PRR Panhandle 2.0

George, Best of luck with your new layout. I look forward to all of your detailed updates/photos. 

  Tom 

Updated 5/16/2017:

I have rendered, as best I could, the train room and the layout's placement within it.  Yesterday, I took a number of detailed measurements of the room and created a Visio drawing of it.  Then I placed a JPEG of the RR-Track layout on top of it.  It's not perfect, but it should convey the main idea.  Anywhere you see solid white or gray areas are aisles.  I couldn't extend those to fit the odd shape of the areas, so I created blank spots (grayish-blue) and labeled them as aisles as well.  The spaces are actually, in fact, contiguous.  I think we end up with an aisle at the front right of the layout that is minimally 30" (maybe 34") wide.

The leftmost door leads to the workshop. The center door opens to a closet under the stairs. The rightmost door leads to the roughed in powder room / furnace room. The stairs lead up to the main floor.

Your thoughts, suggestions, and questions are always welcome.

George

George,

Yes I am able to pick out the aisle areas and see that the different colored areas are really one big, long space.  Please refresh my memory from the previous plan.  Are the red spaces pop-up access holes?  As I recall, the area to the right of the large mill is staging for trains and also single engines in the corners.  Are there some areas around the mill that you won't be able to reach easily once the mill is in place, or will it be removable?  It looks to me like your adjusted, previous plan works out nicely in the new, long space.

George,

I think the Panhandle was mostly double track.     Here is a suggestion for the mainlline that would give you more the look of double track.    This is just a schematic, not to scale.    It also gives you more aisle access.    You would turn the towns and industries and put them along the tracks.    Just an idea.

Mark Boyce posted:

George,

Yes I am able to pick out the aisle areas and see that the different colored areas are really one big, long space.  Please refresh my memory from the previous plan.  Are the red spaces pop-up access holes?  As I recall, the area to the right of the large mill is staging for trains and also single engines in the corners.  Are there some areas around the mill that you won't be able to reach easily once the mill is in place, or will it be removable?  It looks to me like your adjusted, previous plan works out nicely in the new, long space.

Mark,

Yes, the red areas are pop-up access holes, either hatches or hand-only.   The area to the right of the mills (there's a divider there that might be difficult to see) is for staging and engine storage.   I also intend to install some shelving on the walls and / or back of the divider / backdrop in that area.  Not shown in the staging area is the small window near the ceiling that may be used to help vent smoke / heat during operating sessions. 

Not all of the red areas are visible in the diagram; some of them are under the largest mill (Open Hearth, that's 2nd from the bottom of the layout).  My intent is to have all mill spurs within easy reach.  Ideally, I don't want to be lifting large mills in/out of position.  And with a layout height of 4', I can simply roll under there and retrieve / fix what goes astray.

Thank you, I also believe the adjustments are working out as well.  The longer new space does lend itself to the original design pretty well.

George

prrjim posted:

George,

I think the Panhandle was mostly double track.     Here is a suggestion for the mainlline that would give you more the look of double track.    This is just a schematic, not to scale.    It also gives you more aisle access.    You would turn the towns and industries and put them along the tracks.    Just an idea.

Jim,

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to put this idea in front of me! 

And yes, the Panhandle was double-tracked, 3 tracked, and even 4 tracked in some spots.

With some tweaks, I think the eastern side of the layout already follows your direction.  However, I will take a crack at revising the Steubenville part and see how that plays out vis-a-vis room spacing.

Thanks again!

George

George remember as you get older, crawling under the layout to reach an access hole, or crawling across the top gets less and less appealing..      So getting aisle acess to as much as possible is often works out down the road.     You could build it all 30-36 inches wide and put the tracks in reach almost everywhere.    Put the buildings and scenery toward the back.

I hear you Jim.  That's why the layout will be constructed at 48" height off the floor.  And why I will be using one of these.

I do appreciate the thought, though.

George

Updated 6/5/2017:

We are having some dribbles of progress, little baby-steps towards getting the workshop and train room prepared for bigger things.

First photo is of the major set of shelves in the workshop. I am still finding bins, but we've gotten a lot in place.

Second photo is of one of the spots in the workshop reserved for a pegboard.  The other pegboard will go on the wall to the right of the door.

Here's a shot of the pegboard and furring strips awaiting the opportunity for assembly.

Final shot is of the exhaust fan I found.  It's just above what will become the staging area.

Like I said, slow progress, but at least it's a start. 

George

Excellent start!!

Got to start somewhere.

Updated 6/9/2017:

I've made some progress on the lighting front.  I decided the obvious solution to getting identical lighting in both the workshop and the train room was to (DOH!) do the same lighting fixtures and bulbs.  Instead of going for shop lights in the workshop and track lighting in the train room, I am just doing track lighting everywhere.  I had a very helpful visit from a lighting sales person at the house yesterday.  He knew the products, lighting, and worked hard to understand what I wanted.  Track lighting with 4100K bulbs will give me the flexibility to play around with dispersing light and seeing how the color works in the room.  And it will be less expensive than LED shop lights. 

This is a big step forward and I'm pretty happy about it!   

George

Updated 6/10/2017:

Made a little more progress today.  The paint booth has been ordered.  Also found a cheap 2-shelf bookcase to go under it to hold paint, gloves, and supplies.   Tomorrow will be taken up with more "honey-do" moving stuff and then Stanley Cup Final Game 6! 

Hope to get to installing my pegboard walls on Monday.

George

Updated 6/22/2017:

Happy to report some progress:

• After 45 days, we were able to put the car in the garage!
• All major appliances are in and operational!
• Garage is semi-organized!
• First pegboard sheet has been installed.

One 3' x 8' pegboard sheet will go below this one and another will be installed to the right of it. An access hole will be cut for the electrical panel.

Slow, but steady. I am using 2.5" drywall screws through the drywall into the 2"x4" stud beneath. The pegboard is attached with 1 3/8" drywall screws and fender washers into the furring strips. Yeah, it's overbuilt, but that's my approach after the hard-won lessons of PRR Panhandle 1.0.

So far, so good.

George

Yes! This is exciting to watch, with the anxiety of the lumber for...well you know. 

George, Glad things are shaping up. You know, you can't have enough pegboard! 

Congrats on the Penguins! I have an autographed hockey stick from years ago when ex-Islander Bryan Trottier and his Pittsburgh teammates signed it.

Tom 

Thank you!  It's awesome to be back in Pittsburgh; the town went nuts when the Pens won the Cup.

It's true; you can't have enough pegboard.  There are always more tools than pegboard.

At this point, I only have about 20% of it installed. 

George

George, Looks like you are moving along nicely!  You beat us, after roughly 2100 days in this house, we still can't get the car in the garage.  My wife keeps saying she will go through it all, but I'm not holding my breath.    Pegboard, no not here; my father-in-law put the old kitchen cabinets up all over the walls, and there is no room for pegboard here.  

Yes, you did come back in the nick of time for the Penguins victory!  

Updated 6/23/2017:

Got the 2nd pegboard panel installed.  We are 40% of the way there.

George

Updated 6/23/2017:

I managed to get all the pegboard installed for the back wall of the workshop.  In the process, I used my new Dremel Max Saw; it's very easy to manuever.

Surprisingly, the last section actually fits around the breaker box!

How did that happen?  

George