The club is located in the basement of a church, in a building that was originally built as a medical clinic. My wife Christal actually practiced there for 20+ years. The club occupies the entire basement, about 2700 square feet. The HO layout has a 400-foot mainline on two levels. It's a continuous loop with two helixes and two branch lines. There are several local yards on the main line, a large roundhouse and car shop area, and a separate large staging yard. The club also has a large Lionel 3-rail layout fully sceniced, and a small "museum" of old and new models from N to G scales.
The 18-foot staging yard (below) is in a small room off the main layout room. The track on the left is the programming track for our Digitrax® DCC. All controllers are "D" (radio) models. The entrance to the layout is at top left where the green signal is indicating a clear track ahead.
A Bachmann S4 emerges from the staging yard at
the city of Davis on the lower level of the layout.
The train on the bridge at Davis is a static model fully lit. Most of the buildings on the layout are lit, and many are scratch built. Ahead around the corner is the Davis Yard, the largest yard on the main line. From here, a non-stop trip around the main looping back to Davis will take 20-25 minutes.
The majority of the layout is scenicked, but much remains to be done or enhanced.
This farm is on the upper level, a large part of which is open country. The lower level is more urban and industrial.
The grain elevators on the upper level are served by a small yard.
This lumbering operation sits atop one of the helixes. Maximum grade on the layout is two percent. Minimum curve radius is 36 inches. All switches are hand-thrown Peco turnouts.
An Athearn Alco 2-6-0 coasts downgrade from a helix. Both helixes are mostly visible and fully scenicked. The lumber operation and the helix high-line are up to the left. The mine at right is on a branch line that wraps around the base of the helix. Its junction is at the upper right, leading into two track a tunnel. The 2-6-0 will emerge from the same tunnel and head around the corner to Davis.
The same branch line emerges from a tunnel at the upper right to reach this ore dock. The line branches to right of the photo to skirt the bluff and reach the mine. At the top of the photo, the line goes left to reach a paper mill complex.
The ore dock is from Walthers. The ore boat is a scratchbuilt paper model that I built for the club. The stacks of the paper mill are visible just over the hill.
Stay tuned. More photos to come.
