Construction Update #17 - D&RGW #464, Revisions to Old Placerville & Ridgway

 

D&RGW #464

 

Recently this P-B-L Foreground Version of  D&RGW 464 showed up on ebay.  The 464 was a comon visitor to the RGS 1st District during the 1940's so I thought it would make a nice addition to the roster.   In addition the model was equipped with a snowplow which appears to have stayed on the locomotive regardless of season.  The only real downside, from my perspective is the weathering.  While the weathering on the models appears to represent the prototype during the 1940's, I would have preferred a "fresher" looking model. Regardless, I made an offer for the locomotive and it was accepted.  It does need to have DCC and sound installed.

Ridgway Yard - Version 6

December 23, 2023

Well, here we go again...  Starting with the earlier version of the Ridgway track plan, I started the process of transferring the plan to the bench work.  I started with engine facility.  It only required a few minor revisions.  I substituted a 65' turntable for the 55' prototype in order to turn K-27's in lieu of using the wye at Placerville.  More on the Placerville wye below.

When it came to the yard itself, there were a number of problems. First, the Ridgway siding/arrival departure track turned out to be about 4 or 5 car lengths too short.  Since I couldn't extend the siding towards the engine facility, I extended it south towards Old Placerville.  In addition, I decided to substitute three stub end yard tracks for the three double ended ones in the original plan for additional capacity.  The stock pens were also moved to the opposite (correct) side of the yard.

Here is the current state of the Ridgway yard.

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Old Placerville

The changes to the Ridgway yard also impacted the space available for Old Placerville.  As a result, I decided to eliminate the Placerville wye and use a 65' turntable at Ridgway to turn locomotives.  The change also made room for one or more Montrose staging tracks oriented in the proper direction.

I built the stock pens using parts from two Banta Modelworks kits.  The fuel oil distributor is another group of structures off Bruce Hanley's layout. 

Here is the overall plan for Ridgway and Old Placerville.

The Gandy Dancers arrive in Old Placerville

Dec;ember 29, 2023

I finally got my hands on about 40' of good used Code 70 flex track off ebay.  The track, along with some turnouts built over the Christmas holiday allowed for additional track work.  Here is #463 working the old Placerville spur.  I like to run a train over and trouble shoot each section of new track.  Turns out the cylinders of 463 only clear the stock yard ramps by a about 1/16".

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The Gandy Dancers arrive in Ridgway

Dec;ember 30, 2023

 

 

 

The First Train arrives in Ridgway

Dec;ember 31, 2023

After 5 months of construction, the first train arrives in Ridgway.  I don't have enough flex track to finish off all the yard tracks but I should be able to reach the turntable and install a couple of storage tracks near the engine facility.  I am also waiting for some QuickSticks laser cut turnout ties from Fast Tracks.

December 31, `2023

I had just enough track to reach the turntable and install the three storage tracks behind the lead.  Here the #463 finally gets to take a spin on the Ridgeway Turntable.  I used a 9 volt battery to test out the turntable; eventually the job will be done by a decoder.

As always, your comments, suggestions and questions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com

 

 

Construction Update #16 - A Temporary Reverse Loop at Trout Lake, Vance Jct Coal Pockets & Ridgway Yard Bench Work

 

A Reverse Loop at Trout Lake?

December 13, 2023

The track gang has arrived at Trout Lake. Unfortunately, I only have a few section of P-B-L Code 70 left which is not nearly enough to reach Lizard Head and build the Rico staging yard and reverse loop.  And, while I have had 8 bundles on order for several weeks, it is currently out of stock and I have no expectation of receiving it any time soon.  The last time I ordered the flex it took 4 months to arrive and I only received 8 of the 10 bundles I originally ordered.  This is not a P-B-L problem.  Micro Engineering makes the P-B-L flex track and turnouts and I guess a change of ownership has led to some real production problem

Since there was enough room and track, I decide to install a temporary reverse loop at Trout Lake.  The connection for the reverse loop is shown below in red.  When the loop was finished, I had less than a full length (36") of track left.

The Trout Lake reverse loop installed and wired with a Digitrax AR-1 reversing module.

