N scale earthquake hits West Virginia

Here's how the layout looked up until this afternoon.



Here's how it looks now.




Fret not, C&O fans and N-scalers. I'm not abandoning ship. To move forward, sometimes you have to take a step back. The first post I made on this blog included the following comment:

Since this is still not a permanent location, I've been building in segments around the concept of Layout Design Elements. While not truly modular, these segments are designed to be disassembled readily and re-assembled elsewhere with relative ease (as opposed to destroying and rebuilding an entire layout).

That time has come. With some luck, I will soon close on a house with a larger "train room". I may need to modify some of the Quinnimont old yard segments to fit the new space, but otherwise this should be a straightforward swap from one basement to another with little progress lost. The fact that it will be an owned (not rented) space means I have more freedom in the way of room finishings and modifying the space as needed. It being a more permanent space also means I may build some areas of the layout to fit the space, rather than generic-sized LDEs.

Yard pics

Now it's starting to look like coal country.

Eighty hoppers in the yard...



...on three tracks...



...leaving one to run-around on.



As I mentioned in an earlier post, the yard at Quinnimont was broken into a few segments - this one being south/west of the mainlines and added later earning it the nickname "new yard". The model of the "old yard" (between the two mainlines and railroad-east of the new yard and wye) will be bigger... I haven't made precise measurements yet, but based on the capacity of the new yard, I'd expect it to hold 100+ cars and still have room for a run-around.

Ballast

Long time no update, I know. I've had a lot of other things going on and haven't spent much time in the basement over the summer. This weekend I've hit it in force though. Trackwork is in place for the new (west) yard and soon I'll be tackling the rest of the mainlines and getting trains rolling. I've been thinking about what I want to use for ballast. The most common commercial products are too coarse (even their "fine" version). I happened to be near a craft store yesterday so I stopped and picked up some colored sand. Sadly, there was no light gray... but I think with suitable weathering, the white sand may work well. What do you think?

It's a little sloppy, I just threw this together to test the sand texture and color as ballast. Black for (cinder ballast) in the yard, white (limestone?) for the mainlines. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I'm still making progress...

It's been a while since I posted an update. Haven't done a lot at once to feel like posting about, but I have done a number of little things so far this year. Quinnimont is starting to take shape. I need to buy up the entire state's supply of Circuitron Tortoise switch motors though.


Westbound mainline is in place across the wye, as is the east ladder of the west yard. Just sitting in place is the west leg of the wye (top of the pic) and the two engine service tracks (perpendicular to that). The east leg of the wye will curve off into the wall at the right of the pic (near the paint bottle).


Here you can see where laurel creek will pass under the railroad. Just to the right of the creek will be QN Cabin, just across the creek from that will be the freight house.


Please ignore the trash pile in the floor. :) Here's the east end of Quinnimont's "old yard".


Rule G? Not on my railroad! ;)

East yard benchwork, part 2.

Here's the other half (the portion shown framed up without subroadbed) of the east yard. I have clamped a strip of hardboard to the front edge to visualize where the curved fascia will be.



Also as you can see, I have subroadbed on the first half and have put down cork where needed (I'm not putting cork under yard tracks).

Next up... subroadbed for this segment, cork and track, then tie it back around to the rest of the layout. Then look for a bigger basement.

Movin' on around the bend

I started framing up the east yard (referred to as the "old yard") at Quinnimont. This segment is a bit under 8 feet long, and represents about half the yard.



As you see, I have a breaker panel on the wall to contend with. Out of the pic to the right, there's also a door. I decided to put a bend in the layout and provide enough room to get in behind to the breaker as well as to open the door without having to move segments of the layout.

Next, I need to build the other end of this yard (connects to the near end in the above pic) then tie it into the rest of the room. Then I'll be about out of space and need to move to a bigger basement... or add a second level.

Quinnimont, WV

Funny name, interesting location:

Quinnimont (which comes from Latin, meaning "Five Mountains") was formed around an iron furnace on an unusually large (for the New River Gorge) area of flat bottom land. The furnace didn't last, but coal traffic did.

To the railroad, this is an important point as it's where the Laurel Creek branch meets the mainlines and not far from the Piney Creek branch at Prince. In addition, there is a small yard to handle the traffic from these branches.

Enough with the historic mumbo jumbo, I know you're dying for some pictures...

Below is an overall view of the newest addition so far:



I designed it to interface with the Prince segment via a small "filler" segment that can be replaced with another filler to suit the space available. For the 10 foot wide section of basement that the layout is in, a 18" filler is used, as shown below.



From there, the mains (and yard) curves along the river, then splits off into the wye. You can see my notations written on the subroadbed denoting which lines are the mainlines (westbound and eastbound).



Inside the wye will be the passenger station, express building, boiler/sand house, and a few other structures (including the ruins of the iron furnace). Here I'm plotting approximate locations of some of these using drawings copied to scale.



Towards the opposite end of the wye, you can see the gap cut for Laurel Creek, as well as the trackwork diverging out into the "new yard" (at left in this pic) and to the wye and engine service area at right. (The two straight parallel tracks are the engine servicing area). The two nearest turnouts in this pic will be on the mainlines.



And last but not least... just beyond the creek will be the iconic QN Cabin (still in the box).



Beyond that will be the "old yard" which is between the two mainlines as opposed to on one side... this presents some operational challenges, but that's part of the appeal of modeling this area.

Until next time....