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 Posted - January 02 2014 : 5:25:37 PM
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Thought this would be a good time to post my current layout, as well as progress photos - without crowding up the OTW and everyone else's threads!
First some background: After diving back into the hobby in 2009 with a 5½'x11' double-loop rectangular layout, a funny thing happened - I was 'volunteered' to construct a layout for the WV Dept. Of Agriculture's 2011 State Fair exhibit. It was part of the Department's 100-year anniversary, and so would show as much agriculture and examples of the agency and WV as I could put on it. The kicker? I had all of 3 months to build it.
I also painted a special "Ag Train" for it - a F7A/B set and caboose, plus special boxcars and a passenger car.
Long story short - needless to say I did nothing else that summer except work on the layout in my garage. But, it DID get done - and wow was it ever a learning experience. The Fair itself was brutal, with 9 days, each one 12 hours, and so I lived the layout during that time.
During the next 2½ years, it was invited to a "Railroad Days" Festival, two Art & Craft Fairs, and an event at the State Farm Museum, until I 'retired' it this summer and brought it inside the house in the basement from its garage storage area.
There, I removed the Dept. of Agriculture elements and began to make it truly 'my' layout.
It is a simple layout in design, one meandering loop meant to continuously run one train, with two short stub sidings. I tried to put as much interest as I could into that though, with 4 bridges and 2 tunnels.
It is constructed in 2 sections, each section based on 2 - 4x8 sheets of 2" extruded foam panels glued together for 4" thickness. While displayed, it sat on lightweight folding tables, but while it was being built, stored and as it sits in my basement, the 'benchwork' is 11x17 paper boxes. "Someday" I may buy some tables for it - or actually build some real benchwork - but for now it works and I'm happy with it.
In the future, I plan to incorporate this layout into a much bigger one, but that day has to wait until I retire and we either move to Texas or Oregon  .
I will post photos as I can, both from the work I'm doing now and from early building progress photos.
Thanks for looking!
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 02 2014 : 8:01:26 PM
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This is how it started:
Then cut to give it some shape:
Track laying started and rivers being cut:
bridges placed:
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 02 2014 : 8:35:41 PM
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The first mountain grows from scraps cut off the board edges and cutting rivers:
Ballasting the track begins:
Mountain #2:
Adding plaster to form banks on the rivers, and painting river base color:
 
The town, streets and building placement in many different initial configurations:
 
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 02 2014 : 11:42:04 PM
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| Wow!
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Posted - January 02 2014 : 11:44:06 PM
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Some nice work going into that project. Did you attach the pink foam board to a sturdier base later?
Jerry
" When life throws you bananas...it's easy to slip up"
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Posted - January 03 2014 : 12:15:17 AM
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| Hey Jerry, This is great to see, a very interesting and enjoyable new thread. I'm curious what the brown coating is in some of the earlier photos; some sort of coating (other than paint?) on the foam? Very creative. Man you must have been "bustin'" to get all that work done for the AG people. You must also be a very careful man; I'm sure I'd be knockin' those paper boxes over and screamin' all sorts of things. Thanks again. Barry
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Posted - January 03 2014 : 04:24:02 AM
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Jerry, nice vision. I like what you are doin and werer you are going, keep up the great work.
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Posted - January 03 2014 : 12:31:54 PM
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| What is the loco passenger care & caboose in the 2nd pic?
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Posted - January 03 2014 : 12:53:36 PM
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It brings to mind the Carbondale Central project layout in the January through March 1988 issues of Model Railroader, if my dim memory serves! I'm looking forward to seeing more!
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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Posted - January 03 2014 : 3:57:06 PM
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Thanks for the comments guys. All these pics are from 2011 when I first started it.
Jerry, it was made to be portable and set up as easy as possible - so its 'sturdy' base was 4 - 2x8 folding tables. You'd be surprised how sturdy those boxes actually are though. Not recommending them as first choice options, but they're still on duty since the tables belonged to the Ag Department! I'll post pics later in the thread so you see how it all set up when on display.
Barry, I painted the pink with brown paint before applying scenery. The other brown you might see is silicone caulking on the edges where the two layers of foam join together. And although I used plenty of creative language during the project, my benchwork never failed me 
Ben, the passenger car and caboose are custom painted pieces. The caboose is a JNXT caboose and the car is a WVDA "Mobile Lab" car - based on a real semi-trailer lab that the department has.
gmoney - I haven't seen that MR article but I'll have to check that out!
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 03 2014 : 6:06:57 PM
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It's amazing you were able to build a layout that size in three months! Great pics so far; I'm looking forward to seeing more. 
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 10:11:49 AM
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Cheez - I calculated from May 18 (day I bought the first materials and got started) until August 6 (day it was ready to go to the Fair) that I had roughly 300 hours in it. It was my first attempt at scenery as well, so very much a learning experience.
The whole thing started out with me bored out of my mind in a meeting at work, a "Centennial Committee" meeting to decise what to do for the 100-yr. anniversary. Let me tell you, if you've never been to a meeting at a government agency, you have not lived . Anyway, with my mind always on trains, I was doodling a "WV Ag Train". In 1963 the state actually had a real centennial train tour the state with exhibits and stuff. I envisioned building something similar in HO scale, a model train for the Ag Department's Centennial that would sit in a display case at the Fair exhibit that summer.
I made the classic mistake of mentioning this brainstorm, and as things in government usually do, it snowballed into me building a full layout. Looking back, I'm glad I did it, was a incredible experience and taught me a LOT....but I have to say that hearing you have 3 months to build something you've never attempted before can be a little unsettling! I remember telling them at a meeting in May that there probably wasn't time to do it and they should do something else, but they about panicked - the layout was already penciled in to that part of the exhibit and that was that.
On the other hand, being paid to build a model railroad? Kind of a dream come true
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 10:22:05 AM
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The donation from a lady at work of a cement plant changed the town again (at the time I didn't know it was a cement plant).
The farm side of the layout is pretty much set though, and roads are started.
Looking for a good look for the river, I used some real rock from my front yard, beat it with a hammer to get some H) scale boulders and got a decent eastern-WV looking river bank. I also poured the "Realistic Water", which looks great here, before the bubbles began to form!
 
