be 5/8" thick.

Now end pieces are plenty robust for bolting sections together, banging them together when I get sections out or in, or for driving screw into the top of the end pieces to solder the tracks to before I cut the tracks across the boundary using a dremmel tool.



First little incline is getting roughed in as well. I had initially planned for 2% incline, but my incline is fairly short, so I boosted it to 4% - only the engine and four or five cars will ever be on the incline at the same time anyways, and I wanted the scenic effect of there actually being a visible incline there.

I'll test how it works when I get some track laid on the next section, so I can test running trains up and down there.

But anyways - I am finally working on the layout again - feels good to get out there and start building again :-)

Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

Got a little more work done today too. I'm getting in the proverbial 30 minutes a day most days now - feels good to get back to working on the layout.

And it sure beating going outside - it is only a couple of degrees below freezing, with snow flurries. But still - weather that at the end of winter would be T-shirt weather still feels cold since I haven't gotten used to it yet. Anyways - I am really looking forward to the winter solstice - less than a week until we start start getting longer days again. We are down to a little under 6 hours of sunlight a day - sunrise at 9:15 am, sunset at 3:11 pm.

Anyways - a couple of extra progress pictures - nothing too interesting too look at, I guess, but at least moving in the right direction:

Checking out the location for the highway bridge across the tracks:


Getting ready to start laying track (probably this weekend):


Smile,
Stein

[faraway]

I'm following this thread since some time and I admire your layout. It is a great industrial scenery.
May I ask one question, why do you have a moderate elevation in the lower left corner (in the layout drawings)? I assume you will be do heavy switching. You might fight rolling cars. What is the reason to do so?

[cnw1961]

Stein, good to see you working on your layout again.

[steinjr]

I'm following this thread since some time and I admire your layout. It is a great industrial scenery.
May I ask one question, why do you have a moderate elevation in the lower left corner (in the layout drawings)? I assume you will be do heavy switching. You might fight rolling cars. What is the reason to do so?

It is a fair question. Mostly because I first built my layout totally flat, and then decided, since I wanted to rebuild the layout to make it a sectional layout anyways, to experiment with adding some inclines.

My original plan was to have the main scene along the top at elevation 0, have the tracks at the center of the left wall (and two staging tracks closest to the wall along the bottom wall) at elevation 0.5" (ie a 2% incline up around the upper left hand corner).

The track down from the middle of the left wall to the two track river barge terminal scene closest to the center of the room along the bottom part of the layout would be 2% (0.5") downhill from the middle of the left wall to the harbor scene, which again would be flat.

The mainline (middle of the five tracks along bottom wall) would rise a further 2% from 0.5" elevation to 1" elevation, to hit the left end of the bridge by the door at also at +1" elevation.

Staging tracks (two tracks closest to the wall along bottom side of layout) would be flat at elevation 0.5".

And then there would be a corresponding 1" rise (2% incline) along the right wall.

I have since reconsidered this, and am now mulling two other ways of doing this, both involving keeping the three tracks closest to the wall in the lower left hand corner at the same level, so I can use all those three tracks as a small yard scene, and free up the space I am currently designating as a support yard (closest to the center of the room along the top wall) to be an industry track:

a) To say that max elevation is 0.5" instead of 1.0" - so the only inclines will be 2% up going counterclockwise in the upper left hand corner, 2% down from the middle of the left wall to the river scene, and 2% up for about half (the lower half) of the main along the right wall.

This makes it possible to add a crossover from the main to the one of the staging tracks and turn the main and those staging tracks in the lower left hand corner/bottom wall into a small Industrial support yard that also functions as visible staging, and makes it possible to redevelop the area along the front of the top edge into an industry of some kind instead of yard tracks.

b) Or keep the max elevation at 1" (to give a nice step up, with a retaining wall) behind the barge terminal scene, but make the inclines twice as steep (4%) along the left side of the layout.

Visually it looks better with a steeper incline in the upper left hand corner and a bigger vertical separation from the barge scene up to the main/staging tracks, but I might be pushing things too hard operationally in the upper left hand corner - where cars will be pushed back up a 4% incline around a 22" radius curve when destined for the barge tracks or the staging/yard area in the lower left hand corner/along lower wall.

I am not good at visualizing elevations in my head, so I am just going to set the tracks up and do some test running a max length of cars ahead of the engine to see whether a 4% incline at 22" radius is too much in the upper left hand corner, and for the incline down from to the barge scene.

If so, I'll go down to 0.5" as max height for the plateau with the three tracks from the middle of the left wall and over to the bridge by the door, plus a less steep incline along the right wall as well (to end up at elevation 0.5" at the right end of the bridge, too.

Probably not real clear description - at is 7 am over here. Time to head in to work :-)

Grin,
Stein

[steinjr]

Stein, good to see you working on your layout again.

Likewise - I am very much enjoying reading about the stuff you do on your layout!

Smile,
Stein

[faraway]

...Visually it looks better with a steeper incline in the upper left hand corner and a bigger vertical separation from the barge scene up to the main/staging tracks, but I might be pushing things too hard operationally in the upper left hand corner - where cars will be pushed back up a 4% incline around a 22" radius curve when destined for the barge tracks or the staging/yard area in the lower left hand corner/along lower wall....

Stein, thank you for the detailed explanation.
Under the standard condition running trains on free track in open space I would not recommend to do 4% in a 22" radius. But this is a very special situation. It is a ramp used by short cuts for switching in an extreme dense old fashion industrial area. I can imaging it will be a visual perfect fit and the short cuts will be no problem in operation on the ramp.