The reverse loop includes a removable section a little over 3 feet long.  Rails are kept in alignment with printed circuit board ties glued to the cork roadbed.  A Jones connector was used to power the lift out section.

 

Vance Junction Structures

The Crystal River Vance Junction coal pockets shown in the photo below came off Bruce Hanley's wonderful Sn3 Washo and Windgapp RR.  Bruce, in anticipation of a move, is currently dismantling the layout and disposing of a few models.  I was lucky enough to acquire several structures for the 1st District including several that were shown in the last post.  Bruce's layout was featured in a September 2023 video on YouTube.  Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diE0wutTASM

The Vance Junction Section House

December 15, 2023

I have accumulated most of the kits that are available for the 1st District in Sn3 with the exception of those for Ridgway.  These include the Banta kits for the Vance Junction Section House and the Vance Junction Outbuildings.  These are relatively easy to build high quality laser cut structure kits designed, in my opinion, for an experienced modeler. Here is a progress photo.

Plan, Bench Work & Modules for Ridgway 

December 15, 2023

The bench work and modules for Ridgway are finished.  The Ridgway locomotive servicing facility will be located on the 8 foot long module directly below the display case.  The yard and depot will be around the 45 degree bend to the left.

I spent hours on SCARM trying to figure out a way to get a close representation of the Ridgway servicing area, turntable and roundhouse in the available space.  Unfortunately, the only way I could come up with a serviceable plan was to flip the prototype layout both vertically and horizontally. 

The yard will be located along this wall

Again, there isn't enough room to faithfully duplicate the prototype.

Here is the overall arrangement.

And....

December 16, 2023

Every once in a while I have to stop and straighten out one of my messes.  I keep my layout building tools is a roll away tool chest.  I spent the better part of day emptying it out, cleaning the drawers and putting thing back in order.  Not much got done on the layout today but at least I can find my tools...  Anyone seen my Xacto knife?

 

As always, your comments, questions & suggestions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com

Construction Update #15 - Rolling Stock, Track Gang moves South, Throttle Lanyards & Structures

Rolling Stock Additions

November 29, 2023

Three nice pieces of rolling stock got added to the roster this week; a D&RGW short reefer and two D&RGW drop bottom gondolas.  While I don't recall seeing any photos of drop bottom gons on the RGS, I couldn't resist adding two more to the one I already had.  I guess, during an operating session, they will just get shuttled between the D&RGW connections at Ridgway and Durango (staging).

 

The Track Gang moves South

November 30, 2023

With the arrival of rail joiners and QuickStrips laser cut ties the track gang moved south from Vance Junction.

Around the end of the peninsula across the future location of Bridge 44A where the 463 stalled on the 2.25% grade,

Across the future location of Bridge 45A, carefully, with two less cars.

To Ophir

And Ophir Siding

Goose #3 southbound on the "High Line" such as it is.

And northbound at Matterhorn

 

Lanyards for my NCE Throttles

Concrete floors are hard on wireless hand held throttles.  I currently have 3 that need to go back to NCE for repairs.  My friend and fellow modeler Lee Thwaits provided me with a solution.  Lee bought some inexpensive lanyards, fabricated a mounting bracket and gave them to me.  All I had to do was take out two screws on the back of the throttle, hold the bracket in place and replace the screws.  Now they can be hung around an operators neck without the possibility of being dropped.

 

Structures

I never pass up the opportunity to acquire high quality structures that can be used on the layout.  Here are a few that I acquired for the 1st District.  All were built by Bruce Hanley

The Ophir General store was built from a Banta kit.  It was modified to fit the available space.  As it turns out, the modifications make it suitable for my limited space.  

Here are two cool little houses.  The first one will go in Placerville; the second one will be used along the right of way between Vanadium and Vance Junction. .

And a cool little coal storage bin.

 

Structure For Sale or Trade

The Chama Lube House - I built this from a the P-B-L kit (Sn3).  I added the small loading dock but it is easily removed.  The roof is also removable.  I built this for my previous Sn3 layout but unfortunately it isn't suitable for the current RGS 1st District.  If you are interested, contact me sdepolo@outlook.com

As always, your comments, suggestions and questions are welcome.

 sdepolo@outlook.com

Construction Update #14 - Planning Vanadium, TCX #70 and Scenery around Wilson

 

Note: While waiting for my order of rail joiners and laser cut ties for my turnouts, I decided to spend a little time working on a couple of other projects.

