78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Yosemite Valley Railroad

Merced – Track Plan and Arts & Crafts

Posted on by jkdummler

Part of my RPM Chicagoland presentation this year is showing off the track plan for Merced.  Part of getting ready to show the plan, talk to people about it, and demonstrate my design ideas has been to get a 1:1 drawing made the plan.  

Standing at the West end of the layout plan looking to the East. In the middle of the plan is the mainline. To the left, a track to serve the Ice House. On the right, the track leads to the Yosemite Valley freight house and station.

Those of you who have read my track planning posts before know I greatly prefer to plan in full size.  It’s visually easier for me to stand next to a set of turnout templates and visualize what I want the plan to look like.  One of the biggest challenges in changing scale, or in planning a layout in general, is knowing the scale of structures to layout, and making all of that approximate the visual appearance of photographs, especially when prototype modeling.

This is a mosaic of the track plan, stitched together as best I could at the moment. It features the sidings described in the top photo in the West on the left hand side. To the middle of the plan we see a yard track at the top and the YV house track along the bottom. To the East end, I’ve included a lead that will go toward the currently un-modeled roundhouse.
Drawings by Jack Burgess, which are available on yosemitevalleyrr.com from his shop, have been scaled to O scale, printed, and are now glued to foam core board. I’ll cut these out and place them on the track plan to give much more “real” view of my ideas. The feeling of size will be evident once these are sitting on the plan drawing and it’s a little more 3D.

As part of my own visual planning, and to illustrate the layout to others, I have printed drawings (or pmts of them) for structures from Merced, and a couple of pieces of YV equipment, YV26 and YV15 locomotive and caboose, to help with demonstrating locations and sizes.  I glued the drawings to sheets of foam board that will be cut out and have stands attached to allow the drawings to stand on the track plan.

One of the challenges with this plan is that it’s BIG.  It’s big enough that I have been having a challenge photographing the whole thing to share here.  When I get to the RPM, my hope is that as I post this plan on the walls to give presentations, or unroll it to share with others, I can get some better photos.  

There’s lots to do, but the visual assistance provided by these drawings for planning is immensely helpful.  I can show others what scenes will look like, and get some idea of the vision I have in my head is and see if it is coming together in 3D as I build.

-Jeremy

Layout Fascia – Last of the Garage Work for 2019

Posted on by jkdummler

As Fall settles over Northern Illinois, it’s time for me to button up layout work that needs to happen in the garage and move the layout section inside for the winter and for work that I want to do “at the bench” so to speak. 

A couple of weeks ago I started test-painting some ties, but decided that it would be easier to paint the ties if I had the track lower and in better light than I typically get in the garage.  That left one task and that was painting the fascia.

When I applied the mud to the layout, I slopped some over the edge and down the fascia.  I wasn’t thinking at the time about protecting that area, and I should have.  Going forward when I am adding mud, I’ll tape off and cover any fascia materials.  This time around, though, I broke out the orbital sander and a couple of minutes later had smoother sides to work with.  The mud wasn’t really an issue, I knew I could and it down.  The biggest problem there was covering the now sanded area with paint as all the materials there are ‘thirsty’ and as it turned out required several applications of the final paint color to cover.

It doesn’t take long to paint the fascia on this layout section.  It’s only 6’ long and 4” tall.  That said, I took my time applying the “forrest black” paint.  I picked this color with my wife’s assistance.  It’s intended to not be completely black (like the layout legs) but also not to draw the eye.  I used a standard soft bristled paint brush and listened to some music while painting.  

It took about 4 coats to absorb and cover everything.  I kept finding spots especially around the screws and washers that were getting missed, and finally resorted to closing the garage door to darken the room, getting a powerful flashlight and a small brush, and lighting just the area I wanted to check for missed spots.  That worked really well and finally the paint was on.

I like the overall effect.  Standing right next to the layout, your eye is drawn to the lighter browns on top and not to the darker fascia or below.  I don’t intend to add skirting of any kind to the layout, so this is closing in on the final look.  

