Construction Update #53 - Lizard Head Operations, Staging & a Smelter

 

Lizard Head

September 10, 2025  

Here is a overall view of the Lizard Head Scene.  I still need to smooth out the hillsides, behind and to the left of the stock pens, with Sculptamold.   The snow fencing will eventually be placed between the bunk/section houses and the hillside.  

Most of the track here was covered by snow sheds.  I may eventually include a section of snow shed but I don't want to cover the entire wye.  I think the snow sheds will get in the way of operations and I really like to watching the helper locomotives turn on the wye for their return to Ridgway.

Operations at Lizard Head - Stock Extra

September 18, 2021 

There are series of photographs in the RGS Story illustrating how the RGS switched the stock pens at Lizard Head.  Using what could be learned from the photos and captions, I thought I would attempt the same moves on the layout.  The photos aren't great due to the extreme contrast between the white Sculptamold and the locomotive and rolling stock.

RGS #40 arrives in Lizard with a stock extra from Ridgway

The caboose is left on the mainline and the 5 stock cars a set out on the siding.

 

 

The #40 then back around the south leg of the wye. 

 

 

And on to the south leg. 

Now with the #40 faced back to the north towards Ridgway, it backs up the main for the caboose.

After backing up to clear the turnout leading into the siding, the #40 pulls forward into the siding and pulls the sting of stock cars out of the siding and onto the main line.

The cars are then pushed onto the wye were the first two cars can be loaded/unloaded depending upon the season.  The RGS moved livestock to the higher elevations for grazing in the spring and returned them to lower elevations or market in the fall.  I have room to load/unload 2 cars at a time.

The 2 loaded/unloaded cars are returned to the siding.

The process is repeated, 2 cars at a time, until all the cars are loaded/unloaded.  I'm not sure how many cars the prototype could spot at Lizard Head. 

Once all the cars are loaded/unloaded and tucked into the siding, the #40 leaves the caboose on the main line south of the siding and clear of the turnout.

The #40 will run up to the north end of the siding.

And back down the siding to pick up the loaded/unloaded stock cars and caboose

 Northbound at Matterhorn, back to Ridgway, through some actual scenery.

The Rico Staging Yard

September 20, 2021 

What a struggle but it is finally operational.  Access, about 3 feet from the nearest aisle, made for a difficult install.  A turnout that was out of gauge through the diverging route (guard rail and frog), that I didn't discover until after it was installed, added to the difficulty.  And finally, there was a short that developed on the other side of the layout that took me two days to find!

Two of the tracks will hold a locomotive, 9 or 10 cars and a caboose.  I think trains will be limited to about 8 cars providing a bit of a cushion.  The near track holds a locomotive, 7 cars and a caboose with a cushion.  I had originally planned on 4 staging tracks but I decided 3 would be more than enough.  A good day on the RGS, during the time I model, was 1 or 2 trains a day in each direction.  The roadbed is in place so a 4th track can always be added.

Two north bounds in the Rico staging yard.

The Rico staging yard is controlled by this small panel.  The two toggles on the left control the Tortoise switch machines and the three on the left are on/off toggles for track power.

Here are the two switch machines.  The turnout that was out of gauge was the one on the right; the most difficult to get to of course.  I have decided to install frog juicers on all my turnouts.  One is already installed one on the south leg of the Lizard Head wye and these two are next.  Since all my locomotives have current keepers, I thought I could get away with insulated frogs... Not a great idea!  In the past, I have always used Tam Valley frog juicers.  As an alternative, I ordered a DCC Specialties version for about 1/3 the cost.  I'll let you all know how it works.

A Winter Project - The Rose-Walsh Smelter

I have always loved the Rose-Walsh Smelter kit from Ragg's...to Riches.  Recently a S-Scale version showed up on ebay and when the seller offered me a significant discount I abandoned all sensibilities and bought it.  Then I followed up with the purchase of the Ragg's complementary receiving bins and shed building kit from the same seller.   

The third Ragg's kit for the complex was the office/assay building.  I will probably scratch build this building since I built a near duplicate for my old Alaska Pacific. There is a possibility that I still have this structure packed away somewhere.  Here's a photo; built with Evergreen siding and metal roofing along with Grandt Line doors and windows.  It was painted with Rustoleum sprays from Ace Hardware.

 

 Here is the kit version.

