This time I’m going to list the main design goals for my layout, and after that I’ll show you the progress on installing room lighting before the layout is built.
Defining My Layout Design Goals
Here are the main design goals that I’m trying to meet, with the most important ones first:
1. Represent the trackage and scenery of Victorville and its cement plant (circa 1950) as accurately as possible, from the Lower Narrows at one end of town to the Upper Narrows at the other end.
2. Provide a double-track loop through Victorville for running two trains continuously (one eastbound, one westbound) whenever I feel like it, which may be often. I love watching two moving trains meet on double track, and I’m much more into the railfan’s view of model railroading than the operator’s view.
3. Provide as much staging as possible, for storing a lifetime's worth of trains and locomotives on the tracks, so they can be sent through the Victorville scene in either direction. Additional rolling stock could be stored under the layout in boxes or cassettes of various kinds. Some of my trains are for display running only, such as passenger trains from the SP, WP, MILW, and NYC, and some are special trains, like a circus train, a carnival train, a troop train, a military vehicles train, a hospital train, a convention train, and so forth, but I’d like them sitting out on staging tracks, not hidden away in boxes.
4. Provide for a reverse loop somewhere in staging, so that westbound trains can later become eastbound trains, and vice-versa. (But my final trackplan can only do this for one direction.) Also, the reverse loop needs to turn steam helpers around, as if they were being turned at Summit.
5. Provide for walk-around operation by three or four operators. There could be one running westbound trains, one running eastbound trains (including helpers returning light), one for the local switcher, and one for the branch lines (Mojave Northern and George AFB). These jobs could be combined when there are only one or two operators.
6. Provide for prototypical operating sessions, with all the operations that occurred in the real Victorville area on a given date: through trains, freights taking sidings, taking water, adding helpers, returning light helpers and turning them, local freights dropping off and picking up cars, and the local switcher working all the industries.
7. If possible, model the two branch line railroads at
Victorville -- the Mojave Northern Railroad at the cement plant, and the branch
line to George Air Force Base. Also, provide two staging tracks to represent the nearby Oro Grande cement plant. If possible, and
probably last of all, model the trackage at George AFB, where the cars could be
spotted at eight different spurs plus an engine house.
8. Avoid duckunders and pop-up hatches (I’m only partly meeting this goal), and have all the tracks reachable from the aisles.
9. Use 36” curves and #8 turnouts on the mainlines and passing sidings. Use #6 turnouts on the spurs. Use 24” radius or larger curves on the branch lines. Use 2.25” track spacing on the mainline curves (and so on the straightaways too). Try to follow Joe Fugate’s standards for trackwork, not the outdated ones from John Armstrong.
10. Provide 30” aisles (and larger where possible), and provide a 36” aisle to the laundry room. But go down to a couple of 22” aisles for walking partly sideways where needed.
11. Allow for a lower deck for lots of staging, with a large-radius helix (easy grades) to connect it to the upper deck. Avoid grades on the upper and lower decks. (I’ve abandoned the helix idea for the time being. Instead, I’m adding an eight-track staging yard on the upper deck, and I’ll be using the separate lower deck for storing and displaying extra trains.)
12. Allow for a dispatcher who coordinates the actions of all the trains and hands out train orders to the trains that will come through town.
So, those are the goals I’m working toward.
As for physical progress, the first step was to remodel the basement, especially to take out an unwanted wall and part of a wall of cabinets between the staging area and the main basement area. We hired our favorite handyman to do that, and it took a long time (with breaks), but the work is almost complete now.
The next step was to install a row of LED shop lights all around the future edges of the layout, above the aisles. I planned the exact locations of the 23 shop lights, each 48” long, and climbed up to mark the locations for the 46 hooks in the finished ceiling. The lights had to be low enough to pass under the beam that supports the house, which is 6'11" from the floor. I was doing this during May, 2020, as seen here:
Then our handyman, Patrick from Ireland, installed all the shop lights in late May, as seen here:
I’m happy with the final results, which you can see in
several views of the basement here. This first view looks across the future location of the main peninsula, with the two posts that hold up the house in the right distance, and the laundry room doors on the left:
This second view shows the two walls that have bookcases full of railroad books (and a full-size track plan section being laid out on the floor):
This final view is looking into the future staging room, from where a dividing wall used to stand:
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