Layout Expansion in progress 9-24-23 new factory added

Thanks for all the great feedback guys!

I have been completing more of the construction, here are some additional photos. At this point I have completed the framing, legs, girders, cross braces in the bench work, and covered it with OSB sheeting. Next step is to add the homasote. I intend also to add some additional elevation using dimensional lumber, and foam.
I also found a Lionel lift bridge I intend to use in the harbor area.
The gap you can see in the second to last photo is the access to the breaker panel that is behind the framed poster. This will have some lift out bridges to provide better access with less reach.

Bench work Construction complete!
Well back at it again, I have made some more progress completing the bench work construction. The entire layout is now covered with Homasote. I have placed this down as the base on top of the OSB. It is also on the elevated sections at the back of the layout. The grade to and from these elevated areas will be a combination of a trestle extension (I will extend the trestle at the back left of the layout to make a curve to meet he back elevated area) the inside track will ramp up using foam. The same type of approach will be on the back right corner where it comes back down.

The homosote is painted with a flat latex paint, a kind of “sandy – mud - dirt color” I didn’t do this before, and when I saw the results others had here on the forum I tried it out.

After the homasote was installed and painted, I added wood trim boards around the layouts – 1x6 dimensional lumber and then painted flat black to match the existing construction.

View from the bottom of the stairs 

Harbor area in the foreground right, look back across the city to the left. The harbor will have 2” foam to elevate the pier, I plan to install that next. I have removed some of the supports from the elevated line on the city peninsula, I am reworking that to have a line run beneath it, and then two sidings for passenger cars for a large passenger terminal. 

Harbor in the front left, looking at the smaller town and the “mountain” top “ amusement park on the right.


I have started to stage track and switch’s amongst other things in the yards and service area


Yards to the right, the gap you see is so I can get to the breaker panel behind the framed poster. This will have a few removable bridges for easy access.
 

Looking back at the service area

I stocked up on some conduit clamps to start installing for wire management, and while at it I will re layout my central wiring area to get better access to the AIU terminal strips.

Things always seem to take longer than I expect, but I think the progress is OK. I am looking forward to putting the saws away and working on track and wiring next. As always comments and suggestions welcome.

I have had some travel for work recently, and been unable to get things done on the layout, but I had some time this week to complete a few things. I have mostly been working on laying track, and installing the cork roadbed under it. I generally layout the track first following my track plan, and slide the cork bed under the track. I secure the cork to the Homasote buy using some HO track spikes a simple nails.

The first thing I did was to construct a curved trestle to join the side with the back of the layout elevated tracks.

While the track plan didn’t change much in the foreground with this elevated areas (to be part of the city) I have been changing out the all curves to O 81 or O 90 where I can fit it, and a minimum of O 72. (I previously had O72 everywhere, but wanted to expand while I could)


One of the new areas of the layout is to add a harbor area. This is on a peninsula that is about 8.5’ by 6.5’. I built the bench work lower to provide for the depth of the piers. The loop around it has sidings to provide access to some planed oil storage tanks, and a freight house. I built up the piers using some 1.5” and 2” foam. The Lionel lift bridge serves as the entrance to the harbor, and is anchored to some risers of wood attached to the bench work. The back area will have another bridge for the overpass of the track coming from the elevated section on the previous peninsula. This has yet to be fabricated, so I used some MTH bridge supports for the time being.


This view looks back at the small town/city that I had previous stated before I worked on this expansion. This is where the expansion ties into this existing peninsula.



Here is a shot looking back across the layout in the direction of the first peninsula and the stairs.

 

Next I will be laying the mainlines on the last portion, the new yard and service area on the far wall. Once done with that I will begin wiring.

As always suggestions, comments and critique always welcome. This layout includes lots of ideas I have gotten and skills learned here on the forum, so thanks to all who contribute.

9-4-11

Thaks for all the great feedback guys!

After completing some more track power wiring, I moved to installing my bowser 32” turntable. I have had this in the closet for about 2 years now (I bought it form a forum member – very nice exchange). When I got it home I realized that I really didn’t have room on my existing layout, so in a way this was a driver for this expansion. In order to complete laying track in the engine service area (just off the yard) I needed to place the turn table and roundhouse, I feel the rest will fall in around that.
I measures and cut a hole in both the homasote level, and the OSB to support the turntable. Additionally I reworked some of the stringers under the table for support.
 