 

If you are wondering where this structure will fit on the layout... It won't.  According the instructions, the finished complex requires around 9 square feet.  But, I have never attempted to build a "contest quality" model and an attempt is in order.  It should fit on a 2x5' module that will fit in the back of our SUV or in the back of my full sized crew-cab pickup with the seat folded up.

 

 

 As always, your suggestions, comments and questions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com 

Construction Update #52 - Lizard Head Scenery, Snow Fences & Stock Pens

The Lizard Head Scene

I tend to jump around when it comes to working on the layout.  This morning I went out to the layout and  started working on the scenery around Lizard Head.  After all, I had the tunnel portal, bunk house and section house ready to go so why not?  Here's an overall picture of the Lizard Head scene.

Normally I would rough in the scenery first and then build a tunnel portal to fit.  In this case, as shown below, I built the tunnel portal first.

 

 

 

 

Hillside, Cut & Tunnel Portal

September 2, 2025

 

 

With all of the foam in place, this is the viewing angle for a person who is around 6' tall.  Here at the summit, the railroad is about 60" off the floor.

September 3, 2025

 

Sculptamold was used over the plaster cloth to smooth things our and eliminate the "steps" in the layered foam.  The Sculptamold also provides some texture for the next step; a mixture of earth colored paint and white glue followed by some basic ground cover.  A little bit of Scultamold did end up on the wood retaining walls and portal but it was easily removed with a dampened tooth brush.  

 

Since the Sculptamold will take several days to dry, I decided to go on to a couple of other related projects.

 

Snow Fences

September 4, 2025 

There were snow fences on both sides of the tracks south of the Lizard Head snow sheds.  While I'm not sure about including the snow sheds, the snow fences should make an interesting addition and won't interfere with operations.  A simple assembly fixture was made from styrene and the wood was stained with SilverWood.  The posts are 6x6's and the fencing is 2x8's. 

The prototype fencing appears from pictures to be about 9 or 10 feet tall.  I made a quick mock-up using a piece of scrap styrene and decided 9 feet looked out of scale in my scene; 6 or 7 feet looked better.  I settled on 6 1/2'.  With the exception of the bottom fence board, the remaining fence boards were cut to random lengths.

The fence boards were placed in the fixture and the post were glued in place six feet apart  using Aleene's tacky glue. 

 Here is about 110 scale feet of finished fence.  

 

The Stock Pens

September 5, 2025 

About 3 years ago I bought a Banta Modelworks stock pens kits (BMW-138S) from a dealer.  I used the kit, plus additional parts purchased directly from Banta to build my Old Placerville stock pens.  While Banta no longer stocks some of the older S-Scale kits, like the stock pens, they will make up the older kits upon request.  I ordered my 2 additional kits/parts in one box without instructions.

My Old Placerville stock pens were mounted on a separate piece of 1" pink foam.  A lot of time went into building these pens so I wanted them to be easily removed.

The kit doesn't really include traditional step-by-step instructions  There are 16 pages of drawings, with minimal instructions along with a CD containing a series of helpful photographs.  While the double deck chute assembly is a bit complicated the rest of the kit is pretty straight forward.  I did have a couple of issues when building the kits.  I have underlined those issues in the description below.

The Gates 

The laser cut fencing was left on the sprue and sanded on both sides.  One side requires a little more work due to burn marks from the laser cutter.  Most of the discoloration should be sanded away.  The fencing and strip wood (posts) were then stained with Builders In Scale Silverwood... Surprise surprise.  The fencing was left on the sprue while the posts and diagonals were glue on with Aleen's tacky glue; no surprise here either.  The nice thing about tacky glue is that if any squeezes out between the parts it can easily be removed with a tooth pick without leaving any visible residue.

Here are the all the gate assemblies.  Note that the 2 in the lower left hand corner are still on their sprues.  The next 2 gates, to the right, are the extension gates.  They are designed to be operational so a bit of extra care needs to be taken with the glue.  It should also be noted that the long laser cut diagonals on the larger gates had to be shortened about a 1/4" on the upper end.

 

The Chute Assembly

 September 6, 2025

This chutes are the most difficult  part of the kit to assemble.  Here is a picture of the Old Placerville double deck chute assembly.  Sheep were typically loaded in double deck stock cars so both a lower and upper chute were required.

