Colorado On3 model railroad layout project

One of my other freelance projects that really enjoy working on is Dave Sheegog's Castle Peak and Thunder Railroad. He is building a garden scale backyard railroad with many iconic Disneyland structures. Dave's attention to detail is incredible. All the characters and architecture are a sight to see in miniature. I have been fortunate to lend my Disney Imagineering dimensional designer model making experience to this project. Everything you need to know to plan a visit can be found on Dave's website. Here's a video clip from KCAL https://youtu.be/8GMqlj2Z4TQ?si=-exgbgNfwtWgnTHW www.cptrr.com

Disneyland in a Anaheim man's backyard | Let's Go Places It's time for our weekly road trip! In today's episode of Let's Go Places, Alex Biston heads down to Anaheim to check out a miniature Disneyland.

“Sagebrush and Cinders” sounds like a great title for a book about railroads in the American West. It also sounds like a recipe for a prairie fire, but that will not be covered here. Sagebrush is primarily found in the western United States in areas that are too dry to support forests or grasslands. If you like western landscapes you will likely want to model sagebrush on your layout. Colorado is one such place with sagebrush and narrow gauge trains. Follow along with the photos and see what I used to replicate this recognizable plant. Chances are, you will want some for your railroad. At one time, colors for sagebrush were readily available from an architectural scenery company. Searching did not produce any results, I realized I needed to make my own. I found a green foam seat cushion on a trip to the local craft store. I remembered an article in one of the railroad modeling magazines. I needed to take one piece of foam and reduce it to several bits of foam. A driver drill and a wire brush got me started. Be careful with this process. I recommend wearing leather work gloves while using the wire brush as it spins. After the grinding was finished, I used a screen to filter the foam down to a size that was ideal for the plants. The next step is to color the foam. The cushion I had already had a blue-green color to begin with, so this gave me a head start. I mixed some sage green and burnt umber craft paint into the foam. I added some water to get everything to mix right. I spread the wet painted foam over some plastic sheet and let it dry out. After the foam was dry the clumps needed some work to make the foam loose again. Armatures are next. You have some options here. Super Trees scraps, gray lichen or Martin Wellberg green bushes. I found the Wellberg sage green to be a good start for this project. The color of this product is darker than the species I have seen here in the American West. However the darker color implies shadows and adds depth to the plant. Using tweezers, I dipped the tips of the bushes in diluted white glue. Then I dipped the armature into the sage green foam. I flipped the armature over and glued it onto the scenic terrain I was working on. I created several clusters and placed them next to each other. There appears to be some separation between the clumps of sage. Actual reference photos or a field trip will give you some good reference. Have fun planting. Prototype photos from Mike Massee.

An invite to all of you who would like to follow along on my new Instagram account. Here you will see model railroad layout building content.
www.instagram.com/jake.builds.railroads

Space - here is one of the first building blocks to getting a layout started. The room here is like a three-dimensional blank canvas waiting for all of the layout elements to be designed, created and built. While I was drawing the track plan with Mike Massee, a local crew completed many steps including wall painting and overhead lighting. Benchwork will be part of another post coming soon.

While we're on the subject of Colorado, Here's a scratchbuilt depot project from years past that fits our On3 narrow gauge theme. A client wanted the Telluride depot for his railroad, and I conveniently had a copy of the original depot plans before the depot was enlarged to the current size it is today. Styrene was used for construction of the walls, windows and doors. Grandt line castings were also used where appropriate. Laser cut shingles were purchased for the roofing. A chimney and finial came from Joe Fuss of Ragg's to Riches. I used photoshop to make lettering and signs. The floor is removeable, but the roof is not. All details and lighting can be installed by removing the screws that attach floor from underneath.

Doing a little modeling demonstration at the BEST Trains booth in Amherst.
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You cannot hide in the corner, especially when they do not exist. Round coves in a model railroad room cover up those pesky corners and really make a visual difference when you are in the layout space. When I first saw the corners, I knew it was time to tackle them early on and start before too many things prevented us from doing so. You will notice some before and after photos. This step makes a big difference when it comes to painting the backdrop too. When it is done, the corner shadows are less noticeable. Cove corner framing was used to hold two sheets of thin drywall, scored on the back so it would bend. A generous amount of drywall mud was spread out over the surface, allowed to dry, sanded and painted

One of my favorite places to create was the dream factory on Flower Street in Glendale. Walt Disney Imagineering. I had always loved the times I spent growing up and visiting Disneyland. Well, lucky for me I became an Imagineer in the Dimensional Design Model shop. The perfect job for someone who likes model building. I got paid to build models all day long and was a part of the team that builds models of the theme park designs in miniature before the actual construction begins. We built study models in various scales to visualize the design. Naturally, the client wanted a study model of what his railroad would look like after the plan was done. Here are those photos.

It all starts with a plan. This page is here to document my contribution of the design and fabrication of a large 30 x 60 On3 narrow gauge model railroad empire. Follow along for photos, techniques and stories as we get the ball rolling on this narrow gauge layout project. This is the beginning of Rio Bravo & Black Rock Railroad. The setting is Colorado narrow gauge post-merger. The Rio Grande Southern, D&RGW and the C&S are all sharing the same track and equipment. The main business objective of the railroad is to extract wealth from the ground in the form of ore and oil.
We started sketching and drawing all the items that were requested by the client. Once the preliminary design work was finished, we used 3rd Plan-It software to create accurate geometry for the track and turnouts, guaranteeing that everything would fit in the space allotted. 3rd Plan-It does a really good job of connecting track with transition curves and in some cases very long sweeping curves if you request it. I am pleased with the results we came up with using the software. I was assisted by Mike Massee who has previous experience with live steam estate railroad design and planning as well as table top scale modeling and design. His software knowledge and railroad contributions to the track plan made this plan come together.

Follow along as I document the construction of benchwork and track installation of this On3 30 x 60 narrow gauge railroad empire. If you like trains in Colorado or just model railroad building in general, you will find this project interesting.