Once I had the table fitting in the cut out, it went back to my shop to do some quick weathering. I painted the top to match the “sand/mud” color I painted the homasote with, and stated a series of cement colors on the pit. I also added some grimy black, and added some black ballast/coal around the edges as if it fell in over time. I have the detailing kit, and have started assembly and painting the detail parts. I will add that once I get back to the turntable.

 
I also decided, based on some of the feedback on the forum to purchase a mill house power upgrade, only wanted to do this once. Once that comes in I will update the table and wire it in. The paper template is for a korber 6 stall roundhouse I have to build.

I had also been meaning to install a skirt on the layout, and was unsure of what to do. I had read some posts about using landscaping cloth, so I thought I would give it a try. I have a pretty large area to cover, so although something like table skirting looks great, it would be pretty costly for my room. I did one of the peninsulas in about 30-45 minutes, and I am happy with the results.


As always comments and suggestions welcome.

In the past few weeks I knocked off a few projects that don’t show much. I reworked some support brackets to make it simpler to install the backdrops I orders, and re placed some of the last wiring form the old layout that I still had in use.

I completed the skirting around the layout. Given I had such a large area I needed something cost effective. I used the landscaping cloth, and I am happy with the results. I didn’t realize what a different it makes in the look of the layout.

10-9-11



I continue to work on the turntable and engine service area. The first step for me was to install the turntable, and place the template of the roundhouse. With that done I was able to lay the rest of the track for the area. It is accessed from the top of the yard, and has two leads to the turntable, a siding for coal to a tower I plan, and a siding for MOW cars. There is also an area for a two stall diesel engine house I will ad.



On the other side of the layout is a curved trestle area. I spent some time adding more bents, and some cross section supports to the curved part. I placed it with only a few bents to get started, but wanted to make it more realistic with the right amount and spacing of trestle bent supports.



I have removed the turntable bridge, and am adding the detailing kit to it in the work shop. I hope to have that done in a few weeks. I have also started making the base for the roundhouse, and will start to build that.

I am looking forward to making it to York this year. I have work travel, but will be able to get there for Friday and Saturday, especially meeting some at the ORG forum event at the grandstands.

As always suggestions and comments welcome.

10-30-11
Here is some work I did to complete the detailing of the turntable bridge. I picked up both the control house, and the stanchions for the e railing form Al at Millhouse River while at York. He has these new laser cut pieces and new brass castings. Very nice pieces, I think they look much better than the stock parts in the Bowser detailing kit.
 

Next stop is to build the round house. I have the outer walls together, and I am about ¾ of the way thru the wood supports.
As always suggestions and comments welcome.

11-27-11
I have like three projects going, the round house, backdrop and the harbor, all in some portion of completion, I have been alternating between them as I wait for things to dry in some cases.

To start I wanted to have a large roundhouse, I looked at several models, and decided on the Korber. I used the larger of the two kits, the 304, however I was unable to get additional stalls, but I was able to find one of the shorter kits 320. So this is a kitbash of two Korber kits together. I built up addition wood bracing, added a floor, and will add lighting before adding the top.
 

In another project I have finally started to install a backdrop. I went back and forth on what to do, was I going to paint one, or would I purchase one, and in purchased, from whom. After some research, reflecting on my painting ability, and viewing multiple people layouts and efforts on the web, I selected some from Backdrop Warehouse.
I went for the higher resolution, 12’ by 42” ones with a selection of seven 12’ sections that all match to crease a continuous backdrop around my layout. While these are not the least expensive, so far I am happy with the results.

Laser level on top of paint buckets
 
The back corner was rounded using 1/8” Masonite sheet.

To align it, I used an inexpensive laser level from HD, and to attach to the wall, I used carpet tape as suggested by Patrick H on the OGR forum, and it worked well for me. I still have more to do, including finalizing the seams, but so far so good. It really transforms the room and layout. I had guests over for thanksgiving, and received a ton of complements.


The third areas I mentioned was the harbor, you can see some of it in the above pictures, including the tank farm. I have some glass to paint and put down for the water.
As always open for comments and suggestions.

Thanks Patrick,

I have a long way to go to get to the level you have going. Thanks for the help.

12-5-11
Completed hanging the backdrop, I am really happy about the outcome, looks great, and really adds a lot to the layout. I have a cover flush to the wall for the power panel, I have to trim that out when I get a few minutes. The carpet tape method worked really well for me, and I also used a double back tape for the seams a well. A bit of work to hang, but far better than anything I could paint.

