78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Yosemite Valley Railroad

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 

The Correct Choice

Posted on by jkdummler
YV23. Likely taken at Merced (Author’s Collection)

The right choice for me, modeling wise, encompasses several things.

I’ve just spent the last few years starting to learn 1920’s freight equipment.  When I tell you that by 1939, the world of freight cars is vastly different than it is in the late 1920’s, it’s no joke.  The depression had an effect on the freight fleet of the nation.  New rules for safety appliances, and new rules for trucks on freight cars, along with more steel and less wood cars means that when I went back to 1927 and started modeling, the learning curve was steep, but now I’m comfortable in the late 20’s.  I want to stay modeling that window of time and build equipment appropriate to the pre-depression era of railroading.

My struggles the last few months have not only been vision related, but subject related.  The things I thought were drawing, wound up not being so, and as time went by, I got to the point of not really being interested in the research.  That likely contributed to the “drift” in my planning.

How to remedy these things with a move to Proto:48?  Staying in the pe-1930 era is relatively easy.  There are lots of subjects that could be modeled.  I know there are models in O scale of the locomotive I used to look at in books I checked out of the library as a kid, a Santa Fe 1950 class 2-8-0.  I saw one at the O scale meet, and in O, those are even prettier than they are in HO.  There are models of Southern Pacific “Valley Mallet” 2-6-0’s available from Glacier Park.  I’ve seen those too.  There are Nickel Plate, Great Northern, Pennsy, and other railroad small steam out there in O.  While tempting, they’re not the right fit.

The right railroad is the one I stopped modeling to hone my skills as a modeler.  I’m going back to the Yosemite Valley.  It’s “the” railroad that really has my interest, and this time, I’m ready, and I’m excited about the choice.

Staying in the pre-depression era, I’ve chosen August, 1928 as my modeling month and year.  By selecting that date, I can include a great many of the class Yosemite Valley points of operation like the logging operation and the limestone movements to the Portland cement plat just outside Merced.  

There were plans to import Yosemite Valley 2-6-0’s in brass in the early 1990’s, but those plans wound up being canceled.  The locomotives, then, will need to be scratch built.  That will be a challenge, but I believe it’s something I am ready to tackle.  Without the need to build 100+ pieces of rolling stock for a layout, I can spend the time to build a locomotive.  It’s actually exciting to consider because in O scale, dead-rail or battery operation is a real possibility and something that I am interested in including in my build.  I may wind up building 2 or 3 locomotives over time.

My plans for a layout are going to be focused on a portable, storable, modular layout.  18” wide, and with each module 6’ long, I am currently planning for a layout that runs, without staging extensions, to about 42 feet long completely set up.  Should I decide to build curves so I can bend the layout, it’ll wind up being even longer.  Curves will come later.

With just over 77 miles of railroad, picking locations to model, even in 42’ of length, means making some serious selections and leaving much out.  The obvious location to pick for at least one town is Merced.  Merced had the interchanges to the Southern Pacific and the ATSF, the largest YV station, locomotive service and other facilities, a house track, small yard, and a few small ice and cold storage industries.  CLOSE to Merced, so, still within yard limits, was the Yosemite Portland cement Co. plant.  It’s a stones throw outside Merced.  

The other location that really has some of the heart of the YV operation wise that I can see including is Merced Falls.  The massive sawmill with log pond, drying fields, box factory, station, a YV turntable, and other lumber loading, Merced Falls provides destinations for log cars, the occasional rock car, and lots of boxcars.  

Further up the line, places like Bagby, Emory, Incline, Rancharia Flat, and El Portal are really tempting locations to model.  I think for now, those will have to be suggested with traffic running from an interchange in Merced to a staging location just past Merced Falls.  In the future, I may build additional modules to include one or more of those.

There is, on a map, space between Merced and Merced Falls.  There are a few things I could fill that space with, but it’s likely that, at least to start, I’ll fill in with a model of Edendale creek and the bridge across there.  Eventually I’d like to add Snelling because I really like the station there, and probably Hopeton for the stock pens that were still there with a set of scales in 1928.

There is much more to come.  I’m really excited to get started on this whole project.

-Jeremy

Bigger Things

Posted on by jkdummler

I could have called this “Going Home” or “Accepting Reality”. However, the positive note that “Bigger Things” means (at least the connotation of those words is in my mind more positive) is what this needs.

I’ve come to a point with my vision where I simply can not continue to struggle with HO scale modeling. To spite my furious efforts to find something to model, shrinking the scope, playing with location, trying to plan and go narrow gauge to avoid decals…. it just doesn’t work. I’ve stretched it as long as I can, and yesterday I posted on my Facebook page a ‘Notice of Abandonment” for all things HO, with liquidation of kits, cars, structures, parts, etc… to soon follow. When a railroad is abandoned, it often is not just the railroad that dies, but the communities that are served can also die and be abandoned. This is only abandonment in the terms of HO scale.

I sat with my wife who has listened to me talk about what I “might” do in the future, in that ‘some day” down the road when I was ready to move up in scale, along with two other friends this weekend, having the “what are you up to in your modeling” conversation, and each of those three people looked at me and in their own ways, prodded me to not wait, to make a change, to be excited about modeling again, and to do “bigger things”.

We attended the Chicago O-Scale Meet in Lombard over the weekend. As the show wound down on Saturday, we had a fantastic opportunity to spend some time talking with Damin Keenan about his 14″ x 12′ O Scale swishing layout. Damin’s layout is long enough that if you stand at one end, the equipment on the layout is far enough away at the other end, that you have to move to where it is. Additionally, we noticed while talking that the layout really changes character and look if you change sides you are operating it from, so the “front” and the “back” view really affect what you’re seeing. Even changing ends of the layout has a similar effect.

O Scale switching layout by Admin Keenan on display at the Chicago O scale Meet, 2019.

While this layout isn’t massive, it has some cool details. Things like the figures hanging out or a work crew in a parking lot at the right hand side, derails on the tracks, hand thrown turnouts, locomotive sound and lots of operation for a small space in a large scale.

While chatting, my wife commented that a double-depth layout like this could be operated really easily as a 28″x12′, or if built right, it could be ‘opened up’ with two 14″x12′ sections placed end to end to reach 24′. Wow… that’s a fantastic concept.

“I can see the wheels turning”, said my wife at one point about me thinking about a layout in O. But not just O, Proto:48. There are a myriad of places online that explain Proto:48 better than I can (yet) but the gist is the rail is actual scale instead of the slightly too-wide of standard O scale 2 rail.

I spent the second day of the show examining things in the dealer room with a completely new eye. “You’re making the change, right now” was a quote from breakfast that morning and another friend. Ok, but I am a steam guy, a pre-1930 steam guy, I needed to look around and see what was there so I could start to figure out what I want to build.

I managed to find lots of USRA and 1920’s equipment available. By “lots” I mean “enough”, as even a 14″x24′ layout isn’t going to need much equipment. I also found that I could see the details on the equipment, read car numbers, access couplers, without needing even my reading glasses, where in HO I’m mostly in need these days of readers plus multiple magnifiers.

So, HO is abandoned. I’ll be liquidating things, keeping a few pieces for display here and there, but for the most part, like I did 15 years ago when I went to HO from N, I’m out and not going back.

What to model? Remember I said this could have been titled “Going Home”?

Yup…. I figured out how to do it, in Proto:48, and it’ll be really fun.

-JD