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Lou's HO Model Railroad
Dad began my HO "plah-form" sometime around 1952 on a 4' x 8' x 3/8" plywood board, painted green (probably with lead paint). It had three separate oval loops with a figure eight and an 18 degree crossing in the middle. He used Atlas flex track (the kind with fiber ties and steel staples) and had some beautiful, sleek crossovers, all electrically actuated with Lindsay and Atlas switch motors. He modified it a couple of times, partly because the crossing in the middle was troublesome for those old diesels with only four wheel electrical pickup, and it was operationally tricky to reverse the juice without stopping. My favorite memory of that layout was the aluminum American Model Toy combine car going around with one of its trucks on Track One and the other truck on Track Two. I thought that was a riot, until he crossed the whole works over, on the fly, to Track Two and Track Three! My brother, Paul and I had many locomotive races on that layout with a Bachman dockside steamer and an Athearn critter. As you can guess, those quick little engines flew off the curves and into the Dining Room many times. Later, the layout was trimmed to about 4 x 7 in order to fit into a corner of our living room. At one point I remember a trestle set, but I presume it was removed because of storage and maintenance difficulties, and also, the relatively primitive locomotives and rolling stock had trouble negotiating the grade.
Outside the Christmas season, Dad leaned the layout against the basement wall, where I would pass by it on the way in and out the back door. The most fascinating features of the track were right at eye level. I stood running my fingers around the track on many occasions, while making train noises with my voice and mouth.
Dad's railroad was dieselized from the outset. He had a Varney train set with an F3 A-B (Great Northern) and a Baldwin "Shark" (unpainted) by Mantua. (Its purchase may have been inspired by a number of Sharks he said were rebuilt at Bethlehem Steel for the Alaska Railroad, while he was working there.) He had a few individual freight cars by Mantua and a variety of Plasticville buildings.
As I grew up, I pretty much took over Dad's layout. When I got old enough to lay track, I ripped his beautiful track work up (unwittingly destroying most of the prefabricated switches) and put down my own. The electrical switch motors were very frustrating to install and maintain, so I went to mostly Atlas "Snap" switches. The layout later became a year round thing when I took over the garage.
1963. Jim Arellano is today's Dispatcher.
It sat in my folks' attic for a few years while I went through the Navy. Around 1972, in our apartment, I rebuilt the whole thing on the same board, right in our living room. It still exists in that configuration. It is a snow scene with unreinforced plaster "snow" attached to the plywood by a shotgun array of rail spikes. A "concrete" viaduct with a 2-1/2 percent grade built of corrugated cardboard and balsa wood takes the main line one and a half times around, up and over two other ground level loops. The entire main line forms 3 complete loops around the platform. There is one crossover between loops one and two. When it is reversed, your train will run continuously around the ground-level loop without using the viaduct. Two short trains can run continuously if you throw the crossover at the right times. There are three industrial spurs, two at ground level and one at the summit. Some of these switches are thrown by Dad's original Lindsay switch motors. The 6-axle diesels I had at the time were all modified to handle the tight main line curves. Switchers were required to serve the inner industrial spurs, one of which has a twelve inch radius. (The tight curves are made tolerable through the use of spiral easements.)
In the late 1970's, after we built the house, I cut three switch tracks into the outer loop and made a two-track extension loop that ran on plywood and two by fours, eight inches beneath my four-by-twelve-foot workbench. The bench was supported on six pillars, each made of two stacked concrete blocks. The tracks ran through the holes in the blocks. The two new loops merged at one end in a number 4 double crossover and at the other end in a curved switch track. These were all Code 100 and made by Shinohara. This made possible trains of over seventy cars, using mid-train helpers. In practice, I usually used the inner loop as a siding and the outer loop as a main track. It was a dog of a backbreaking job just to re-rail a train under there. I don't know how on earth I laid the track! To make matters worse, you couldn't do much pounding on the workbench, a fact I discovered when part of a train went showering to the floor.