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 10:43:08 AM
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| great work so far JNXT 7707,but what you hiding under foil container ken
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 12:14:56 PM
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quote:great work so far JNXT 7707,but what you hiding under foil container ken
Originally posted by catfordken - January 04 2014 : 10:43:08 AM
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thanks ken - the foil container is a stand-in for a foamboard building that was not completed yet! I did 3 of those to depict various Dept. of Ag facilities around the state.
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 12:15:07 PM
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| Excellent work! The ballasted roadbed is great and I really like your bridges-over-river scene. That turned out really nice. - Thomas
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 12:28:59 PM
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Here is a set of photos showing the construction of the building that was the most complex - the other two were simple boxes with roofs, but this one had such a unique configuration it was a definite challenge to duplicate it. The main construction material is something called "gator board". Foam core with a very thin veneer of s sort of plywood(?) that is warp resistant to moisture or paint. Structurally very sturdy. The exterior graphics were produced on a modeling program called "Model Builder", then printed out on card stock, then sprayed with a clear acrylic sealer.
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 1:25:24 PM
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| Very Nice, Jerry !
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 7:03:21 PM
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Now Jerry is putting something very nice together here. I like the way this layout is coming together. Very good job being done.
frank
toptrain
" It's a Heck of a Day " !!!
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 9:40:24 PM
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Before I post the layout as it was from 2011-2013, I'm going to show how I set it up at shows with the real "table benchwork" is was designed for, as well as how it was transported in the truck:
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 04 2014 : 9:47:04 PM
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Transport in back of a box truck. I put a rack of boards to set the 2 sections up on, giving space to pile tables and everything else on the floor below. These photos were taken in Hinton WV, where the museum we set up in was in an old department store building. We had to carry the layout all the way to the back of the building, up a long staircase, and then all the way to the front of the second floor where our space was. We were exhausted!
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - January 05 2014 : 12:14:37 AM
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| Looks great all put together. Nice backdrop too.
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Posted - January 05 2014 : 7:48:38 PM
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| Hey Jerry, Thanks again for more photos. I liked seeing the way you put that foam board building together; seems like a real nice material to work with for certain things. And . . . I do think that EVERY layout should have an aluminum loaf pan. Best regards, Barry
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Posted - January 06 2014 : 06:49:27 AM
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quote:And . . . I do think that EVERY layout should have an aluminum loaf pan. Best regards, Barry
Originally posted by Barry - January 05 2014 : 7:48:38 PM
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 Well of course - and I was looking for the one on yours, didn't see it! I guess you're not that far along yet?
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - February 23 2014 : 7:06:47 PM
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| Beautifully well done layout; has very realistic scenes with numerous vantage points for photographing.
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Posted - February 23 2014 : 7:14:57 PM
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Thanks wks! I'm going to have to give the thread an update pretty soon
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - February 24 2014 : 10:02:48 PM
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Somehow I missed this. Wow. Very professional work with a very short deadline. It's amazing what can be achieved with pink foam now, something we never dreamt of when I was kid. Scenery had to be made out of messy paper mache or plaster.
I like the foam core office building as well. Looks like an architectural model.
The Tyco Depot
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Posted - April 25 2014 : 9:54:22 PM
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Played around with the camera on the layout tonight. I think color shots are interesting, but find that turning them to black & white (grayscale) gives them a desirable dated look and in some ways more authenticity. Hope you enjoy:
    
  
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - April 25 2014 : 9:59:16 PM
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Here's some more from tonight's camera fun:
       
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - April 25 2014 : 10:02:31 PM
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And here's the last of them:
       
http://tycodepot.com/
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