The instructions call for assembling the chutes over the plan.  This is somewhat problematic in that the plans don't line up with the laser cut pieces.  The plan included with my kit is larger, around 4-6 scale inches over the length of the chutes.  When I built the Placerville pens, I lined the parts up with one end of the plan and went on from there.  This caused a few alignment problems in subsequent steps.  This time, I aligned a center post with the plan and worked out from there.  We'll see how that works out.  The laser cut fencing was taped to the plan and the post were glued in place using a straight edge along the bottom.

When it came to assembling the chutes, everything lined up this time around.  My kit included a neat little pine block that along with a set of squaring fixture made what would have been a challenging assembly easy.

The Chute Floors

September 7, 2025 

The instructions suggest using ACC to attach the cleats to the chute floors.  I'm hesitant to use ACC on wood.  It is difficult to control and can leave a shiny spot, when exposed, on the wood that is almost impossible to get rid of.  Instead I diluted some tacky cement with water, spread it out on a sheet of styrene, dropped the laser cut cleats into the glue mix and then transferred the cleats onto the floor.  All the part were sealed with a coat of Tamiya.

Here are the finished chutes.  Assembly  took about 3 hours.  

The view from the opposite side.

That's enough for one night!

 

 

Final Assembly

September 8, 2025

The fencing requires a lot of posts.  The strip wood was pre-stained and a NWSL Chopper was used to cut all the post cut all the posts at tne time.  The posts were glued to the fencing with tacky glue using a straight edge along the bottom to keep the fence posts level.  There are small board tabs separating the boards on the laser cut fencing.  They also show the location of the fence posts.  They need to be cut away once the posts are glued to the fencing.

The stock pens are mounted on a piece of hard board.  The hard board was cut to fit the available space on the layout and the pens were assembled on my work desk.  Work on the back side of the pens first.  Assembly was a measure, cut, test fit and glue in place process.  Squares were used to keep the fencing straight. 

Once the back side was done, the base was turned around to work on the front side.

September 9, 2025

It was another late night, around 2:15 AM, so the pens got finished up this morning.

As always, your comments, suggestions and questions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com 

Construction Udate #51 - A Layout Tour and Lizard Head

1,000 Page Views during August

During the month of August the RGS 1st District Blog had just over 1000 views; a first.  Most of the views came from the US (855).  The other top locations were Australia, Norway, Canada, Brazil, France and the United Kingdom.  Interestingly enough there were also views from Russia, Poland, Cambodia and Singapore.  Thank you all for taking an interest.

A Photo Tour as of September 1, 2025

We'll be following Train #371 from Ridgway to Lizard Head.  Train #371 will be handled by "Goose" or Motor #3.  The RGS started using motor cars in the early 1930's.  The objective was to save money over the use of a steam powered train to provide passenger, LCL/Freight and mail serices.  The basis for #3 was a Pierce Arrow model 33 limousine.  The overall length was about 43 feet and could accomodate about 9 passenger.  The express box was 24 feet long.

Here is the #3 being readied for service on the shop track.

The trip south will require a quick spin on the Ridgway turntable.  Here is #3 on the lead.

Having been turned, the #3 heads towards the Ridgway depot to pick up passengers, freight and mail.

The #3 getting ready to depart the "temporary" Ridgway depot.  The proper Ridgway depot is under construction and will, at some point, replace this and the Chama lube house located to the left of the depot.

 

Passing the Dallas section house.  The Dallas scene was a late addition to the plan.  There is a mill that was once a fish processing plant on the late Paul Scoles' layout and the section house came off of Brude Hanley's old layout.  At one time Dallas was the northern terminus of the RGS.  Later the town was abandoned in favor of Ridgway.  During the period I model any traces of Dallas were long gone.

 

Old Placerville was located 26 miles south of Ridgeway (On my layout about 6 feet)  The restaurant is on the right and the gas station is in the background.  Both were built from kits. (McCarville Studios).  The spur in the foreground leads to the stock pens and a fuel oil dealer.

 

Placerville was a main supply center for miners and farmers living along the San Miguel River.  It was home for a number of businesses, a hotel and post office.  With the exception of the hotel and small warehouse on the south end of town, the model is a close representation of the prototype.  About half the structures were scratch built, including the two large warehouses, the garage, the post office and several houses.  The remainder were built from kits, including the store (Monster Model Works), the depot (Rag's... to Riches), the small warehouse (Banta) and the hotel (Bar Mills).