I’m going to let the paint cure completely.  It’s been very rainy here so a couple of days at least to make sure the surface is hard and set.  Then I’ll remove the legs and bring the section inside where I’ll be able to paint the ties and get the ground cover on.  

It’s amazing how “complete” things look when the fascia is painted.

Stay tuned, tie painting and weathering is coming along.

-Jeremy

A Brief Track Update

Posted on by jkdummler
Two out of three days of the Labor Day weekend were spent at the Illinois Railway Museum working as volunteers on various trains.

Some progress has been made again on the layout.  Over the recent Labor Day holiday I spent some time marking out locations for joint bars on the layout.  Using my scale rule, marked with tape, and a sharpie marker, I located the joints 39 scale feet apart.  Then with some CA and laser cut joint bars from Precision Scale Company, I added the bars to both sides of each rail at the appropriate points.  

I marked my scale ruler using tape to make spotting the 39′ mark easier.
The laser cut joint bars from Precision Scale Company were installed using CA adhesive.

The next day, I painted the track using some Rustolium camouflage brown.  The resulting color is quite close to the dark brown rust on the rails that I’ve been studying out at the Illinois Railway Museum.

The painted track. Once all the ties are weathered and some additional color is added to the metal portions of the rail, I’ll use a Bright Boy and clean off the tops of the rail.

With all of that now dry, the next step will be painting the ties to simulate untreated redwood ties.  The palate will likely be mostly grays.  Then I’ll add some additional rust highlights to the rail, and we’ll move on to painting the fascia and laying down ground cover.

I should have an update on the NP boxcar project in the next few days.  It’s close to heading for the paint shop.

-Jeremy

Playing In The Mud

Posted on by jkdummler

The weather and schedule cooperated this weekend for me to make a little progress on my P48 YV module.  This is a test run that will eventually be part of the larger plan.

The goal this weekend was to make ‘mud’.  The process has been in several articles over the last few years in some of the modeling publications.  The essence of the idea is that you’re making paper machete by using celluclay and latex paint.  Some people add vermiculite to the mix.  I wanted to try out adding a powdered concrete coloring agent.  The idea there being that the powder provides another dry colored material that is color-fast.

3 of the 4 components to my version of “mud”. The only one not pictured is just water.

I got ready to start and then discovered that my paint had frozen over the winter and turned to a solid rock in the can.  A trip to Hole Depot solves that this morning, and then I got to work.

This is not a clean project.  I highly recommend wearing gloves like I did.  However, the end result, with seams in sub roadbed filled and some minimal cleanup to do with a dental pick along the track before I tackle detailing that this week, is pleasing.  No mor sea of pink foam!

I’ll now let this dry for a few days before I clean up a couple of spots, paint the fascia, and detail the track.  I’m aiming to have static grass on before it gets cold here.  The module has a spot inside the house in the near future. 

More to come. The mud is almost dry, and it’ll be time to move to the next step before the coming long weekend.

-Jeremy

Going Fishing

Posted on by jkdummler

I’ve been doing research on some interesting notes from Yosemite Valley Railroad history to include in my presentation at the RPM Chicagoland event in October.  One piece that I recently ran into was some information on a “Fish Car” having been on the YV in July or 1921.  I wanted to know more about that car, the what, where, why of it all, so I started digging.  

The general use of Fish Cars cars was to haul fish eggs or fry from locations where the fish were farmed to other locations where the fish where then used to populate rivers and lakes.  The fry and eggs were shipped in modified milk cans and those cans were placed in “fish racks” inside purpose built or modified rail cars were typically lined in galvanized metal so that ice could be packed around the cans to increase the likelihood that the stock would survive the trip.

The notes on the YV hosting a fish car included a car number of SP 6263.  I needed to find out some information about that car, then, in order to understand what the SP might be doing with fish.

