A Grand Trunk Southern SD40/SD45 combination lead Manifest 308 northbound over the Clarion River Bridge.
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Wonderful scene, John. The reds really pop out, drawing the eye to the train.
If you move the train closer by about two car lengths, you'd have a good composition, one I'm certain Allen would like to use as a header photo for the forum.Southern Railway Slate Fork Branch, March 1978
Old magazines can still be fresh sources of hobby information! -
The Grand Trunk Southern is a subsidiary of Canadian National. In 1931 Leonor Loree, then President of the D&H successfully completed a takeover of the Lehigh Valley, Wabash, and Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh. In real life Loree's ambitious plan was thwarted by the might Pennsylvania Railroad. This however isn't real life and he was successful. Two years later in 1933, stretched thin financially due to the takeover and with the Great Depression still in full swing, the merged roads were taken over by the Grand Trunk Corporation, the US based arm of Canadian National Railways. Wabash was merged with the Grand Trunk Western and the 3 lines East of Buffalo became the Grand Trunk Southern. It is now the 1965-1975 era and we see the GTS operating in central Pennsylvania.
The layout is N Scale and measures 14ft by 22 ft. The sceniced levels of the layout use Atlas Code 55 track and operates with Digitrax DCC. The Staging Yard level of the layout and helix utilize Peco track left over from previous layouts. In my introduction post, Billy Joe Bob enquired about the viaduct in the background and though I haven't yet responded, I will do a post on the backdrops and how they were created.
Here is the trackplan for the Grand Trunk Southern
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Thankyou for the suggestion Paul. I am having some issues with depth of field for photos so this distance was a nice compromise. I am working on improving the photos in the future.Comment
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Over the next series of posts I will take you on a photo tour of the layout. I am not sure how long this will take so bear with me, the post may occur over several days. These first 3 photos show you what you see as you stand at the entryway to the layout room.
Photo 1: On your left is the main industry on the layout, the Proctor and Gamble plant which is located in Ethansburg. The prototype is located in Mehoopaney, Pa., on the Lehigh Valley mainline. The trackplan was derived from Conrail trackcharts I found on the Multimodalways website. The plant is located along the Susquehanna or in my case the Clarion River.
Photo 2: As you look to your right, visitors will first see a farm scene which is still in the early stages of construction. In the distance they can see the town of Nathansville. To your immediate right is a new upper level staging yard which you will see more of in Photo 3.
Photo 3: This photo shows the new helix yard. Prior to Covid, all of my staging was on the lower level. As we had begun to operate the layout, operators begin to complain about 2 things. Time lost in the helix, and issues with derailments with LoPro wheels going through the Peco Insulfrog turnouts in the staging yards. At the time the top of the helix was still open as I grappled with a way to build something on top of it but still have access and visibility. Then came Covid and like many others I had a lot of time on my hands and I was stuck in the house. I began to figure out if I could move some staging to the upper level. Long story short, I was able to calculate that I could add a 6 track staging yard above the helix with an 18 in miminum radius on the inside and I could also add another 5 track staging yard in Clarion to give me 11 staging tracks on the Upper Level. A year of lockdown later both staging yards were fully operational. In this photo we see the staging yard stacked on top of the helix. Scenery is a work in progress. Trees on that hillside will help break up the sightline.
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I will diverge from the photo tour briefly to answer Billy Joe Bob's question about the backdrops in the viaduct scene. In the photo above you can see the backdrop on the right hand side of the photo just below the window. This is the latest backdrop to be installed. Here is a brief how to on the backdrops. I purchased the complete set of CD's from www.LARCProducts.com. They are located somewhere in upstate New York. The CD's provide you with the photos for hundreds if not thousands of backdrops, you can preview them on the website. I selected the ones I wanted to use, and printed them on the Black and White laser printer and then taped them to the wall to take a look at them over a few days and satisfy myself I had chosen the right one. On occasion I couldn't decide between several so would tape them up separately, and look at them in place.
Photo 1 shows you the area that required a backdrop. One difficulty here was that it had to match up to an existing backdrop. This was during the helix yard construction. You can see the area directly beneath the window.
Photo 2: In Photo 2 you can see that I have taped the black and white prints in place to take a look at them.
Photo 3: Having decided upon the photos that I wanted I proceeded to the next step which was to have them printed. I get the photos printed on full size 8 1/2 X 11 Avery Labels. That's correct labels and I get them done at the printers. When I receive them back I cut off any border that is on the photo and I cut off the sky with an exacto knife. This step requires some degree of patience. I then carefully piece them together on the wall ensuring that the seams match up. You apply them very lightly till you are certain you have a good seam match before applying pressure to put them permanently in place. Why did I go with this approach. When I costed out the photo backdrops for the layout I was looking at around $2500 CAN and that was around 2019 or so. I'm sure it is significantly more today. I did the entire layout for just over $200 and that included the purchase price of the CD's which at the time I think was around $50 to $60 including mailing. There are a couple of areas I wish I did better but all in all for less than 10% of the cost I am entirely satisfied. In photo 3 you can see the labels have been applied and in my mind they match up with the previous ones quite well.
Photo 4: Here is how it is looking today as the scenery develops in front of it.