Planning out the Vanadium Scene 

November 23, 2023 (Thanksgiving Day)

Vanadium was located at Milepost 33.  The original ore-milling site was developed by the Primos Chemical Company.  Later the site was taken over by the Vanadium Corporation of  America who ran the site through World War II.  Originally the vanadium processed here was used for steel hardening and the uranium for medical and scientific purposes.  During World War II, the mill was used to process uranium and radium for military purposes.

While the complex was large, I only have a fraction of the space necessary to represent the scene; about 30" by 60"  And of this, the space available for the mill and supporting structures on the far side of the spur is about 14" inches by 60".  The backdrop will also need to be changed as there isn't a lot of vegetation around the mill site.

In order to determine the must haves elements, I studied the photograph on pages 312 and 313 of The RGS Story Volume 1 from Sundance Publications and chose 6 primary structures.  Other small structures may be added if space allows.

Then I identified the "must have" structures.

The Boarding House - It appears that ore was loaded into box cars on the spur in front of the boarding house.  Due to it's extreme weight, the pile of ore was placed directly over the trucks.

 

The Machine Shop -  Located a short way up the hill and behind the boarding house. The plan is to reduce the depth to about 2" and place it up against the backdrop.

The Dry, Wet and Solution Rooms - Again this building front will only be about 8" deep and placed up against the backdrop.

The Ball Mill - A 6" deep front placed directly against the backdrop.

The Superintendent's Office - Both the length and depth will have to be reduced by about 25% to fit.

The Coal, Ore and Limestone Bins

After the buildings were chosen, the dimensions were estimated based upon the photo and the available space and simple drawing were made for each structure.  Here is the one prepared for the boarding house.  Once all the drawings were done, they were laid out on the desk and adjustments were made to fit the space.  All of the structures had their depths reduced, some more than others.

The Plan

 

The Structures

November 24, 2023

Most of the structures are pretty simple so I decided to make mock ups using old Priority Mail boxes I've saved.  Once I had all of them built, with the exception of the limestone & ore bins, I set them place on the layout.  I moved them around and adjusted the heights and came up with the following arrangement.  It should be noted that the mill underwent significant changes over the years and that my structures are a combination of what is seen in photos and what will fit in the available space.  Finally, a couple of building flats above and slightly behind the mill may help provide depth and give the impression that the complex extends further up the hillside.

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Here's a colorized photo of the mill complex.  It appears that most of the buildings were painted a dark green with white trim.  The superintendents office appears to be well maintained while the other buildings show significant signs of faded paint and weathering. 

                                                                                                                                                                   Both pictures from the Denver Public Library Digital Collection

TCX #70

Another small project I worked on was the re-lettering of a PSC double dome tank car.  I had painted and lettered this car for Artic Oil.  All it took to strip the old lettering off on this car was a strip of paper towel soaked in Micro Sol and positioned over the lettering for about 5 minutes.  Thin Film decals were used to letter the car.  It should be noted that the quality of this set is not very good.  There were numerous voids in the printing; most notably the car number and striping above and below the number. The dimensional detail and other small lettering is fuzzy and in some cases illegible.  Again, this car was weathered with Bragdon powdered pigments and finished off with a coat to Tamiya clear flat.

 

Developing Scenery around Wilson

November 25,2023

I have decided to work on the scenery around Wilson.  Since most of my scenes are being built on movable modules, I have been trying to avoid using a lot of plaster on the layout.  As a result, hours have been spent on YouTube watching tutorials on how to create rock work using insulating foam.  And, since a shear rock wall  is needed behind the Wilson section house and speeder shed I thought this might be a good place to give it a try.

Here is a sample near the prototype location

Here's what I came up with.

 

Here is the actual location on the layout.  The random pieces of 1" pink foam were glued together.  This wall is made up of three sections, removable, 8 to 13" high and measures about 48" long.

 

 

Finally, the laser cut ties for the turnouts arrived yesterday and the rail joiners should be here tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday so the track gang can get back to work!

 

As always, you comments, suggestions and questions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com