My research developed a description of the fish racks in SP 6235, a likely sister-car to 6263 (which might have been 6236 as 6263 was a horse car).  SP 6235 still exists at the Niles Canyon Railway, owned by the Pacific Locomotive Association.  Doug Debs provided some information on the fish racks included in that car:

“One end of SP 6235 is equipped with a “fish rack”: The floor at one end is covered with a watertight wall-to-wall sheet metal pan about 2″ deep.  The pan drains to the track. Removable heavy-duty wooden duck boards were inside the pan. The fish rack allowed wooden boxes of iced fish, iced early-season asparagus, and other high-value perishable freight to be transported by express car, and prevented these shipments from getting other items wet.”

It’s also interesting to note that these Harriman-era 60′ baggage cars, 6235 and likely 6236, were both built for the Central Pacific.

It’s likely that the car on the YV would have been very similar to 6235, and the fish racks might have been the same as the above description.  

With all that sorted out, then, and knowing some about the cars, I wanted to find out some information about the shipments and what they were doing.  A little digging produced a few documents of interest.

First, this document, which is a 1917 journal of the California State Assembly.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kpw-AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA20-PA77&lpg=RA20-PA77&dq=southern+pacific+railroad+fish+car&source=bl&ots=CxFVYKd-iL&sig=ACfU3U0Sn16EP0A0g0AIQxQN2iCySv07Qw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIy6zy8e7jAhUB7qwKHb9mDNU4ChDoATADegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=southern%20pacific%20railroad%20fish%20car&f=false

Starting pn page 74, this document discusses hatcheries being built in Southern California, and on page 77 and 78 it discusses that the fish will be transported by rail, specifically calling out several railroads on page 78 for thanks for free transport of the crews and state-owned distribution cars.  The Yosemite Valley Railroad is specifically mentioned on page 78.

Next, this document, from 1922, and is from the California Fish & Game:

https://books.google.com/books/about/California_Fish_and_Game.html?id=VSEM7LlsqWcC

Starting on page 114, this document discusses establishing a hatchery to restock and provide fish for rivers and lakes that were “depleted”.  My conversation with Jack included that this is likely a bit of propaganda, as many of the types of fish being shipped and put into the rivers around Yosemite National Park were not native to the area.  That aside, page 121 describes fish cars, and discusses the construction of the first fish car owned by the state, at the SP Sacramento shops.  Eventually, CA did have 2 of these cars.  Photos of them are in the CSRM collection.

Photos of the California Fish & Game Commission 01 car ca be found here:

https://calisphere.org/item/cd4489e90dd004b163e0e8205b87588a/

https://calisphere.org/item/bd10b7160ac0615b17495b5254afd791/

To bring all this together, I found this document:

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt5k4004bd&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text

Searching this document for “Yosemite”, the first hatchery that appears is cited as being built at Wawona in 1895.  While near the National Park, this is still a haul for any shipping of fish on the YV.  The note indicates this location was established by the Yosemite Raymond Stage Line, which puts it not out of the realm of possibility that this hatchery, which shut down in 1928, was being stocked via some other means other than railroad shipment on the YV.

The next entry, though, is what I think is likely the hatchery that the noted fish car is supplying.  The Yosemite Experimental Hatchery and then the Yosemite Hatchery, which operated from 1918-1956 at Happy Isles.  The first fry were raised in 1918, but the permanent site was not secured until 1926 and put into use in 1927.  

My feeling is that the 1921 shipments may have been to Yosemite Experimental Hatchery or someone in that vicinity.

It’s likely that Fish Cars were not in every train, or moved every day, on the YV by any stretch. However, building a model of a Southern Pacific baggage car equipped with fish racks, and maybe even California Fish & Game Commission 01 would be fun and would add some interest into operations occasionally.

Fascinating what one finds when you start looking at interesting loads and cars!

-Jeremy

Catching Up

Posted on by jkdummler

It’s been busy in fits and starts here with projects.  It’s also been a while since I posted, so there are some things to catch up on.