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Really nice layout John!!!! Thanks for sharing
The Silver Flash Mining Co. Hon30
https://realisticmodelrailroading.ne...ining-co-hon30Comment
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This is my 2nd attempt to show you the town of Nathansville named after my youngest grandson. We'll see if I have figured out what went wrong with the previous post. I started on the town last summer to have something ready for the Layout Tour in October but progress has been non existent since then until my grandson suggested a week or so ago that we start on it again and so we have. This is not unusual since I like to jump around and work on various projects. Keeps the interest level up.
Photo 1: Here we see the main business district. The roads are constructed using grout and still require weathering. In the distance we can see 3 of the rail served industries in town. The cement dealer, the coal dealer and the co-op.
Photo 2: I have showed this photo so that you can see the scenery between the return loop and Nathansville. This scenery is removable so that I can access the tortoise machines in the helix yard throat.
In Photo 3 we see the industries at the far end of Nathansville. The Brewery and the Grain Silos.
The next two photos show the small peninsula. The upper level track is the mainline from Clarion Yard to Nathansville. The lower level mainline is the track from Nathansville to Gavinsport. The bridge is based on a Lehigh Valley prototype outside of Scranton and the steel structure to support its segments is currently under construction on the work bench.
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Thanks Paul, spent a fair bit of time when I was laying the track to make sure the geometry flowed smoothly and that trains tracked properly. Scenery is a work in progress.Comment
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As we leave Nathansville and move up the left aisleway into the room we have the main city of Clarion on our right and the Proctor and Gamble plant at Ethansburg on our left. The first thing you see when entering Clarion is the small industrial area at the front of the layout. On the other side of the mainline we see what will develop into the engine terminal. It should be noted that Clarion is populated with structures that I have built or obtained through estate sales and they are simply at this time sitting in place. No real scenery effort has been put in to Clarion up to this point.
Photo 1: the industrial area and engine terminal area. one of the projects on my agenda is to put a street across the tracks in the approximately right where that tower is sitting. The caboose track will have to be shortened.
Photo 2: this photo shows the central area of Clarion yard. The 5 tracks in the foreground are the Passenger Main, the Freight Main, and 3 Arrival/Departure tracks. There is then a 4 track classification yard, a runaround track, and a 5 track staging yard. The 5 track staging yard was the other major Covid project and required a fair bit of reworking of Clarion Yard to get it to fit int and flow correctly, but it works and works great.
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These two photos show the North end of Clarion yard. At the north end there is a power plant which is serviced by GTS. Photo 1 shows the plant under construction. Photo 2 shows the first grout road that I installed and which served as my test bed.
Photo 1
Photo 2:
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Continuing around the aisle above we come to the town of Gavinsport. The track crossing on the bridge runs from Clarion to Ethansburg. The track coming into Gavinsport from the bottom is coming from Nathansville and you can see it going through the wall at the top and on to Ethansburg.
On the other side of the aisle from Gavinsport is the bridge over the Clarion River seen in my introductory photo and shown here in a more complete photo of the entire aisle. this photo was taken about 6 months ago and a fair bit of scenery work has been done in this area by myself in conjunction with my younger grandson Nathan. The buildings in the foreground are going to become a horse farm. The stable is the first N scale building I scratchbuilt back in 2000 when I was considering giving up HO and starting in N. It was my "proof of concept" that I could model in the smaller scale.
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The next area of the layout is Ethansburg, named after my oldest grandson Ethan, currently a 2nd year Civil Engineering student. As previously noted, Ethansburg is based on the Proctor and Gamble plant at Mehoopany, Pennsylvania. Main Products are Charmin toilet paper and Pampers diapers. In 1972 this plant generated 24,602 carloads of product for the Lehigh Valley. On a 365 day basis that is a hair over 67 cars a day. A very sizable operation. It is the main industry on the Grand Trunk Southern. For the first 5 years of the layouts existence, the plant was a serious of cardboard mockups. I kept putting off building the structures and the cardboard mockups might still be going if I hadn't come into possession of a couple of non descript industrial buildings through an estate I was selling off. I put them in Ethansburg and liked the look. It got me motivated and since I had an Open House coming up I got going on scratchbuilding a bunch of the other structures.
Photo 1: overall view of Ethansburg and how it sits along the Clarion River.
Photo 2: Ethansburg has its own small yard. The scenery at the back of this yard was the first project that Ethan, Nathan and I worked on together. The boys wanted to learn how to do scenery and at the time it was just pink foam, so I showed them how to do the trees, apply plaster, colour, ground foam, static grass, and away they went. they did a great job.
Photo 3: The Proctor and Gamble plant at ethansburg. the structures I got from the estate sale are the two small annexes at the front with the green piping and the small add on on the roof of the main building with green piping. The other buildings are all constructed from styrene. I was able to match the paint exactly once I determined it was Tamiya dark yellow. Ethan was home from University at Xmas and the boys were up here for a day and the the area the buildings are sitting on was still plywood. Ethan asked if I minded if he tried a few things so I told him to go for it. With an afternoon's work putting in some roads and greenery, the plywood had completely disappeared. Next step here is a lot of ballasting as well as finishing the roof on that main building.
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Wonderful layout, thanks for the photo tour so far. I like your grandsons' involvement in it as well.Comment
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Dittos on Cody said. It's so well done.Originally posted by Cody View PostSouthern Railway Slate Fork Branch, March 1978
Old magazines can still be fresh sources of hobby information!Comment
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