In 1985, pressed for office space and living quarters for the boys, we built a 20 by 28 foot addition to the house. The new basement was committed specifically to be a train room. The new layout is designed with a minimum mainline radius of 30 inches, to accommodate 100-car freight trains. There is also a 12-inch maintenance walkway around the whole perimeter except at the chimney. I began with a double track helix in the corner. It has a 2-1/2 percent grade. I used the floor of our new living room above as a 1:1 drawing board to lay out the freight yard, which forms the lower level. Beginning to the right of the helix, it is patterned a little after Allentown Yard, with a curved 6-track "field" yard, paralleled by a 4-track "park" yard. There are 3 tracks outside of all that which lead down to a concourse level in a Market East style passenger station, "through" the chimney, which is at the center of the long wall. The outermost track of the three forms part of the westbound main. There is an inner track (nearer to you than the yard tracks, that is) which forms part of the eastbound main line. The "hump" yard is not yet built. The two main tracks will eventually go all the way around the room and join in a level reverse loop built around the outside of the helix. The "hump" yard will occupy the space between these two.
On the middle level, the double track bulges out of the helix and passes through a double track wye, which I laid out 1:1 on the floor of our then-unused dining room. The resulting double track main line has two successive crossovers, both curved, and a temporary reversing loop just past the chimney. This line will continue to climb from the middle level to the upper level as it goes clockwise around the room. It will then go about 100 degrees around the top of the helix structure, and continue climbing as the upper level, widening to four tracks as it makes a grand sweep around the opposite corner, a la Horse Shoe Curve. It will then revert to double track, meeting the upper end of the double track in the helix.
The switches and track in all visible areas are Code 83 by Walthers, with a couple of industrial tracks in Code 70. All switch tracks on the new layout were hand-thrown for many years, using copper wire handles pushing sliding toggle switches under the board, a method I'm pretty sure came from Model Railroader. These hand throws were a little fussy to install, but dirt cheap, because most of the parts were already on hand. I just dreaded installing electric switch motors, and was waiting for someone to make an affordable unit that would install and adjust easily. The late Bill Dietz of Allentown had told me he used pneumatic actuators, driven by a large CO2 cylinder. He said he hardly ever had to have it refilled. I don't know how real my fears may be, but it made me nervous that a bad CO2 leak could asphyxiate us.
I went with plain air and pneumatic devices by Del-Aire ( www.delaire.com ). These are extremely practical, very cost-effective, quick to install, easy to maintain and lots of fun to use. I would recommend them to anyone. The mounting clamps allow the motor to slide under tension, making it as close to self-adjusting as you can possibly get. In fact, if you mount an electric switch motor wrong, it is possible to torque the rails right off the ties. That's not likely with a Del-Aire motor. It shoves itself into the correct position. You will be so pleased you will never want to install another electric switch motor again.
I have about 27 air motors controlled by 15 air toggles. The installation was spread out over perhaps two years. There are still numerous switches that are hand thrown, but they are little-used or readily accessible. Basically, you will know you have done enough when you reach a comfortable degree of control over your layout. The half dozen electric actuators on the old layout are working fine, and there is no reason to convert them.
For a source of compressed air, at first I had three home made 2-1/2 gallon tanks that I regularly shuttled over to the gas station for recharging. Later, I bought a small air compressor at Pep Boys that cost under $30 and runs from a car battery. It was designed for short term, occasional use, and I burned it out filling a tire one day. I got a better one for under $50. I have a spare car battery in the train room to drive it. Bear in mind that you can't start up a compressor in the basement while others are asleep.
Meanwhile, Dad's original 4 x 7 board occupies the space to the left of the helix. It ties in with the new layout on the lower level through a switch cut into the yard throat. Children who visit are always attracted to the snowy scene of the old layout, and want me to run everything around on it. Unfortunately, the passenger cars rub going around the cut and most of my newer diesels are not modified to negotiate the sharp curves and gradient changes.
Power. Most of my locomotives are by Athearn. I have 30 or 40 altogether. Many of the diesels have one or two rubber-tired axles to help with the grades.
Freight Rolling Stock: Yes.
Passenger Rolling Stock: Yes.
Buildings: Yes.
Scenery: Sort of.
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