The Layout:

When last we left the layout, it was a sea of pink foam on top of the benchwork.  It’s still lots of pink foam, I have not managed due to a rest requirement from my physician, to get a base color on the layout.  However, the roadbed of Flexxbed from Hobby Innovations was laid using a thin layer of gray latex caulk as adhesive.  When that dried, I spread another layer of the same caulk and laid the track.  I’m using code 125 flex track from Right-O-Way.  The detail in the track is fantastic.  I’m looking forward to getting joint bars installed, and weathering done on the track in the weeks ahead.  In short order, the ‘mud’ will go down on the layout, and I’m looking forward to sharing those photos.

Still a sea of pink foam, but there is roadbed and track, which means that the next time there is a day available, the base color should change.

At the Workbench:

It’s been a slow start at the workbench.  I am used to HO kits where, for the most part, all the bits and pieces are included, all the right wire sizes are in the box, and if there is bending or making of anything to be done, there are instructions.  I have also found that I have made myself some bad habits of hiding things that wouldn’t be seen in HO, or that were done the fast way, not necessarily the most elegant way, simply because in HO scale, nobody would see the mistakes or the pieces I sort of fudged because they’re too small and hidden.

The red circle shows where the KC brake goes. Finding the right mount shape and details has taken me almost a month.

In Proto 48, all of that is out in the open, in plain view.  Many kits,  like the Northern Pacific boxcar I decided to start with, are “a la carte”, meaning you get the body of the car, some basics and suggestions, and off you go to find parts.  Some of that I am sure comes from one kit being buildable into O scale 2 rail (Ow5), 3 rail (if you wanted to), and Proto 48.  Including parts doesn’t always serve all 3 properly.  

For example here, lets look at the 3 week struggle I’ve had figuring out how to mount the KC brake system under this NP car.  In HO, I may have left the brake off completely, like a few friends have, on similar cars, because the side sills are deep and most of the equipment would be hidden.  In P48, however, with larger pieces, and with my layout height at 55”, you’ll likely see the equipment hanging, even if minimally.  In HO, I might have used a small block of styrene to mount the brake on the sill, and maybe even continued it to the floor of the car for support, simply because it wouldn’t be seen.  I’ve struggled with this in P48, because getting the right shape is now something I find necessary.  After much discussion with friends, and me being dense at this and struggling to understand, I finally went out to the Illinois  Railway Museum a few days ago and crawled under a Fowler car to get a photo of a similar mounting bracket on the brake system of a museum car.  Now I know what shape to make the mounting bracket, and what details to add.  Yes, I’m aware that this is under the car, and that unless I set it on a mirror, likely I’m the only one who will see this, but some of modeling is like that. It’s you knowing things are three.  I’m now in a spot where I can get the bracket made, the KC brake cylinder mounted, and the rest of the brake system installed so I can move on to other parts of the car.

This bracket is under a 1929 SOO sawtooth boxcar at the Illinois Railway Museum. Now I have a clear idea of what the bracket should look like for a brake mount, and I can replicate that in styrene for my NP car, and others.

In the end, I’m breaking some bad habits I had developed when building cars in large batches in HO.  Fast doesn’t work now.  The 15 minutes a day that I’ve been striving at for many years, that is what I believe is going to be the road forward for me.  A single part, or a set of grabs, applied to a car, allowed to set.  A set of decals applied to one side of a car, allowed to set 24 hours, sealed, then the car turned and another set applied.

This will likely mean several cars or models are in progress all at once, but it also means that things will be done correctly and to the standards I have set for myself.  I’m throwing out the timelines I had built for HO car construction along with those habits and adopting a new, it will get done when it’s done right, approach.  

Positives:

While doing all this work, I’ve been somewhat tentative about getting going.  My vision had scared me into not trusting my eyes in HO, and getting past the avoiding working sage was a hurdle all of it’s own.  I’m quite pleased to report that I have been able, working with the P48 equipment, to remove some magnification from my setup.  My headband that I have been using allows me to add a x7 and x10 magnifier on top of my x10 in my prescription glasses.  I’ve been able to remove the extra x10 and I’m seeing wonderfully still.  

