LAYOUT HISTORY

It's 2019, and I've been working on this particular layout for more than 10 years. I always said it was a 15 year project, so I better get moving. Publishing this website is actually motivation to get moving. After all, people want to see change and progress. The year was 2006 and I'd just finished renovating my basement. Part of that basement was what I'd called "my office". Back then it was a table and a couple of chairs, and a section of it held my library. In 5 boxes in the corner were what was left of my model railroading supplies. Those boxes were calling to me, but what did I want to build? Answering that question actually took about a year, but I'll walk you through that process (because it is crucial to the success of any model railroad).

- The first step was to decide how much railroad I could put in the space allocated. So, here's my rationale for my office. I still wanted to have an office. I wanted to be able to get to my desk fairly easily when I came through the door. I wanted the space to function as an office - I needed room for a filing cabinet, a printer, a computer, a long work desk, a place to hold my music collection, a place for my bass guitar and amp. I wanted to be able to move around the room fairly easily I started looking long and hard at other people's layouts, paging endlessly through many editions of Model Railroader. I also started to measure my available space to figure out what was possible. Below is a rough layout of the room dimensions:

As you can probably tell from a cursory look, a) there's not a lot of space here that works for a model railroad, and b) the space that is available has a lot of odd nooks that make shoehorning something in a big challenge. I reverted to what I knew - multiple looping arrangements, multiple peninsulas jutting into the center of the space, multiple levels, use of a helix - I tried it all, and nothing blew me away. The longest run of straight track was no longer than about 8 feet. Everything I ran into the center of the space ended up impeding the space for use as an office. Also, everything I came up with left no room for spectators. I also had a lot of places where I could not reach the deepest areas of the layout - I wasn't going to do that again. I was flat-out discouraged.

- It was about that point that I ran into a couple of articles in Model Railroader. One was about eye-level layouts. Being to see trains moving at eye level was a revelation. I knew I had to incorporate that into the design. Another article was on hidden storage on a lower level of a layout, and a third promoted shelf-syle layouts. I was onto something!

- I started working on much simpler layouts - a once around the room oval with a coup[e of switches to take you up and down to a lower storage yard. However, there were a couple of problems. The first was that damn door. I couldn't elevate the track enough to get over it, and if I ran around it, I just had to keep turning back into the room. The other strange corners and the desire to continue to use my libary of floor to ceiling bookcases were also puzzlers. Without resorting to really tight radius track (I did not want anything tighter than a 24" radius), I was getting stuck.

- I have to tell you, I'm not a fan of tunnels. I think way too many people want to put multiple tunnel portals all over their layout. They really are unusual on most railroads, you really don't see many. Ergo, you shouldn't see many on a model railroad. At the same time I was trying to figure a layout design, I was also trying to figure out the what, when and where (what railroad I was modeling, the time period, and what geographic area I would be attempting to portray.

- I grew up in the 1970's, and was more enamored with diesels than steam. Although the Pennsylvania RR mainline from Philly to New York ran right behind my grandparents' home in Edgely, I didn't really want to run catenary, although I used to sit there next to the tracks watching GG1's and E44's pound down the tracks. There were also a good number of Penn Central freights and I'd come to love the big black engines with the white letters. My first locomotive was an Erie Lackawanna Fairbanks Morse F unit, and the EL mainline ran right through East Stroundsburg where my other grandmother lived, as well as a major portion of Monroe County where I grew up. I'll always have a place in my heart for the grey and brown. Then again, when it came time to buy another locomotive for my Rancocas Harbor Belt layout, I saved and saved money for a Cornell Red set of Lehigh Valley GP18's. Those red engines were the bomb. While I'm doing my research, I began to think about a book I'd seen years previously that was devoted to the Rainbow Years of Conrail, and after digging some more, realized that Conrail included some of my favorite railroads, and that many of the locomotives and freight cars retained their original markings for years after the formation in 1976. I definitely knew the what and the when. What was left was the where.

