After buying a new basement for me and a house above it for the wife and kids, I started thinking about my current layout and the possibilities that the new basement offers. During the last year or so, I have also been able to attend a few operating sessions on some very large, "operations oriented" layouts in the area. This led me to the following conclusions;

1.) My current layout is built using "archaic" methods causing it to be difficult to transport, work on, or even operate on. It is 'L Girder' bench work with a sandwhich of plywood and homosote on top, cookie cutter style. It is way too heavy.

2.) The current layout's track plan is a loop with a yard and wye at one end and several short sidings and spurs located off of the main loop. It is difficult to switch out several of the industries and almost impossible to pass another full train due to the short siding lengths. It just isn't a plan that will allow for more than three operators, the larger layouts that I have operated on can accomodate ten people with ease. The only thing I need ten people for is to move my layout, it's way too heavy.

3.) The current wiring is dual cab DC block control and has been re-wired in various stages, none of which I am very happy with. I have also converted over to DCC and the wiring is really too small for multiple locos operating at once. I used too light a wiring and too heavy a benchwork.

4.) The theme, track plan and scenery on the current layout started as a freelanced logging and mining road in Colorado using equipment from, and interchanging with, several Colorado narrow gauge railroads. This was fine until the past few years when my interest has shifted toward modeling my favorite prototype railroad, the Denver and Rio Grande Western from 1935 to 1939. My current layout doesn't have anything that resembles the prototype, except for the locos and rolling stock that I have built since I started researching the Denver and Rio Grande Western.

5.) After driving into Colorado, exploring just a little of the old San Juan Extension, namely Antonito, Chama, Durango and Silverton, I just had to build my version of this line. Besides, it'd give me a change to build a layout using foam almost exclusively, did I mention that my current layout is too heavy?

After dealing with the headaches of small layouts and track plans that were anything but 'planned', I decided that the new track plan would be a fairly good representaion of the line from Alamosa to Durango and eventually include the Silverton branch and the Farmington branch as later additions. Silverton will start out as a reverse loop and a siding where full cars will be dropped and empties picked up. The Farmington branch will be the last addition and will be a lower level existing under the Durango to Chama branch that will run along the west wall of the basement. I've finished the majority of the plan except for some areas that I am still researching, such as the part of the line between Chama and Durango. I have the benchwork along this line planned due to space limitations, so the prototype track plan will have to be severely condensed into my limited space. I'll post the track plan here, once I get the CAD version drawn. The main goals of the track plan are:

1) To represent the Denver & Rio Grande Western's San Juan Extension as close as I can without compromising the other design goals.

2) A layout that is large enough to handle any number of operators from a mimimum of one-me, to a maximum of fifteen operators without congestion on the layout or in the isleways.

3) Hug the walls, allow plenty of open area for free operator movement. I do have some isleways that are only thirty six inches wide, but they will only have to accomodate the Chama yard switcher and any through train operators that run between Chama and Antonito. This should be a maximum of three operators sharing an area of 3'x 20' area. I can live with this.

4) Eliminate any confusing electrical controls and block wiring. As a rookie when it comes to operations, I've found myself scratching my head when it comes to operating some of the elaborate block controls in some of the large yards on a couple local layouts. My plan is to use DCC for the entire layout, with Alamosa, Antonito, Chama, Durango and Silverton being wired as seperate power districts for trouble shooting purposes. This will also eliminate a short caused by a derailment from shutting down the entire layout and frustrating operators. The layout facia will incorporate plenty of UP-3 panels for plugging in throttles and several UR-90 infrared receiver panels for running wireless. All turnouts will be manually controlled using slide switches to handle frog polarity and the actual throw. This method is cheap and close to foolproof.

5) The layout should be built using all lightweight materials and should be easy to work on. The first of these requirements will be met by using 2" Dow Corning extruded polystyrene foam as the layout base. The second is achieved by building a base that will be sectional and no section shall exceed 6' in length. The sections will be removable from the layout to allow me to easily work on scenery and structures at my workbench. This will also make the layout somewhat portable, in the event of a move, or the need or desire for outdoor photography of the layout.

Since I now had a plan, and believe me it's the first time, I decided to start building.............

