The Railroad Project begins...

When we were house hunting, one of the desirable traits was a location for a train room. Christine has been fairly adamant about having a layout in the house. She claims it's for purely selfish purposes: if I have a layout, then she knows exactly what to get me for Christmas and birthdays, etc. are taken care of for the rest of our lives.

While the space we can allocate isn't large, it's larger by far than any space I've ever been able to dedicate to model railroading. So for the past few weeks, I've been doing some imagineering.

I realize I hadn't blogged anything in months, but I thought this would be an ideal tool to track my progress into the ranks of rail barony.

So let's start with the "wish list":

• I want to work in HO scale. I'm getting older and N is a bit tiny for my eyes and fingers. (My dad went back to O exclusively as he got older.)
• The model will be a freelance prototype. I want to base the layout in reality, but not be bound by it. I love steam and trolleys (I am my father's son, after all...) but I don't want to be stuck strictly modeling the 1940s. So we're going to pretend that the Conrail merger never happened and that trolleys are still a essential part of transportation.
• Point-to-point operation is prototypical and cool, but sometimes I just want to run trains, so at least one (and maybe 2) continuous loops will be desirable.
• My prototype roads are the Lehigh Valley and Lehigh Valley Transit. (It will be difficult to find equipment here in the Midwest. The local shop caters to Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific.)
• I want to include a model of Dorney Park as it was in the 60's and 70's. This would include the Zephyr (as an N scale model). I'd also like to include the Coaster and Skooters, Zoorama, the Show Boat, the Whip, the Merry-Go-Round and the traffic cop on Dorney Park Road. My model will be called "Alfundo Park" after the clown mascot of Dorney Park.
• I'd love to have a model of the Lehigh Valley's streamliner, the John Wilkes.
• I want to include several landmarks like Air Products and Yocco's. I'd also like to include scenes that have personal significance (even if I have to relocate them a bit to fit them in the model). For example, the church I served in Mertztown was next to the Reading right of way. Every Sunday, the train would come through in the middle of the sermon. Also, the church still had outdoor "plumbing" at the time. (Whit Towers would be so proud!)

Now for the good, the bad, and the ugly...

The Good:

•  I can include rolling stock and interchanges with several other lines:
• Reading
• Lehigh and New England
• Central Railroad of New Jersey
• Lehigh and Lackawana
• Ironton
• Bethlehem Steel (if I extend that far to the east)
• The Pennsylvania doesn't come directly into the area I want to model, but it won't be too far-fetched to see some Pennsy equipment.
• Although Lehigh Valley Transit didn't go to Cetronia and Dorney Park, the Allentown-Kutztown Traction company did. In fact, at one point, this trolley line owned and operated Dorney Park!

The Bad:

• This will be the most complex layout I've ever built. There are many things I've seen and understand in theory that I've never done myself. There will be a steep learning curve.
• I want to install live overhead wiring for the trolley lines.
• The Alfundo Park Zephyr will have to be scratch built. My prototype is an amusement park train which was an inexact copy of the Burlington Zephyr. (Besides, I have no intention of buying an expensive Burlington Zephyr model only to reduce its value by cutting and repainting it.
• This will be an expensive, long-term project. I'm starting practically from ground 0 in terms of tools and equipment.
• I'm really liking the idea of DCC control to simplify wiring and provide all the bells and whistles (literally). But that will add to the expense. It's also a major change from the type of wiring I'm accustomed to doing.

The Ugly:

• I have to leave clearance for all of the entries on the west wall of the basement: storage, laundry, and workshop (as well as the craft room on the west end of the north wall.
• I lose a chunk of real estate to the games closet in the southeast corner of the basement, directly across from the stairs.
• I have to provide access to the water main on the east wall--which is covered by a ceiling-to-floor door. (An access hatch, although less aesthetic, would be easier to accommodate.
• I also have to provide extra clearance to get between the layout and the network shelf on the way to the laundry room.

So where do things stand today?

First of all, I've (finally) joined the NMRA. (For years, I sort of piggy-backed on my dad's membership, reading every issue of the Bulletin.)

Secondly, I've measured the available space and provided clearance for all the obstacles noted above.

Using a map of the basement, I've begun playing with basic layout ideas to maximize the available space. I'm currently leaning toward a "3" shaped layout which will model the area from Trexlertown east to Allentown, then north to Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe).

I've also grabbed a 30' topographical map from the USGS and overlaid the approximate routes of most of the railroads in the area. This will help me to make reasonable decisions regarding the track plan and the industries along it. (One problem that's already neatly solved: a lift out bridge at Lehigh Gap will provide access to the water main. Kind of poetic actually--the source of water for our house models the Lehigh River... )

I've just posted both of these maps to a new Picasa album. If nothing else, this will increase my blogging activity and help provide documentation for the NMRA achievement program.