- I started thinking about interesting rail lines that I'd seen in my lifetime, and my mind's eye kept coming back to the Lehigh River when I crossed it countless times on Interstate 80 just below the town of White Haven. I'd remembered seeing a cool bridge and that that track crossed another... I started investigating the rail lines through the Lehigh Valley gorge between Jim Thorpe and White Haven. A lot of curves, and even a tunnel. The current rail line through there is only single track..... I could use the tunnel and cut through a wall above my desk to solve a lot of problems, and I could even hide one of the switches to go down to the lower level inside the tunnel. I had it!

- At that point I finished the track design and started procuring wood for my support framework. In order to get through from the door and into the library portion of the office I needed to build two duck-unders. The one to the library was not very wide and could be supported by the framework, but the other entry duck-under needed some engineering. I wanted to make that one light and support it from aluminum columns bolted into the ceiling joists. The track plan sketch is shown below (some day I'd like to make a nice version of this, but for now, this is all I have.):

Armed with a paper plan, it was time to cut wood. 1x pine is pretty darn expensive these days, so I looked for other cheaper options (this frugality is a theme...). Home Depot had some pre-finished 3/4" plywod they were selling back then that was only about $15 a sheet. I figured I could rip it into 3 and a half inch wide strips and use that for my framing and supports. I also doubled that up and made the top of my desk out of it. Starting a the lowest areas of the lower storage level of the layout, I began building the frames in my office, with the lowest portions at about chest height. My thought process was to be able to duck under those areas and access the storage level yard. To save weight I also used styrofoam board for the large duck-under. Pictures of some of that work follow:

So, let me step you through this diagram:

It's the same room we showed above, but now we're suspending an eye-level layout from either the ceiling or walls. The center is open for viewing, and as you come in the room through the door, you can walk forward and view one section which has been sectioned off using a backdrop. That track is descending into the hidden yard area when it disappears behind the backdrop. That track continues to descend until it reaches the other side of the room at which point it starts ascending until it reaches the Rockport tunnel which runs through the wall above my desk. Once trains come through the tunnel a switch sends them up onto the viewable portion of the layout which runs on the other side of the back drop we talked about before and ascends until reaching a bridge just south of White Haven. Once trains run over the bridge they descend back into the tunnel.

Geographic features include Rockport Tunnel, Penn Haven Junction, the towns of Hazleton and White Haven, and the Oxbow Curve.

Support for the lower level yard and the extension up behind Oxbow curve and into the tunnel.

The shelf over the desk and the tunnel through the wall that will become the south end of the Rockport tunnel as well as the transition up the duck under

The duck-under (held by aluminum and wood brackets bolted to the ceiling) showing the transition to two-level operation. The portion of the duck-under closest sends trains up while the back side sends trains down onto the lower level (the plywood decking

And the curved transition back to the first picture lower-level yard

Now things really started to roll - I bought cork roadbed and track and within about a month I had a working oval for the lower level and a yard. I could run trains for the first time in about 10 years. With the 4-track yard, most of the track on my layout is on that lower level along with all of the switches. Because of that, I ran a continuous run of bus wire (2 strands, one for each track all the way around the layout. I soldering wires to each of my rail joiners that connected my Atlas Code 83 flex track, and then soldered on to exposed portions of the bus wires which ran into a switch (which alternates between my program track (located just above my desk), and the layout track) before going to my MRC Prodigy I DCC system. I left plenty of extra bus wire coiled for the addition of the upper level.

I'd encourage you to run a good variety of locomotives and rolling stock on newly-laid track, and that's what I did for quite a while to get all of the kinks out of the lower level. In some cases I had to pull up track and roadbed to deal with the problems. My roadbed was laid with short nails and the track was adhered to the roadbed using clear caulk. After I was happy with the lower level, construction began on the upper level. I used the existing lower-level frame and added vertical extensions off of that to support my plywood decking for the upper level. In quick order I added the roadbed and track for the upper level and once again ran a lot of locomotive hours ironing out the kinks. I also started to install backdrop (Masonite board, primed and painted and bent to supports on the wall. More pictures follow:

The lower level yard and the upper level of what will become the town of White Haven. A D&H consist is running 96' flats with trailers. I did place re-railer tracks on most of my yard tracks.

Looking toward Oxbow with the upper level in place. Bus wires (red and black) are visible going through the verical supports. Blue and gray wires connect from the bus wires to the rail joiners.

The inside view of the duck-under with the backdrop installed. I got better at painting clouds the more I did it. Beer helped too.