Off to safe storage in the event I need them again…. the x10 magnification plate from my headband magnifier.

Along the way, I’ve wanted to get some additional practice building, gluing, drilling, etc…. With models.  The time away while fighting my eyes had made me question my abilities, I felt rusty.  So, I sat down and built.  Not with the O scale equipment, because I wanted to get to the point where I had adjusted the vision equipment before starting much there, but with some plastic models for a table top wargame.  I’ve learned a few techniques for cleaning up plastic, found a few new tools that I really like, and adjusted my lighting and magnification so that now I’m ready to build the freight cars and structures.  If I was going to give some advice to anyone, I’d say this.  Build something.  Doesn’t have to be a train, but build something, learn some skills, relearn some skills, get comfortable with your tools, THEN go build the models you love building.  This is really the struggle I created for myself by resisting a scale change for so long.

Onward:

There are specific things to share about tools and research, and that will all come here soon.  I’ve spent a few weekends volunteering at the Illinois Railway Museum learning about riding, operating, doing things like railroaders do.  I’m looking forward to seeing how that experience influences how I approach the models as well.    More soon….

-Jeremy

Ballast Choice

Posted on by jkdummler

Color plays a huge role in our modeling and setting the location of our layouts.  There are debates over the right paint color for freight cars, colors to use for structures, and just about everything else associated with modeling.  However, the colors we use in our scenery are not often debated, but are up to the modeler to decide what looks best for their location.

As I close in on it being time to lay track and get it ballasted on my layout module, I was looking for ballast appropriate to the Yosemite Valley, and I recalled a conversation that I’d had with Jack Burgess about ballast while on one of the YV historical society weekend hikes, and my recollection was that the YV had gotten a good deal of their ballast out of the Merced River as crushed river rock.  Without checking that recollection against anything, I set off and ordered a sample of crushed rock ballast from Superior Scenics of their “Western Blend” ballast in a few sizes.  The product arrived about a week later, and I really like the mixture of colors as it looks like the shales and rock that I recall from visits to the area.  Lots of browns and reds mixed into some yellow and gray.  

Then I decided to check my sources and the Yosemite Valley email group at groups.io.  Some quick searching brought me some information that contradicted my recollections of the conversation, and sent me hunting in my own photos of the area for a different set of colors.  Here’s what I found:

“Initially (but I don’t for how long), the ballast came from gravel pits on

the Merced River near Snelling/Merced Falls; I doubt that that gravel was

crushed. That would make it the typical gray of granite although it wasn’t

the high-quality crushed granite used by the Class 1s.”

The above photo is from a YV group trip several years ago along the former right of way.  In the river you can see a huge deposit of granite, which has the tones described in the documentation.  

With that, I went back to Superior Scenics and ordered their Salt & Pepper blend.  That arrived this last week, and is an excellent match to my own photo and the description of the ballast as gravel and the photo I took in the Merced River.

The Western Blend will still be put to good use.  As I said it’s a good match to the colors of the earth and shales in the area, and as I go along, I’ll mix a little of it into my scenery here and there to convey the right colors of the rocks found along the YV.

Most of the scenery materials that I want to work with at least on this first section of railroad are actually here.  I’m waiting on one delivery, a little be warmer and dryer weather, and then it’ll be time to lay track and make mud.  Scenery is not long off, which I’m excited about.  It’s time for the ground on the first module to stop being pink and start looking like earth.

What did I learn?  Don’t rush, check sources first and don’t rely on my recollection of conversations.

-Jeremy

The Space Between

Posted on by jkdummler
Module 1. This is the stretch between Merced to the West (left) and Merced Falls to the East (right).

