Dan’s been in touch with a model railroad based on the Northern pacific railway:
“The Inland Pacific Railway is a “what if” HO railroad. It connects Cincinnati Ohio and Denver Colorado and points between.
The color scheme is based on the Northern Pacific Railway. The owner of the layout (Terry Gilmore) worked at various capacities at one time for the NP.
Terry designed the layout to be a realistic working railroad. It was a three level layout with storage and run through on the lower level.
The basement room size was 45 feet by 30 feet. (Alas, it no longer exists. He moved to another city.) You will get some idea as to size from the photos.
We used car cards, time table, phones and track orders early on. We had a dispatch room with a functioning dispatch board. It normally took 5 operators and a dispatcher for a session.
Once it was fully signaled, the aspects of the signals governed train movement. We had a company rule book to explain the functioning of the railroad.
There was a functioning hump yard for classification of trains. The various industries often had a complimentary industry to eventually report to. The locals would return with the cars that were picked up and then broken up for the destinations needed.
For example, the cars might be for the next session’s locals, or off line cities. Off line cars become trains in storage for the next ops session. The car cards had 4 destinations for the routing and industries on the layout or which “off line” industries the layout served.
My contribution was 99% of the scenery and some of the buildings and flats. I had one constraint, I could not change the track plan.
This was a real joy to operate and run as a “real” railroad as much as you could.
This is part 1 of the IP. The second part will be the upper level.
The Inland Pacific Railway.
The track diagram. The spirals show the helix.
The town of Savannah. The hump yard is on the left and the town is to the right. The upper level is not up yet. The hump yard worked well.
The hump tower. We had two KD magnets to uncouple the cars. There was switch panel with a matrix to direct the cars to the proper tracks.
The complete hump yard with a repair facility to the right. Also, at track under the hump to get locos in position.
The beginnings of the helix.
Here it is easier to see the early work.
Construction farther along in this section.
More along this section.
Farther along.
More progress.
This takes us to the far end of photo 8 where the track curved right.
From photo 13 the tracks work their way around to the right. The track with the train on the far fright actually came from the Savannah side of the layout via hole (not ever seen) in the backdrop/wall. It will pass behind an auto plant and then show up at plants yard.
A scene near the far end. The back drop is 2 inches from the track.
The beginning of the long river. I have posted this and all of the rivers on this layout in another post.
The finished river.
The basic floor plan. The levels were the same basic plan.
A big thanks to Dan for sharing – I do enjoy seeing his stuff.
You can see more of Dan in the Hall of Fame.
That’s all for this time folks.
Please do keep ’em coming.
And if today is the day you get started on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.
Best
Al
PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.
Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.
Beyond comprehension, Dan builds complete countries not just towns or a city. Thought at first… didn’t see any ceiling tile stacked mountain formations. There alright but more camouflaged, believe that material is even rated fire proof. Boiler refractory cement also good choice but airborne asbestos a deterrent there. Might be in ceiling tile also, those bits of dust floating around with construction sites?
Guessing now, believe Dan can make a living building model landscapes. Always look forward to seeing those creations, never tiring.
Regarding, RB
Very impressive layout Dan and an interesting track plan with great scenery. Thanks for sharing and we look forward to seeing more of your progress.
Very impressive, great looking have fun running your railroad. Love the the hump and yard.
Rich B., the tile are everywhere. Look closely at the oxbow rapids photo. I have posted a set of rivers some time ago that show the tile. There are some plaster castings that were done by another modeler. It was taking way too long to get done. We met on Friday evenings to work on the layout. The photo of the “cut” is a plaster casting. It took 4 Friday sessions to do that. I can do similar cut in one Friday evening.
Dan, that is a great layout with some very well-done scenes. How do the helixes work for you? Are there any issues to look out for?
Rob
Absolutely fantastic. A lot of time and work involved for a splendid layout. Thanks for posting.
very nice
GREAT scenery wok!
Very nice set of photos Dan. My favorite was the before and after of the river construction. You did a beautiful job on all the scenery. Very impressive layout and the explanation of the operating sessions was really helpful. Too bad the basement (and layout, I assume) is no longer there.
The only objection I have about using broken ceiling tiles for mountain building is that they tend to be stacked in purely horizontal layers, which does represent some real landforms fairly well. But mountains are often created by forces that bend and tilt the rock layers into non-horizontal forms. Bill in Virginia’s mountains more accurately reflect the tilt-block mountains that are fairly common in nature.
Will in New Mexico, a map of the IP did not get shown. It will be in Part Two of the IP. The area we modeled is around Savannah, Illinois near the Mississippi River. The strata are FLAT in the limestone rocks and no tectonic activity in the area to “bend” the rocks.