The transition area between the big duck-under and the bridge before White Haven. The change in track slopes on the top and bottom levels is pretty obvious in this shot. Backdrop is in place.

I spent a good deal of time in the next few years running trains and adding locomotives and rolling stock. Looking back on that time, I think I was just procrastinating. I think I feared that all of my work was going to waste - I was going to screw up the scenery. I bought a good many books and looked through my collection of Model Railroader magazines to make sure I understood the best ways of creating decent looking scenery - it was a daunting task, and I reminded myself - this is just where I'd gotten stuck on previous layouts.

Eventually I got some supplies together. Because some sections of my layout are set back from the track, I decided that I am going to address the background of the layout all the way around before attacking the space in front of the track (the foreground). Over the last 5 or 6 years I've been doing just that - starting at the deepest area back behind the bridge and working my way counterclockwise to the tunnel. I really rely a lot on the work of Dave Frary and his MR book How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery. It's a great start, but I find that I try different strategies and those often work really well. Dave's advice is a great place to start, but DON'T BE AFRAID TO TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

I've used Dave's tried and true Sculptamold-over-plaster-cloth-over-cardboard method to start my scenery shells. Most of my layout is devoted to running in the gorge between steep high hills next to a river, so to date, most of my scenery to date has been desolate hills. That doesn't mean it has to be boring For distant trees, I've been using another one of Dave's can't-miss approaches - puff ball trees. However, I see a lot of those trees on other layouts being duplicates of the same color of foliage. Take a look at any hill or mountain and the closer you get, the more variety you see in color, especially in the late summer that I'm modeling. On my layout, the fall foliage is just staring in change and some of my trees reflect that. I also don't just use puff balls of poly fiber - I also use moss of several different colors, clumps of matted moss, and even some dead trees to add variety to the background trees. Some sample pictures follow:

Cardboard strips and plaster cloth going on the layout. A slather of Scuptamold followed.

Puff-ball trees on the rear of the background in the same area as the previous photo. The nearer-to-the-track areas will get a different treatment.

I was finally making some headway on the scenery and I was ready to tackle some different challenges. My small available space for my layout means that my hills are often very close to the back of the track. That doesn't leave a whole lot of space for transitional trees, rocks and ground covers. After applying my puff ball trees over the back hills, I came to an almost vertical escarpment near the bridge. I decided it would be a man-made escarpment of rock. Got a rock mold from Woodland Scenics, bought some plaster and made a bunch of rocks which I painted in representative colors of the area (as a harvester of rocks in my youth (Dad had a garden) I was quite familiar with the rock of the area). The rocks are generally slate gray, but there are runs of red shale and brown sandstone as well. Try as I might, however, I couldn't building something that looked man-made out of those rocks. I finally settled on a technique I found online. Wad up a sheet of aluminum foil and then pull it open again. Load up the area you want to make into rock with a good coating of Scuptamold and stick the aluminum foil against the Scultamold and press it in. After a few minutes (before the Scuptamold is dry), pull off the foil. Makes a really good looking rock wall that I supplemented with pieces of my plaster rocks and lots of layers of paint. That's generally how I do all of my rock work these days. Sometimes I pre-embed my plaster rocks made with the mold and then smear Sculpamold in between the rocks and then apply the foil and paint when dry.

My next puzzler was ground cover. The Eastern Appalacians are a mix of rock and dead leaves under the undergrowth and large and varied tree species. I needed small brown stuff that I didn't need to spend an arm and a leg to buy. So, I painted all of the Sculptamold a nuetral light brown color. There's also variation in the brown color. I came up with a mixture of different sawdusts mixed with tea, coffee grounds and whatever ground up brown and green stuff I ended up with in building things like puff-ball trees. I have a bottle of this stuff in an old empty Woodland Scenic container and I use it liberally over diluted white glue on areas adjacent to the track. One whiff of it is pretty interesting.

Then there are trees that are close to the track (detail trees). These have to have a framework that makes you think "tree!". I tried a variety of dried twigs from shrubs in my yard the first year, and tried the sedum tree armatures that Woodland Scenics includes in their tree kits. I tried spreading fiber over these and some of those are pretty good, but a better tree was right around the corner.

