Model Railroading > Coming soon to the East Slope of the Sierra Nevada Range...

Just a couple of early construction grab shots from the ol' iPhone of my recent progress on my adventure into On30. I'm building a 7ft x 12ft 'L' shaped O scale 30" narrow gauge shelf layout that is ficticiously based near the Sierra Nevada community of Dardenelle, CA and heads east into Nevada. The purpose of the Dardenelle & Eastern Railway railroad is to serve the logging and mining interests in the area. The layout will feature a logging camp, a wooden shingle mill, a couple of mining claims (possible ores: Tungsten, Molybdenum, Magnesite, Copper Glance).

This is my first O scale layout after dismantling my freelanced HO scale 1964-1984 SP themed Central Sierra Railroad. That layout exisited from 1995-2003 and was DCC (Digitrax). I'm trying a lot of new construction methods and ideas since that last layout. This layout is also DCC (MRC Prodigy Advance Squared). The benchwork is sectional modules that are 'free floating' and are attached to the walls using a French Cleat mounting system (no support legs). The 'C' shaped modules are constructed from 3/4" plywood and use open grid benchwork to support the 1/4" plywood skin and 1" thick foamboard on the lower portion of the 'C' shaped brackets. The the upper portion of the module's brackets include LED lighting in an overhead lighting valance that doulbles as a display area for some of my railroadiana collection. Cascade Rail Supply's Homasote roadbed with 30° beveled shoulders supports the Micro Engineering On30 Code 100 flextrack that connects the On30 Code 100 turnouts by Light Iron Turnout Company.

Stay tuned!

SV
The old HO layout lives on, virtually here: http://members.trainorders.com/sandingvalve/CSRR/Modelers_Workbench.html

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Looking good. That's a fun scale/gauge to work with if you have the space.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
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> That's a fun scale/gauge to work with if you have the space.

Ted- Yes, anything in O scale requires some space, quitet the departure from my 35+ years of modeling in HO!!

This new On30 layout is very compact as it also shares space in our home office/den. Because of that I chose to keep the layout level somwhat high with the railhead at 62" above the floor at the railhead. A sectional modular design meant I could build the modules in my workshop, including painting all the visiable framing. Mounting the modules onto a French Cleat system made it easy to install the modules, they simply hang upon the cleat and have a few lag screws bolting them into the wall studs. The layout is also 'self-contained', meaning that the module's DCC track busses connect via plugs. Each module has it's own valence ad lighting built into it as well. Should it ever have to be relocated it's just a simple matter of unplugging the layout from the wall, unplugging the 4 wired connections (2 DCC, 2 lighting) and remove the lag screws to lift the modules off the wall cleat.

Some benchwork framing images...
Module framing
Modules installed with backdrop, note the overhead valence doubles for railroadiana display

SV
 

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