This layout is a semi-permanent layout, so I needed a way to support it well but allow for quick and easy disassembly should the need arise. The area of the layout from Cumbres to Antonito will be free standing but most of it is tucked close to the walls. Since Durango was to be a focal point, I started by building the benchwork for this section first. I wanted a lightweight but sturdy bracket and came up with a 45degree design built using 1x4 pine. A typical bracket looks like this wall bracket. These end brackets are used where the layout passes through the wall in two places and are also used as supports in some corners. Durango required six angle brackets, one end bracket and one corner bracket as shown here, and also in this view, looking north toward Silverton. The former owners of the basement had installed the tongue and groove boards all throughout the basement, so I was free to screw the brackets right to the wall without concern for stud locations or wall anchors. I installed them on thirty six inch centers. This gave enough support for the layout and allowed me to have a bracket under each joint between the six foot long modules. With the brackets installed, I added fascia in the form of one eighth inch thick masonite hardboard cut to a six inch width. The top edge will be cut to follow the profile of the scenery along the front edge of Durango, where it follows the Animas River bank. You can also see my added can lights above Durango.......boy, what a difference adequate lighting makes.

Okay, benchwork in place, fascia installed, can lights to work under.....looks like some base for the modules is in order. I added this using two inch thick Owens Corning extruded polystyrene. The open benchwork really made things easy by allowing me to lay the foam over the benchwork and scribe the cut line along the back of the fasia, then it was a matter of cutting the foam and dropping the sections into place. I decided to cut two of everything and make the base four inches thick by gluing the two sections together with liquid nails for foam. This should make a nice strong foundation, yet be light enough to take advantage of the removable module feature.

Before I finish the remainder of the benchwork and foam base, I decided to lay down subroadbed, track and the basecoat of scenery in Durango to get an idea of how well my foam base foundation system was going to work. One of the drawbacks to the use of foam is its tendency to act as a sound board, kind of like the stretched skin of a drum. I'm hoping the use of cork subroadbed and the addition of a layer of sculptamold over the foam will eliminate this undesired effect. If this doesn't cut the noise level, my next step will be the addition of accoustic foam attatched under the layout, in between the angle bracket supports and a fabric skirting along the front of the layout. The combination of all these features should reduce excessive noise bounce and give me some needed storage underneath the layout.

    I started to lay out the subroadbed by using N-scale cork. I cut the cork in half and used each half  as individual pieces of the subroadbed. I pinned these pieces to the foam using map pins to temporarily secure each piece in place. I pinned everything down in Durango's North Yard according to the Maxwell map of Durango dated 1939. Once the cork was pinned down, and approved by the Durango trackmaster, I traced along each side of it with a black marker and removed it. I  precut each piece of cork to allow for turnouts and such and glued the cork to the foam with yellow carpenters glue following the black marker lines. I didn't get too critical about the turnout angles. I just made sure that none were tighter than a number 5 by checking the cork layout with a premade #5 turnout. Most of the turnouts average between #6 and #8 with a couple of #5's thrown in to keep the bolster pins exercised. I spaced the North Yard tracks on 1-1/4" centers rather than the usual 1" centers. This gives the yard operator a nice unobstructed view of all of the car numbers on all of the yard tracks. It also allows those of us with fat fumbly fingers to easily rerail a car without flattening the whole yard! Once the north yard was done, it looked like this......and another view from high above the turntable looking north.... I repeated the procedure for the south yard engine facility as well, again using the map available from the John Maxwell collection, it now looks like this.

With the cork securely in place, I started marking the foundations for some of the railroad structures. The Durango depot will be a highly detailed centerpiece and will be full scale, the section house will be built here next to 6th street, and the turntable will go in here and the roundhouse will be added later. I marked out the location of the freight depot, but I don't have any plans of it yet, so I'm unsure of it's exact dimensions. I also marked out the ice house, the car shops, sand facility, coal tower and all of the rest of the 'essential' rail related structures.

    I finished laying all of the ties on the module that contained the south half of the north yard and started laying rail. I began with the west track that runs behind the freight house. I soldered the rail to the pc ties, gapped the pc ties, tested for conductivity to the feeders and shot the track with rail brown. The cheapest rail brown that I've found is, Rust-Oleum Stops Rust Rusty Metal Primer. Shake it well and spray it on....nothin' to it. Here's a close gander of it. And another shot showing an RGS caboose left in Durango....Otto needs to keep his junk out of Durango or I'm sending the Trackmaster after him!!

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