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 Choosing
a specific railroad and region to model can be a tough
decision for model railroaders simply because so many things
look good. However for me the decision of railroad and region
to model was pretty easy. I knew that I did not want to model
the typical green grass and green tree layout. With that
decision I figured a real good choice would be to model the
desert. I decided to model a freelanced former Southern
Pacific line from Southern California to Southwestern
Arizona. The well-known modeler of the modern Union Pacific
in the desert is Pelle Soeborg. Although my current layout
resembles his and it has been inspiring for me I often feel
that I have to remind other model railroaders that I did not
copy his layout. I planned and started building my layout
months before I ever heard of him and saw his phenomenal
work. His work has been featured many of times in Model
Railroader magazine and I enjoy seeing it every time.
I began my
current layout the Southern California Desert Rail Division in
late January 2004. It took me just about two weeks using
graph paper to come up with a size and design I wanted to
build. Although my basement is a good size at 22'x 25' I do
not have that typical large basement we see very often in the
MR magazine. So my original size planned for the layout was
only 13'x12' because Angela demanded I leave a nice size area
for storage and the washer and dryer. Within a few months the
layout grew to a big part of the area without much resistance
from Angie. I revised the dog bone L shape layout to add
staging and a longer mainline run for the big diesels and long
trains into a big square 16'x 25' area.
It was Thursday February 12, 2004
that I started construction on the bench work and two days
later that the original plan was built. I work very fast and
it was cool because I really thought I would be running trains
in that first week but I was wrong. It actually took three
weeks till the entire track was down. After completing the
bench work the next thing on the list was laying track of
course. At first it was a small challenge simply because I
had never laid flex track before and I was intimidated by
cutting track. I basically used 9" straight, 22" curves and
various other pieces of snap track to get a visual of the
track plan. I was originally planning to use all those
various pieces of track but I knew flex track would look
better and allow the trains to run much smoother than using
all those other pieces. Once the track was traced with a
black marker for laying roadbed I bought a couple rolls of
Woodland Scenics foam roadbed and used that for my layout. I
used it because I heard it was so great by modelers and much
easier to handle than cork. In the online forum I am an
active member of there is often an ongoing debate of which is
better cork or foam. There are many supporters of the foam
and swear by it but just as many supporters of foam there will
be just as many for the cork making it a 50/50 split. My
personal preference is definitely cork over foam. In my
opinion cork just muffles the sound much better than the foam
stuff and it was just as easy as the foam to install. When
track needed to be removed and replaced plus all my additions
to the layout I have since used cork roadbed. Once I got the
hang of laying flex track it was pretty easy and actually fun
to do! I knew I was going to use DCC so when laying the track
I would usually drop feeder lines down every 3 ft. or every
section of flex track but I sometimes purposely missed a
section or two and it has never resulted in a loss of power to
any part of my layout. Dropping feeders down every 3 ft. as
recommended by the pros is really an overkill in my opinion.
The beginning of March the bench work and track was complete.
To insure that I had good connections I would test it by
pushing boxcars and engines with my hand over the new
sections. Even though I did not have an operating system yet
the time had come to pick one.
Thanks to that horrible experience
with the previous DC layout with polarity switching and blocks
I made the decision that I was going to go with DCC for the
next layout. The only choice I had to make was choosing which
system was right for me. So I turned to the fellas at the
forum for advice. The majority of the members used Digitrax
on their personal and club layouts and all who owned it said
it was a top choice system. There were a small handful of
members using NCE and even members who did not own this system
said it was very easy to use and one of the best. That became
my top pick but the significantly higher price than any other
system had me rethinking that choice. Then there was another
small handful of members speaking great things of the Lenz
system. Then when they explained the way to go wireless was
as easy as plugging a cordless phone into the XpressNet by
Lenz. I was sold to the Lenz set-100 system when I learned of
that. I purchased the system with a handful of accessories
including two reverse loop modules that took the polarity
switching away from those switches to the automatic level! I
also purchased a Lenz throttle panel to a install in a
centrally location of the layout.
It's now been
over two years that I have operated the Lenz system and I can
honestly say I made the perfect choice for this layout. I
really enjoy this system a lot. In the beginning I only owned
three engines that I had to DCC equip so it was not too
expensive to do so. Then when I purchased another locomotive
I would also buy the correct decoder for it. The decoder
installations proved to be very easy even for my first time.
I have since installed all types of decoders into various
engines except steam. The ones I enjoyed the most was the
Athearn and Kato replacement boards but the newer models now
have an 8-pin socket for easier installation. If it were not
for DCC I actually believe I would not have remained in model
railroading so I give thanks to that.
I had big
expectations of doing the scenery. I knew that it was going
to be my favorite part of model railroading and building the SoCal Desert Rail Division. This was when I was able to make
the visions in my head a reality and in 3-D. It was also when
the spending increased dramatically.
My scenery for
Southern California was going to resemble what I saw in many
movies since I had never been there in person. I just had the
idea of yellow and light brown terrain with brushes and palm
trees throughout the layout. Before I could start the terrain
I had to first do the road system. I really was not looking
forward to doing this project either. I didn't have the
slightest idea how most modelers did theirs. One day I was at
the hobby shop and stumbled upon a container called Smooth-It
by Woodland Scenics and it described how to make roads easy.