 

Between Placerville and Wilson, the RGS encountered some pretty impressive geography.  Here is the #3 along the banks of the San Miguel near Wilson.  The rock work here is carved pink foam colored with washes of inexpensive craft paints

 

Wilson was located at Milepost 32.6,  Wilson was primarily a passing side and I couldn't find any pictures of the actual location.  The section house, speeder shed and water tank came off my previous layout.

There was a large mill at Vanadium, Milepost 33, built to process vanadium and uranium from carnotite ore.  The mill was very active during the period I model.  A few mock ups have been built for the mill but that's about it.  Bilk is just to the south of the mill and a relatively small sawmill is planned for a new spur at that location.

 

Vance Junction, Milepost 37.8, was another key point on the RGS.  The branch line to Telluride left the mainline at this location.  While all the kits are on hand to build the correct section house, coach body depot and the accessory buildings they are not yet built.  The structure shown below was scratch built for my previous layout.  The coal dock, out of the picture on the left was built by Bruce Hanley.  The small yard here consisted of three tracks.  The turnout in the foreground leads to the Telluride Branch (4 car stub end spur).

#3 southbound between Vance Junction and Bridge 45A

 

 

Bridge 45A just north of Ophir.  The bridge contains over 600 individual pieces of scale lumber.  The scenery in this area, to this point, consists of basic ground cover.

 

 Another picture of #3 on the Bridge 45A.  The rocks in the background are Cripplebush Valley Models rubber rocks.

 

 Ophir Loop.  Still a lot of work to be done around Ophir.  

 

The Ophir Siding.  There were several mines on the hills above Ophir and the siding was often used in support of those mining operations.

 

 The cut between Ophir siding and Matterhorn.

 

Matterhorn, Milepost 46.7.  The mine in the background is another build by Bruce Hanley.  I built the section house in the foreground from a Buildings & Structure Co kit.

 

 

The Montezuma Lumber Company Spur was also located at Matterhorn.  I couldn't find a picture of any lumber related activities going on here.  The covered platform is used for loading/unloading agricultural goods.

 

 

Lizard Head, Milepost 52.6, replaced Trout Lake in the original plan.  The switch was made to facilitate the turning of helper locomotives at the summit and add 4 staging tracks to represent Rico and points south.  The original plan included a duck under or lift out in front of the entry door with Lizard Head and staging located on a shelf above Ridgway.  The duck under/lift out was eliminated with this change.

 

Here #3 is on the siding while a northbound freight passes by on the main.  The wye is in the background.  Most of the tracks here were located in snow sheds.

 

Our tour ends with #3 heading into the summit tunnel and Rico staging.  Note:  There were no tunnels on the prototype.

 

 

Well, that's the 2 year update.  Layout construction started in August of 2023. 

 

The Summit Tunnel Portal  

 August 31, 2025

There were no tunnels on the RGS but I needed a way to disguise the entrance to the Rico staging yard.  Originally I thought I could "disappear" the entrance in a cut but given the space that didn't work out.  Here is what I came up with.  I followed my normal technique of using individual pieces of strip wood backed by styrene and sealed with generous coat of  Tamiya TS-80 clear flat.

 

Since the right-of-way is on a 30" radius curve, I cut the outer base on a 32" arc and the inner base on a 28" arc.  The wing walls were built up in in one piece, cut into sections, and glued to the base.  All the wood was pre-stained with Builders in Scale Silver Wood.  The wood on styrene joints was attached with Zap-A-Gap ACC and the wood on wood joints were attached with Aleen's tacky glue.

 Here is the portal placed temporarily on the layout.

 

 

Turnouts

Two additional turnouts are needed for the Rico staging yard, one for the mill spur at Birk and one for the north end of Vance Junction.  All are #6's built with a Fast Track turnout assembly fixture.  Since I am out of new Code 70 rail, I scrounged up some flex track remnants, stripped away the ties, and built the four required turnouts shown below.  Once the Quick Sticks laser cut ties are received, the turnouts can be installed on the layout.

Tortoise switch machines are being used to control the turnouts in the Rico staging yard.  Since the yard will be hidden from normal viewing, I decided to mount the machines from above for easy access.   

 As always, your comments, suggestions & questions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com