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PORTFOLIO— PAGE 4 |
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GRAND GORGE and WESTERN—LOS ANGELES—2017—HO SCALE Our client came to us with one request. Since he already had a European prototype Marklin layout at his home in France, now he wanted an American themed layout. It started simply enough, but rapidly became the most involved project we have tackled. The Corel drawing ended up with over 190 layers of track, structures, scenery, wiring and electronics. We soon found out he has an extensive collection of American prototype trains, dozens of them being 8-10 car brass passenger sets with 2-4 locomotives on the lead. The layout fits within a 16’ x 21’ room, is a walk-in design and is a free-lanced representation of West coast railroading between LA and Washington state. Because of the width of the room, the minimum radius had to be 32” and this is rather tight for some of his brass equipment. In between we have logging and a lumber mill, a small intermodal facility, a kit-bashed LA Union Station, a large turntable and roundhouse, a tall curved trestle as well as 3 other bridges and the Grand Gorge with a river winding through it. At each end of the C shaped layout, a four level helix takes trains up and down to storage in a 10 track hidden staging yard occupying a support level below the operations’ level. Maximum grade is in the helices where it is just under 1.9% The layout is controlled by Freiwald’s Train Controller software interfaced to NCE DCC equipment. There are 13 boosters. Staging tracks can all be turned on and off in train length sections by the computer. There are 43 electronic circuit breaker controlled power districts and 149 Block Detection Circuits and an additional 46 through beam Infrared Detectors. Dozens of accurate prototype scale signals, many with 2 and some with 3 heads are controlled to all aspects by the computer. Turnout position information is also provided to the computer from all 46 SMAIL™ equipped turnouts. Every structure is lighted and many have special effects that can be computer controlled. There are over 1000 lamps and LEDs providing the lighting. There are also a couple dozen sound modules under individual computer control. The computer is capable of running up to 6 trains at a time. |
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190+ layer CorelDraw Layout Design with all layers turned on at once. |
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Benchwork showing twin Helices |
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Side View of one helix assembled from sections cut on CNC router with spacers cut from Basswood on our Laser. |
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Computer Control wiring is complicated. SMAIL™ Switch Machines, Uncouplers, Detection Circuits, Track Control Relays, Electronic Circuit Breakers, 2 of 13 boosters, DCC Block Signal Drivers and Computer I/O interface boards are all installed on this section. |
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Working into the Evening at the Sawmill |
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Dawn Breaks over Union Station in the Valley |
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The Super Chief™ is due into LA at any Minute |
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Sunday Evening in LA |
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Evening Wedding at the Cathedral |