First Curved Stub turn-out

Made my first curved turn-out today. It is a stub to go into Argo Tunnel. 24-21 left hand.





Thanks for all the great posts that helped so much!

Cameron

First book has been published - Rivers, Rapids and Rushing Water.

Just wanted to share my first book has been published - Rivers, Rapids and Rushing Water.

Front and back cover

Table of contents.

Thanks to all who followed along on the journey, it was really fun.

Cameron

Stanley Pre-1910 plans and picture

Found an outline of the pre 1910 Stanley mine complex that will be the basis of the Stanley on the Idaho Springs Redesign.


This is a really neat design and gives a spur south of complex. Note boiler with coal storage, processing and shaft.


Picture shows facility prior to 1910.

More changes to design to make both more workable and more like prototype. This will be quite different than Harry's excellent scene set in 1930's.

Thanks Cameron

More WOW Decoder info.

As stated in the above post; the advantages to WOW101 is it can be used with or without keep alive and the keep alive can be put in a different location or different orientation allowing more flexibility to fit to small loco's.




This is the decoder with required wiring harness.


This is the keep alive. You can see size by scale. What I really like is you can choose to use or not use based on your need. If you have dirty track or dead frogs, the keep alive can really help. Another neat result is you can put keep alive in another part of engine, tender, or lay next too decoder on side as I plan on some of my brass conversions.

Next step is a bench test, maybe this afternoon.

Will post and if decent will make a small you-tube.

Thanks Cameron

First Impressions of new WOW101 decoder

Quick WOW Decoder update will post more in DCC section.

Got mine I ordered in Late July in. TCS was really good, I order WOW100 which has Keep Alive. They sent me new WOW101 plus the KV2 keep alive at no extra cost (they are doing for all WOW100 orders). Ordered from reseller.

The advantages to WOW101 is it can be used with or without keep alive and the keep alive can be put in a different location or different orientation allowing more flexibility to fit to small loco's.


This is decoder and keep alive (thicker green object) with wires. If no keep alive needed, one set of wires will not be needed.


This is the decoder only. Scale shows it is about 1.3" and I understand a tiny bit smaller than a Tsunami.

Next step is a bench test, maybe this afternoon.

Will post and if decent will make a small youtube.

Thanks Cameron

Redesign of Idaho Springs

Lots of redesign going on. Move entire town down 6 inches and widen road by shifting everything to front by 1 inch. Now road looks much better.

Got so really good input over at NarrowGaugeChat from folks who live there. Shopchief had walked that section with an old salt that remembered the C&S tracks. Result was repositioning the mainline north of the creek and making the Hukil spur enter from east.


Original design with Creek south of mainline and Hukil spur from the west.


New design with mainline north of creek, Hukil spur from east and Stanley spur to south of complex.


Overview shot showing curve and spurs. Another removable mountain will be inside curve with the wagon road just under.


Another overview. Still unsure about exact creek course and bridges.


Last overview shot a little closer for details

Still working on creek placement, there was a water redirect from creek to Stanley. Need to determine bridge location and try to work in the bridge over mine (#14 I think).

Once that is drawn in I'll begin backdrop, cut out creek, lay track and mock-up 3d structures.

Thoughts, comments?

Thanks Cameron

Planning Idaho Springs

After all the water work needed a change of pace. The next area down from Argo Tunnel is Idaho Springs. My inspiration was Harry Brunk's UCN. His Idaho Springs is amazing.

The original plan was to base the DG&CCRR on the UCN modifying for space. As I researched more it became apparent that the original plan did not fit my era. Twenty years is a long time and there were many changes. So out came the Sanborn Maps (1907), Harry's 2 books: Up the Clear Creek and More up the Clear Creek, and Mike Blazek's Idaho Springs Workbook. All are excellent resources. Mike's workbooks cover city by city and his maps are excellent.

The Draft Plan:

This is the draft plan. Trying to learn XtraCad but slow going.

So for two days it has been to the train building to try and map it out. My wife came out to see it yesterday and said, why don't you draw it on big paper. Guess I should have thought of that, I just used a marker on the painted sound deadening board.

Here are couple shots:


Stanley Mine complex and Hukil Mine, track sweeps right to left up a 2.5% grade on it's way to a lift out and then Georgetown and the loop.


Looking East from Stanley Mine you can see water tank. Spur on left is for Lumber yard and cattle pen. Where track splits is the depot and downtown.


Looking west from east of downtown. This is taking a lot of fiddly adjustments for clearances. Ending up moving town 6" upgrade (West)towards the Stanley mine to let track follow creek more.


Here are some temporary buildings to try and visualize the main street. The railroad runs through the alley in front of main street (Miner Street in Idaho Springs). Couple of items I'm struggling with:

1. Advice has been to try to slant both rails and parallel street to convey depth. Can't seem to get that to work. Miner Street and the rails do shift north at the depot. Hopefully that will achieve the same result.

2. Buildings against background. They will be shallow, maybe 1/2" so that will be a challenge. Probably will use pictures inside to help with depth.

3. Background, seem to be ruling out photo backdrops. Might be able to do a panorama, photo edit, and print. Timeline works against that, not going back to Colorado until next summer. Painting seems to be way forward, but prospective and never having done make this an open issue to me.

4. Main street width. Right now I have 2" with side walks. Last picture shows it i narrow. How much space I can give up and shift scene towards front on plan is under consideration.

That's about it, starting to come together. Now if I could build my stub turn-outs and get back ground painted I can proceed.

Thanks Cameron