Bakersfield & Ventura Model Railroad

I was cleaning my garage the other day and pulled out a 30x60 inch layout I started some years back in HOn30, but abandoned pretty quickly. The trains were just too small for me, and there wasn't a lot of equipment available -- there's no equivalent of Bachmann's relatively cheap and plentiful ready-to-run On30 cars and locomotives, and only a few kits. I'm kind of taking this as a sign from the fates. The overall size of the old, partly built layout is in the upper range of what I was thinking about doing in On30. The curve of N scale track at the left end in the photo is 12 inch radius, and the right end is 13 inches, both in the range of what I was considering. The rest of the track plan doesn't translate so well -- the plan drawn on the board has a passing siding on the front side that would have been short in HOn30 and would have been all but useless in On30. The upper level branchline track has a 9 inch curve, which is probably too tight for anything but an 0-...

The other day, as my wife and I were rearranging some furniture in the living room, she made the comment that it might be fun to put a small train display on a side table where she normally displays some potted plants. She had in mind my Lockwood & San Emigdio On30 diorama, which she's watched me work on the last several months -- but of course, the suggestion got me thinking in other directions. Since the purpose, at least in part, will be to entertain the grandkids when they come to visit, it makes sense to have a continuous lap. Since the tabletop is only about 25 by 54 inches, that limits me to a 10 or maybe 11 inch radius, a bit more if I overlap the tabletop a few inches. I'm thinking On30, so that's too tight for any of the equipment I currently own. There are some people doing wonderful work in On30 building mini- and micro-layouts with these kinds of curves and smaller, using the Bachmann 0-4-0 and 0-4-2 Porters, Davenport gas-mechanicals, and other small switc...

 As I play around with it, right now I'm leaning toward some variation on a lap-with-branch configuration. Here's the latest version, including a simplified version of the Gumstump & Snowshoe-inspired shelf layout at the end of the Staffer branch (the yellow rectangle). I've routed the branch to the left, around the inside of the left-hand loop, to get enough altitude. The mainline is pretty flat, with just a half inch or so of elevation on the back side to provide a little separation from Lockwood Yard. The branch climbs a three percent grade to cross over the main, then continues on a modest grade to Stauffer. For posterity, here are a few AnyRail "sketches"on of earlier versions: There is a door at the lower right; the gray rectangle is an existing book case. I wanted to make sure there was enough clearance to get to the door. With this one, the branch comes off the "wrong" end of the yard -- a train made up in Lockwood yard would have to back out...

I came across a few old slides of my former layout (late '80s-early '90s), the Palo Verde & Pacific. Here a a few shots for the historical record. The locomotive is a first-run Atlas/Kato RSD 4/5. The signal you see in two of the photos is a scratchbuilt LED signal actuated by a homemade Twin-T detector.

The last major component on the L&SE diorama is this Banta Modelworks Miner's Cabin next to the ore bin. I had to do a little surgery on the hillside to make a spot for it. The Banta cabin is a nice little kit. I made/am making a few modifications. Because the building is going to be on a hillside and partly on piers, I added some 12x6 scale timbers underneath -- this is similar to how the cabins are built at Camp Three Falls in Lockwood Valley, where I have spent a lot of time. I believe part of the idea is that if the building needs to be moved, it could easily be skidded onto a flatbed. That would make sense for a mining structure as well. We don't want anyone falling off the elevated porch, so I added a railing on the front and one end. The stairs will go down the other end. Banta makes this kit in several scales. The O scale and smaller versions come with simulated tarpaper roofing, but the F/G scale version has corrugated metal. I like the look of the metal roofing be...

As my Lockwood & San Emigdio diorama is getting down to the details, I'm thinking about doing something in HO, with enough track to do some switching. This was spurred in part when I came across an old track plan called the Gum Stump & Snowshoe. It was originally designed by Chuck Yungkirth, a pioneer model railroader, in the late 1950s or early 1960s. His version was a 1 x 6 foot shelf, kind of a tour-de-force microlayout/switching puzzle. I spent some time fiddling with it in Anyrail, expanding it from the original 1 x 6 feet, to 16 inches by 7 or 8 feet. Here's his version: One of the criticisms of this plan is that there's no run-around track, so switching all the sidings with a single engine is virtually impossible. But I believe this was intended as a two-engine switching puzzle, with two engineers having to cooperate to complete the switching task. Still, I'd want to add a run-around because I'd mostly be running it by myself. Here is is redrawn with ...

I carved a retaining wall from a scrap of EPS foam. Quick and easy. It's painted with cheap craft store acrylic paint. Here are a couple of photos. I'm using sand, harvested along the North Fork of Lockwood Creek, as my base ground cover. It looks fine to my eyes, but in photos appears much too coarse, like gravel. On my next build I plan to try sanded grout. The set of miners I bought includes this guy pushing an ore cart, which I finally painted and installed on top of the ore bin. At the other end, I poured Woodland Scenics Realistic Water so the prospectors could pan for gold. It's actually too clear; if I use it again in the future I'll add some of their Murky Water tint. Might even get some Murky Water and pour another layer over the top here. Next up, I just ordered a Banta Miner's Shack, which will sit just to the left of the ore bin. Also need to make up some pine trees from the Woodland Scenics kit I bought a while back. At that point, the On30 diorama wil...