Large Scale Central

Building Log of the Manufacturers Railway Switching Puzzle

Why? (This is HO scale, right?)

Craig Townsend said:
It would be a great layout for dead rail!

Greg

Still trying to get everything moved over to the new digs. Only moving 16 blocks, but with the downsizing, heat, health restrictions, life, desires not to be in this part of World and any other excuse I can think of there is a lot of life to cram in.

Current objective is to get everything moved and basic structures established, so 20 minutes of work can be achieved a little at a time as LIFE gets in the way.

Big goal for this HO Switching Puzzle is the basic layout structure. Picked up wood for the “Timesaver” Puzzle and had to go back for more. So, since this layout plan has developed far enough along for construction to begin and real problems to be addressed from paper to reality. Home Depot has this great saw for making large cuts with very straight lines. Always take advantage of it, when I can. All wood purchased for this puzzle and construction will begin as hot weather drives me inside and time permits.

Using the same type of shelving for the MRS/HO layout foundation as I am using for the rebuild of the “Timesaver”. Reasons are minimal benchwork build time, built in under shelf storage and clean, finished appearance to infrastructure.

Here you can see the shelving set up. Please excuse stuff on shelving, everything still in flux as we find locations for “stuff”. However, in the pictures, I hope you can see the line of height for the layouts substructure.

Not really sure why pictures are different sizes. All taken with same phone and resized to 640 x 480. Jon?

When your trying to build a layout in a multi-use room, there are certain concessions that have to be considered. First on my list is to try to make the bench work blend into the room. With the layout being 4 feet off the floor and wanting to use the bench work shelving for display and storage, I felt the underside of the bench work needed to be painted. That’s what has been going on the last couple of days. As much as possible, all bench work is being pre-painted before cutting and assembly.

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First to be assembled is the frame work back 2 x 4, connecting it to wall studs every 16 inches. The 1/2 inch layout deck will be attached to this. Using B C sanded 15/31/2 inch plywood with the sanded B side down and painted a semi - gloss wood work trim white, after priming, to match the walls. If sitting in this room, with the 48 inch height, this underside and the bench frame work will be seen as much as the layout deck. And since my desk/hobby bench will be under the layout, I’m hoping the semi-gloss white will reflect desk lighting enough to make the desk a nice bright work area.

Yes, I posted this in wrong article. Sorry.

A little diversion from the progress on this layout, but certainly part of this saga. Those of you that have been with us at the ECLSTS at York, Pa. certainly remember our friends Dan and Rita Patterson. Dan is a member and poster here. He is the builder of the true craftsman engine carriers, that he brings and sells at York. Well, Jan commissioned him to build her a dining room table. It was to be fashioned after a “Harvest Table” but made to fit the area. The reason this is part of this thread is that I got the old table, that was our table in the breakfast nook of our old house. That table has become my desk/hobby bench in the Train Room and I will post a picture of it later.

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But first a little bragging on Dan’s work -

So with that table in the dining area, I got the old table as my desk/hobby workbench.

I hope you realize all of this work is under the very dilligent and watchful supervision of the management’s respresentative -

Much, much too neat. I suppose we will have to give it time for the “lived in look”.

Ric Golding said:

A little diversion from the progress on this layout, but certainly part of this saga. Those of you that have been with us at the ECLSTS at York, Pa. certainly remember our friends Dan and Rita Patterson. Dan is a member and poster here. He is the builder of the true craftsman engine carriers, that he brings and sells at York. Well, Jan commissioned him to build her a dining room table. It was to be fashioned after a “Harvest Table” but made to fit the area. The reason this is part of this thread is that I got the old table, that was our table in the breakfast nook of our old house. That table has become my desk/hobby bench in the Train Room and I will post a picture of it later.

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But first a little bragging on Dan’s work -

Nice work, Dan. You could rebuild engines on top of that…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

The “Base” weighs 110 lbs. and the “Table Top” weighs 115 lbs. Or versa vicea. The sucker is heavyyyyy Thank God for our son, the Marine and his strong back, plus his wife, Tina, our wonderful daughter in law. Good people.

And NOW back to our original subject. All the deck is now in place, starting to sketch out track plan on to wood surface and realized I should be considering the 90 degree turn laid at the corner of the room to basically be representative of a relative straight line running north south with the river. Adjustment 49.2 to track plan. Room is coming together as time permits and hot weather continues to keep me inside through the heat of the day. Framed maps of the Manufacturer Railway Company arrived Friday from the framer and are now mounted on the walls. These are available through the Terminal Railroad Historical and Technical Society and are from the Collection of the Library and Archives of the Museum of Transportation, Kirkwood, Missouri. Pictures to follow.

Track plans of the Manufacturer Railway Company in south St. Louis, Missouri. Along the Mississippi River and around the Anheuser Busch Brewery at the foot of Arsenal St.

First picture is a blow up of the Arsenal Street Area from the entire map of the Railway and measures about 18" high and 21" long.

This second picture is the full map of the Manufacturer Railway Company and is 60 " x 24".

And here is the legend

Well hell Ric just staple the long map to the table and start laying the track (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Hey Dave, great idea! This whole project is lots of planning and research with years of gathering info. The actual modeling will be the extreme lower corner of what’s on the maps and I’m actually only trying to model about 2 city blocks of the MRS tracks. This is the Cherokee Street Yard and the American Car and Foundry on the other side of the Missouri Pacific mainline. The switching puzzles will be lots of staging on both ends and some industries and yard tracks for sorting.

Its hot here! I’ve got terrible withdrawal from missing the Invasion and the Operations at the Finger Lakes Live Steamers. Roger C. has a Operation Scenario around Passenger Operations. Great fun and I think they may have even had Ops on 1 Inch scale, today. That’s 4 3/4 inches between the rails.

Hopefully, it will get reported on.

As I hide from the heat in the middle of the day and through the evening, I’ve been working on the HO MRS switching layout. I got the road bed for the mainline laid today. Its a start.

OK, I’ll play second banana:

“How hot is it?”

Ric, this may be sacrilege, but have you considered N scale to get more in the same space. It’s extremely reliable now, and you can get sound units that are actually not bad at all.

Basically you could model about twice the distance and 4 times the area.

Greg

bad post… deleted