A NYC GP9 in the yard on the way to the engine service area
 
I spent some time on the harbor area. I completed the glass for the water. I used the method Dennis B covers in his book, the aquatex glass painted on the back side with rustolium camo green paint. I think it looks realistic.

A NYC freight makes its way thru are harbor area.

Still more to do, back to the round house soon, I may add some support to the elevated area I got from bridge boss.

As always open for comments and suggestions.

12-14-11

I jumped to another section of the layout to complete a project that has been on my list for a while; the elevated steel line leading to and from the future city hi rise area. This section started on my layout before I embarked on this expansion, and linked to a kitbashed bridge to make an inside curve around a post.

When I cut the layout apart and moved sections to be a portion of the new expanded layout, I ended up needing to run track under this to accommodate both a mainline and several passenger sidings to be part of the large station. It also had to have a curved section added to meet the new bridge in the harbor area. I have been using pieces of MTH stone bridge support and sections from a graduated trestle set that I had started with before which you can see in the following shots.

While this approach looked ok when I didn’t have track under the elevated section as it was before, I didn’t like the look it had now. I searched around to find something that would work and look good, and found several solutions from a few suppliers. I met Jim from Bridge Boss at York, and really liked his approach. We discussed what I was trying to do, and I left to go back and take some measurements and placed an order shortly after for some ELC – 6.0 supports, as you can see form the chart below, there are a lot of support choices.

Now I want to point out this elevated section is a kitbash I did for the steel girders using upside down HO atlas bridge sections, and I simply added the Bridge Boss supports, they do however have a nice system for elevated sections if you are starting with out anything, I think others including Rich Batista have posted pictures on that. These supports come flat packed and require some simple assembly, one was assembled in the box as a sample. I painted them flat black using the rustolium camouflage paint to tie in with the black girders I used before.

 

I am happy with the outcome; I think it looks much better than before. Still more to do, back to the roundhouse soon, and the harbor, the wall will be next I think.

As always open for comments and suggestions.

12-29-11

Thanks for the nice comments guys.

Alex, yes there is a bit larger gap there for the curved part. While it is not really needed for support, I think I will get back to it from an aesthetics point of view. What I think I need is a bit wider support (these are the narrowest from Bridge Boss)t so I can align the aisle side up with the others, and cross over the lower level track.

The roundhouse is built!

After getting the track down, and turntable installed in my engine service area, I moved on to the main structure that will be there, the Round house. I used two different size Korber kits as additional stalls for the larger one that I started with were not available any longer. I had to build up addition wood bracing at the two kits came with different sized wood.


I built the round house in the shop area for easy access. The kit in built on a ¼ plywood base (it is sitting on saw horses with a piece of scrape OSB as a work table). The interior floor is made of painted foam core. I added LED lights in side, I added some addition wood cross pieces as a way to hold them and run the wires. The wires are consolidated at the front right side of the roundhouse to crease a main feeders for the +12VDC.

 

Since this was a kit bash of two different sized units, the sections are slightly different widths, this caused for a bit of cutting in the roof windows, and I needed to create a custom roof. I used matt board, and covered it with the fine ballast that came with the kits for the roof cover.
So far so good, now on to installing it on the layout and wiring up the power for the tracks and the lights.

As always open for comments and suggestions.

1-8-12

Thanks for the kind words Pops!

Well I have been working on a few projects. I have been meaning to add a drop down door access to the electrical panel area, and while I built the bench work to support this, I didn’t complete the task. Additionally I had installed the backdrop over the panel with the intention of cutting it out and attaching to a removable panel.

Here are some shots of the work in progress, and the completed set up. The door drops down to create the opening.



I have a bit more details to fool with, but for the most part I am happy with the progress.

The second thing I was working on was to get the round house on the layout and the track power wired up. So far so good.



As always open for comments and suggestions.

Glad that helped Alex, I really like using that material, it worked really well for the roof.

Based on David’s good suggestion I made up some signs (after a trip to the store for more ink for the printer).


I have started working on the harbor area of the layout. I ordered some plastruct detail parts, and started to add them to the storage tanks. I plan to add some cat walks, ladders and piping.



I have also started on the steel seawall that will line much of the harbor. I started by laying out a piece of duct tape sticky side up, and laying out cut pieces of screen framing. The framing is cut to 2” length complements of Patrick H. I intend to paint and weather it as well.


As always open to suggestions and comments.