I’ve been here before, but somehow, it feels different this time around.  I’ve put into practice everything learned, and a few “best practices” seen elsewhere, and this time, without cutting corners and without settling for recycled materials, I’ve got the first module for the Yosemite Valley in P:48 standing on its feet.  

The module is 6 feet long and 18 inches wide.  In HO, that’s a whole empire.  In O, it’s a scene.  However, it’s also roughly sitting at 55 inches (track height) from the ground.  That’s fairly tall.  This means, though, that you won’t be seeing the whole thing all at once.  

The basic benchwork structure. Here you can see the 3/4″ gap at the end where the legs key in without a mechanical attachment.

The basics of the construction are pretty common for me now.  The majority of the materials are the 3/4” birch plywood and Kreg pocket screws.  Many modelers have started going this direction, and it makes sense.  I use 3.5 inches for the ripping of the lumber dimension, and then cut everything to the right lengths.  The decking is 1/2” plywood.  Heavy, yes, but these modules will have to move around, so I plan to overbuild.  On top of the decking, I used 1 inch pink foam.  I thought about using 2 inch, but without a plan currently for a bridge or much relief necessary on any of the scenes I plan to build, 1 inch should give me some play without making the layout too tall.

The legs are build from milled 2×2’s.  I got some heavy duty furniture leveling feet and adde them to the bottoms.  At the upper end, the layout is resting on the top of the legs, keyed into a slot in the benchwork by a piece of plywood.

This construction photo shows the module upside down. The two supports for the angle braces are offset from the center line of the benchwork by 3/4″ to allow for the screws that attach each of them to the center support.

At the height I’m building from the floor, and because I’ve had issues in the past with stability, I also added some angle braces from each leg set reaching up to the center layout support.  My angle braces are 1×2’s, and they are 39” long.  At the ends, a 3 inch block glued and screwed to the supports allows me to bolt them in place.  The supports are offset slightly on each side, so the center of the layout is actually between them.  I still, upon standing up, had a wobble back and forth along the long axis of the layout, but tightening the bolts used to connect the angles all the way solved that.  I’ll replace the standard nut I used for construction with a wing nut for each one that will make setup and take down much easier.

Some details see here include the pencil-line grid I laid out for drilling the screw holes in the fascia, the angle of the brace under the layout, and the fact that the entire layout is essentially resting on the 4 legs.

I ripped the fascia from hardboard to just a tick over 5 inches and it fit perfectly.  The fascia pieces are attached to the layout with 1” wood screws with countersink washers.  To be honest here, I ran out of the washers with only one side of the fascia in place.  Another box of 100 will arrive tomorrow and it’ll only take about 20 minutes to install the other side.

From here, the next steps are to paint the legs and braces black, lay the roadbed, and get going mixing and adding a layer of “mud” to the scene before laying track.  There are lots of details to sort out, like joint bars, the kind of grass to use, and if there will be a road of any kind here or just tracks, grass, and trees.  

A sea of pink foam! It shouldn’t look like this much longer.

More to come soon.

-Jeremy

A new, old, name

Posted on by jkdummler

Today I’m renaming the blog here on these pages, “78 Miles to Yosemite”. Some of you may be aware that my old page was taken down last year due to some unfortunate circumstances. While muddling through setting up here, fighting with my vision, and all that’s gone into returning to modeling the Yosemite Valley and what I love to model and research, the name here was sort of a placeholder, and in many ways, similar to other blogs by other railroaders who I have great admiration and respect for.

So, I’m reviving the blog name, and returning it to a more appropriate name for what I’m modeling and doing. 78 miles is not a huge distance, but the fun I’m having on the trip certainly is worth while. I hope you’ll continue to read along and enjoy the things that I have to share.

-Jeremy

Merced & Merced Falls: First Pass Track Plans

Posted on by jkdummler

Time to get down to some track planning.  I started out with templates to make sure things fit, but I’m trying to expand some of my horizons with a new scale and new tools, so I have endeavored to learn how to draw this layout in a CAD program, mostly so I can appropriately share it because at 18’ long, it’s hard to see both ends of a town, let alone both towns at once.