I decided to give it a try so I bought it. It is a dry mix
that looks very similar to Pancake mix before and after you
add water. I then poured it into the designated areas for
roads and parking lots and smoothed it with the piece of
plastic provided from another kit for road making. I had to
let it stand for about 24 hours till it was completely dry.
At that point it is ready to be sanded smooth. After it is
sanded it is time to paint it the color gray of my choice
using a mixture of black and white acrylic paint. I also use
the same black acrylic paint to dry brush down both sides of
the roads to achieve the weathered appearance.
I spent the next
two years doing the scenery projects including building all my
buildings and spreading ground foam throughout the layout.
However I did not even work on the layout during the months of
May to mid-October every year due to our beautiful New England
summers. The following spring of 2005 I did a second addition
to my layout by adding a 5'x6' mountain with an Air force base
atop it and it looked great but since I wanted a longer
mainline run I quickly removed it within a year. I separated
the east end of the layout from the west and simply pushed it
further over to the eastern side of basement. That addition
created a good amount of room inside the layout for better
navigation for more than one person. In October 2005 I
knocked a wall down that was in back of the west end of my
layout. It was an unused old jar room that needed to come
down. That created about 5 more feet for an expansion so I
removed a 4'x2' section from the west end and went all the way
over to the western wall. That expansion also created a very
nice longer mainline run with a passing siding track that was
almost as long. These few additions to my layout turned my
layout into a layout I had a vision of before I even picked up
a drill and I am very pleased with the end results.
The southern
California Desert Rail Division is located in the desert of
southern Cali to southwestern Arizona so I knew I was going to
need palm trees and cactus to give the true feeling of the
desert. A few regular trees were planned as well.
This layout is such a nice change from the typical green
layouts that most model railroaders build. I originally
purchased more expensive $12 palm trees by Noch, but I
later discovered more realistic looking palm
tree kits sold in a three pack by Pegasus Hobbies which
were almost half the price of each Noch ones. I also have a
handful of cacti. You will see regular green trees throughout
the layout as well but not many.
This layout was built to please the railfan enthusiast inside of me. My experience with seeing
live trains is standing on the side of a mainline watching a
train come by not switching in a yard or industry. I take a
big railfan trip with model railroad club members to Fostoria,
Oh to the triple diamond and I love seeing those big diesels
traveling at a high rate of speed with 100+ cars past us.
That is why I chose to build a railfan style as opposed to a
switching style layout. I enjoy looking at the scenery of any
layout and that is hard to do when you have a big
responsibility of switching in and out cars in a reasonable
amount of time. For me, that is kind of boring. I really
wanted to have three main themes on my layout, a small city, a
mountainous region and most of importantly the hot flat
desert. I was able to successfully achieve this too by
building the additions!
Let's take a tour of my layout starting by traveling north on
Main St. In the city you will see a lot of modern business
too. Before you enter the center of town you will pass a train
yard on your left and a busy engine facility across the street
from the train yard on your right. Continue traveling north up
to the grade crossing and you will see a few guys playing a
game of basketball and across the street there is a Sprint
store. After you go over the grade crossing you are in the
center of Palm Springs, California. On Main St. you will see
such businesses as a hobby shop, gas station, bank, liquor
store and Subway restaurant located in the same building
complex as the Al's Liquor Store. As you turn off main onto
West Main St. you will have an opportunity to eat at Burger
King or Taco bell located right next door. You may also stop
at the Loews Movie Theater to see a movie. Continue traveling
west onto the Parker Bridge over the Monster River that is
actually quite small. Look down at the river and see people
kayaking, fishing and canoeing. Over the bridge towards the
San Jacinto Mountains you will see a funeral in progress at
the graveyard. Travel up the hill into the mountains you will
see a beautiful scene of a loan diner and an industry right
next to the mountain. Also you can see some ones home built
into the mountain in the distance. The diner is the last place
to eat for the next 40 miles so if you have not eaten now is
the time.
On the other side of the mountain you
will enter into the sparsely populated desert. It is the place
that is mostly flat. In the summer temperatures reach the low
100's and it cools off during the wintertime down to the 80's.
Bring lots of water with you if you plan on traveling through
here on foot. The only people you would see in this area are
traveling hobos that hop trains at night and hang out drinking
all day. There are not many roads in this desert area either.
Traveling south you will eventually run into a big
manufacturing company called the Legend Fire Supply Co. that
makes pneumatic tools for fire departments around the country.
Not too far from there is a small cement company called Hoffa
Cement that does pretty good business through the year. Just a
block away us a couple of Shell gas storage tanks. The busy
scrap yard is located right next to tanks. They take trash
delivered by trucks and ship it out by train. Located about a
mile away is the Palm Desert County fire dept, which is a
career fire dept that responds to about 1500 calls per year.
When they are not busy at a call you may see a couple of them
picking up dinner at the Silver Dollar diner next door. That
will conclude the tour of the Southern California Desert Rail
Division thanks for visiting and we hope you come back again
soon.
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