"Trees, trees, trees!" Think the Grinch here when he says "Noise, Noise, Noise!" It's been a love-hate relationship modeling detail trees on my layout. I once again started with Dave Frary's suggestions for detail (or foreground) trees. While his techniques are great for single trees, my layout requires hundreds. I'll spend a couple paragraphs here talking about my experiences with detail trees.

The first trees I built were based on some Woodland Scenic kits with metal armatures and poly fiber embedded with single color leaf flock (shown in the photo below - the tree just the left of the rock). The end result wasn't bad, but I didn't have many of these and the armatures were a bit short for some of the trees I had in mind close to the track in the gorge.

So, experiments ensued. When I had poly fiber embedded with flock I used it over my own armatures harvested from the yard. The taller spindly tree to the right of the rock in the picture is one of those and that one turned out well. Problems started when I started experimenting with my own poly fiber. I buy in bulk - the problem with poly fiber in bulk is that in comes in only one color - white. So, I spread it out and paint it black using spray paint. However, in order to get the paint into the fiber, you have to use a lot of paint and it tends to stiffen the fibers. Also, there are no black trees, so after draping it over a tree armature, you have to carefully paint the fibers with green spray paint. What you're left with is a tree like the one I show below:

.... which isn't horrible, but I figured I could do better. I started experimenting with different tree armatures (the sedum based ones supplied with the Woodland Scenics kits) and dunking them in matte medium before applying a generous amount of various turf and flock products. They didn't look too bad, but their shape was notoriously similar (spreading limbs upward and out from the center of the tree). I couldn't model conifers with them, nor could I model something like a spreading oak tree where the limbs are almost perpendicular to the trunk. I needed a better armature.

I was out walking my dog in the neighborhood one day in the spring and came upon some pyramidal hydrangea that were growing near the street. The seed heads had dried, but if I snapped them off, they had a perfect conifer shape. If I snapped off the top, the lower section emulated a really nice deciduous tree! I had a better armature.

All that was left to fix was the discouraging lack of adhesion of a matte-medium coated armature. The tree would look great after a dunking and a generous coating of turf in multiple colors, but after a few days I'd get a lot of drops onto the base of the layout following planting of these trees. Probably a year before that I'd bought some spray adhesive at a local discount store which had pretty good hold. I had so many of these pyramidal hydrangea armatures that I could experiment. A good spray on each followed by a liberal sprinkling of turf and I had really good looking detail trees.

....and that's it so far. I'm hoping that the next five years are really fruitful and you can live this journey vicariously through updates on this website. There's more to come!

Layout Timeline:

2006 - I finish the basement including what I hoped would be my office.

2007 - I start working on the design for what would become my model railroad.

2008 - I buy some sheets of prefinished plywood and rip them into strips to form up the supports and framework and construction begins.

2009 - Lower level plywood goes down, track, switches and roadbed are purchased. First locomotives and flat cars are purchased. Trains are running. Backdrop goes up and lighting is installed.

2010 through 2012 - Problems with track orientations and switching are worked out. Automatic switch motors are purchased and installed. Electrical bus laid out. DCC system is purchased. More locomotives and coal hoppers are purchased.

2013. Scenery construction (between the tracks and the walls) begins south of White Haven. Cardboard strips and plaster cloth laid, Sculptamold applied and painted. White Haven railroad bridge constructed. Penn Haven Junction bridge built and installed.

2015 - First trees are constructed. First plaster mold rocks constructed. Scenery applied South of White Haven. Mountains constructed between finished scenery and Penn Haven Junction and trhough the Black Creek toward Hazleton. South end of tunnel located and installed. White Haven bridge supports constructed and painted.

2017 - Scenery applied through Penn Haven Junction, Black Creek and to tunnel entrance.

2018 - Weathering started on locomotive fleet.

2019 - River surface built through Penn Haven Junction and under bridge. GP30 renovated. Scenery finished north of the tunnel entrance.

2020 - Support for White Haven installed, plan for town laid out, houses acquired, assembled, painted, weathered and placed. CNJ Overpass built and installed. Retaining wall for northern White Haven conceived and built. Lighting installed for storage yard.

2021 - I-80 installed and scenery applied.