Modeling the YV has to start with some kind of connection at Merced.  The western-most reach of the YV, Merced housed the railroad shops, offices, locomotive service facilities, the small yard, a few industries, and the YV’s large station and freight house.  The industries within Merced included things such as the Merced Ice & Cold Storage and a YV house track, while just outside of town, but still within the yard limits for Merced, a spur lead to the Yosemite Portland cement Co. processing and bagging plant.  YV trains bringing limestone serviced this facility as well as the bagging operation with boxcars.

I haven’t, for many years, had room for all of Merced, even in HO scale.  Planning in Proto:48, I decided that even though I can’t fit a huge yard, the coach yard, roundhouse, etc… that even in 18” deep, I do have room to get lots of the operation of Merced if I am careful to pick carefully what I want to include.

With that in mind, the plan for Merced includes Merced Ice & Cold Storage, the YV house track (that may eventually include the YV station and freight house), a locomotive service track that will have the water, oil, and possibly the YV stores building, and I’ve moved Rock Switch from up the line into the yard here to be able to include the YPC plant.  Even in just 18” deep, there is room between tracks allowing for scenes to be visually separated.  It should take a while to switch here as well, as the 18’ length will provide long movements, and the locomotive and cars won’t all be in view at the same time.  At the SP interchange, I’ve allowed for a 24” from the edge of the layout to the points of the Western-most turnout.  To add to that, I plan to add a 36” extension track for a fiddle yard at the interchange.

This layout will be built in 6’ sections.  It has to in order to be moved into and out of storage.  That means that the structures I build need to either be sturdy and indestructible as they’ll be on their sides in storage, or they’ll need to be removable.  I’ve decided to build them on removable, bolt-on, sections of benchwork.  Doing so, the structures can be worked on at my workbench without needing them to be at the layout, they can be stored in the proper position, transported that way as well, and kept safe.  There are no commercial kits for YV structures in O scale, so everything will need to be scratch built.  

Moving beyond Merced, I had thought about building the in-between section of layout to be Edendale where the YV had a small bridge.  In thinking about that, and knowing the stunning P:48 model that Jack Burgess built of Edendale, and then thinking about the advice that my friend Jim Lincoln gave me regarding moving up to P:48 and the let go of my HO planning mentality.  I’ve therefore decided to replicate some un-named locations along the line.  The connecting section will be a space between towns.  That way, down the road, if I have space, or desire, I can build additional towns and the connecting section won’t be out of place.

At some point I will also need to build some curves.  Tackling that, and what radius to build, I’m going to punt on right now.  When I have the current plans built and running, I’ll tackle that task.  

The second location that I plan to build is Merced Falls.  I definitely wanted to include some of the logging/lumber operation and not reaching far enough up the line for Incline, building Merced Falls makes sense.  The sawmill and box factory, the station, and as much of the YV plant as possible will make for a fantastic place to model.  

I’ve managed to find room for the track that leads to the sawmill and the log dump where the YV loc cars will come and go from.  There’s also room for the box factory and lumber loading on a nice ling siding.  I’ll fit the water tank and probably the Merced Falls station in as well.  To the East, toward El Portal, I’ll again include a fiddle yard track allowing for the suggestion of the towns further up the line.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll build more that direction.  

Overall, the 7 pieces of layout that I have planned right now are a total of 42’ from end to end if assembled all at once.  That stretches to 48’ with the fiddle extensions.  It’s likely the only spot that I’ll be able to set up completely, at least right now, is at a train show or RPM.  That’s OK.  I hope to eventually build curves that will likely make things fold into a more manageable size for home operation.

I have the lumber here to build one of the 7 layout sections, and the weather is improving.  I’d like to try and get that assembled before I cut more lumber to make sure things work the way I’m expecting.  Then, it’s full steam ahead into freight cars, locomotives, structures, and this fantastic adventure.  

-Jeremy