WP's Canyon Sub in N Scale

[Rodney]

A 55 car train on the Williams Loop.




The layout is of mushroom design in a 28' X 52' basement. I designed it back in the mid '90's when I had put 2 mobile homes side by side, made a common roof that I had raised to a ceiling height of almost 9 feet. A divorce stopped the construction and when the divorce was final, I built my house to accommodate the design. The original was going to be UP's Sherman Hill, Cheyenne to Laramie. As I worked building the house, I keep seeing in my mind a picture of Williams Loop on a calendar I had seen with a lash up of UP locomotives. I started searching for all the info I could on the area and when I started construction of the layout, I changed a few things around on the plan to include Keddie Wye, Williams Loop, and Clio Trestle.

All visible track is ME code 55 with scratchbuilt, Atlas and ME turnouts. The helix is 9 1/2 turns that starts at 53" off the concrete floor goes to 90" off the floor to the staging yards that will hold 10, 100 car trains. The helix will also hold up to 5, 60 car trains. The way I have the helix set up, I can run loop to loop, contentious and to and from staging at both ends of the layout. The tracks enters at the bottom from Oroville and about midway up, the other end of the layout coming from Portola enters the helix. Minimum radius on the mainline is 24" and on the Keddie Wye Highline it is 15"

This is just a very basic track plan.






Over the next few days as I post pictures, I think most will be able to follow the track plan and understand it a lot better.

[Allen]

Thanks for posting your track plan Rodney, I've seen a lot of pictures of your layout, but this helped to tie things together.

[Rodney]

The track plan does help some

[Rodney]

The layout is controlled with a Easy DCC system with 4, 10 amp boosters and 2, 5 amp boosters (yes, a little over powered). For throttles, I have 16 radio and 10 tethered.

Everything connects to the helix, so it was the first part of the layout that was constructed. Homasote was laid on the subroadbed and was used in the helix and staging yard. The homasote was painted with 2 coats of paint on each side to keep moisture out to reduce the chance of expansion and contraction. The rest of the layout uses cabinet grade plywood for subroadbed and Micore 3oo on that. Micore 300 is fiberglass based and will not adsorb any moisture and is very stable.

Some of the pictures are old when I first started building and some will be taken as I go.


This is the helix with 24" radius curves. The outside measurements are 54" X 84" .
During Ops sessions, it will have a operator to feed trains to and from the staging yard.
























And the helix control panel

[Rodney]

This is the top of the helix. the track on the right is where the trains comes off the helix. The left is coming onto the helix.
If you follow the track, it makes a big loop and comes back to the staging yard on the far right.











Here you can see the turn back loop a little better. The track in the foreground makes a connection for a continuous loop in the staging yard area.













The track on the left is where the trains will come after exiting the helix. It goes to the other end to come into the staging yard.












This is the other end of the staging yard. Inbound trains are on the far right track. They make the big loop and enter the staging yard













More of the staging yard

[Greg]

I have been to Rodney’s layout,, it is quite the under taking. I was able to run a longgggg reefer train. Only one derailment, I forgot to throw a switch back and I ran through it,, oops.
Welcome to RMR Rodney!!

[Rodney]

Thanks Greg

[Jeff B]

This is the top of the helix. the track on the right is where the trains comes off the helix. The left is coming onto the helix.
If you follow the track, it makes a big loop and comes back to the staging yard on the far right.











Here you can see the turn back loop a little better. The track in the foreground makes a connection for a continuous loop in the staging yard area.













The track on the left is where the trains will come after exiting the helix. It goes to the other end to come into the staging yard.












This is the other end of the staging yard. Inbound trains are on the far right track. They make the big loop and enter the staging yard













More of the staging yard

First off, great layout!

Secondly, if I may ask, what exactly do you use those two tools in the third pic for?

[Rodney]

Jeff,

Thanks for the comment

The round thing is a mirror and a pair of needle nose pliers with bent jaws. I had a point of one of the turnouts that was bent and had to straighten it out. There is only 7" of overhead clearance in that area.

[Jeff B]

Rodney,

Thanks. When I first saw it, I thought it might be used as some kind of roller to glue track down, which would have been unique in my experience, LOL.

[Rodney]

Jeff,
I do have a handy small roller that I use when I glue roadbed down.

[Rodney]

This track is coming off the bottom of the helix.










The track on the left is the connection for the bottom loop. In Ops session it's the interchange with the Sacramento Northern. There is 3 industries and interchange that the west Oroville operator will switch.



















That upper area is where the west High Sierra Pine sawmill and Koppers treatment plant will be. That is a piece of 2" extruded foam and I just don't like it, and it's coming out and plywood and Micore will replace it. Oroville west will switch this.













And around the corner

[Rodney]

A look at west Oroville











There is 7 industries here that the west operator will switch




















West end of the classification yard. The three left tracks of the yard is the A&D tracks. All the cuts and fills will be done on this end.

[Rodney]

East end of the classification yard and loco maint on the left. Mainline is the far right track, then siding and the 3 A&D tracks.
Classification be done here. All the turnouts are thrown with servos on the yard and has a matrix on a rotary switch to line the track.
Team track is the far left track.
For ops, I'll have a yardmaster, a operator for classification and another for the cuts and fills.


























Looking the other way, this is east Oroville and will have one WP operator and a SP operator.
There is 2 industries on the left for the WP, and 2 for SP.













3rd track from the left is the SP interchange.
The long structure is Ida Packing. The SP has tracks that goes inside and the far left track is WP.

The little yard on the right is for the east operator for the east High Sierra Pine sawmill and the sugar beet plant.

[Rodney]

Right in the center here is Stokely's plant.










East High Sierra Pine sawmill will go in this area along with another unknown industry. The sugar beet processing plat is at the far end.
The east Oroville operator will work all of this area.















The back structure is the beet processing building and the front is the packing and warehouse.

[Rodney]

The right track is the SP mainline











Coming into SP yard and industries for the SP operator to work.












The SP main goes to a 2 track staging under the WP track. There is 6 industries here for the SP operator to work.

[Paul S.]

Rodney, that's just really impressive! Out of curiosity, about how many scale miles are the WP main and SP main?

[Rodney]

Thanks Paul,

On the WP, helix to helix is a little over 10 scale miles of mainline. SP just has about a mile. I failed to mention that the SP goes off the layout the right side of this picture.

[Allen]

That is damned impressive Rodney!
Thanks for posting all those pics!

[Michael Whiteman]

Say Rodney, Just by chance have you been keeping track of how many pieces of track you are using, or how many feet? I'd sure like to buy some stock in that company real soon. Thanks for posting all these fantastic pictures.