Dan’s been back in touch with his HO scale freight yard – you can see the fun he has switching trains:
“The next local on the tour is at Lowell Junction.
There are 5 jobs to switch. Bag-O-Crete (premixed bags of concrete), Gilmore industries, Carling Black Brewery, a transfer warehouse, and a freight house.
There is a small yard and a connection to Ayer with the New Haven Railroad.
Photo 1. A progress view of the layout. Lowell Junction is to the left looking toward the door. The the yard track is Lowell which is under Lowell Junction. You can see the return loop that will be covered with the mountain and and what will become the Bellirica and Winchester area.
Photo 2. The beginning of the mountain that will cover the return loop.
Photo 3. More of the construction.
Photo 4. the other side of the mountain. The return loop and switch work under the mountain is fully accessible.
Photo 5. The bagged concrete factory. Also viable is the junction to Ayre and the New Haven interchange track.
Photo 6. Gilmore industries.A metal specialty company.
Photo 7. General view of Lowell Jct. Nearly finished look with the lower track plan for Lowell and staging.
Photo 8. New Haven interchange entering Lowell Junction.
Photo 9. Switching the brewery.
Photo 10. The station at Lowell Junction. This one of the commuter stops as well as a milk train stop. There is also an RDC that comes from Ayre to bring passengers for stops to or from Boston. There is a military base at Ayre so there are commuters coming and going from there.
Photo 11. The eastern part of Lowell Jct. It also shows the car card holders for each location that is switched. At the beginning of an operation session, the car cards are in the proper pocket and the cars are in the correct places.
The incoming local has the cars and car cards for the local from the Winchester yard. When the job is done cards are placed in the industry pockets and the picked up cards and cars are returned to Winchester yard.
Dan”
A big thanks to Dan for sharing more pics of his HO scale freight yard. Hope you enjoyed them as much as me.
If you missed Dan’s last post, it’s here: HO scale switcher.
That’s all for today folks.
Please do keep ’em coming.
And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.
Best
Al
PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.
PPS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.
One of the best posts I have seen here. Very beautiful work
Totally outstanding. Had me wondering for awhile about those card board strips.
love to see vid .
The Critic
Lovely to see some serious scale in the landscape, brilliant.
outstanding work.
Well done layout. Lots of room for the trains to roam. You have a good integration of scenery and landscape. It seems like it would be a fun layout to operate.
Space is such a blessing. Everyone else craves it. You have it. Nice job with it.
This layout is great, looks to be functional and good looking.
Is there any way to get a track and wire plan. This what I have been thinking about doing for years. His help with plans would save weeks of work.
This is insparationl and doable
Ed
Dan
Wow! Lowell Junction functioning in the enormous layout of the century. The planning and schemes are awesome. So well done and the missive was published perfectly which took some time & effort. I for one thank you immensely for your work and contribution.
Big Al
There are so many great & talented people on this site.
My Java, Lowell Junction, & email from Mr Lee- great way to start the day. Gracias.
This is a room size one can only dream of , by far excellent ,thanks for the pictures
Dan, this is a well thought out design plan. Congratulations… and keep enjoying it!
Edwyn, There was a track plan in the first batch I think. The layout is DCC with two separate booster blocks. All of the lower yard tracks are isolated with on and off toggle switches. This keeps things where they are supposed to be. Also, if all the locos were live, the power drain is very high.
There have been cases where the sudden surge causes the addresses to drop.This does not happen on this layout.
If you look at Lowell junction, you can see the schematic for the lower yard at Lowell. The wiring is straight forward as to wiring.
Simply stated, I truly owe Dan lots for making my dream come alive. He is an expert modeler and loaded with knowledge of train operations. Thank you Dan
A dream come true to have that much space and freedom to design what your planning skills and imagination came conjure up.
Really like the pictures of your bench work. Great job!
Roger in Kansas
very nice work. i like it very much.
Dan….WOW! Impressive, great work. I wish I had some of your carpentry experience.
Wow!!! That is an awesome layout a lot of hard work and it shows from start to finish! Gives me a lot of ideas and inspiration to do different things to my layout. Thank you for sharing your pictures and ideas great job again!!!