What is on your workbench?

[Jim Courtney]

Doug,

More Loop photos, please!

[Keith Hayes]

Nice, Mike!

And Charles--you need a sizable fleet of freight cars to put those engines to work!

[Doug Tagsold]

Jim,  here are a few more photos of my Georgetown Loop.  Scenery is near finished, though I still need to pour the water in Clear Creek.
The backdrop photos are shots of the actual mountains above Georgetown.

Doug Tagsold

[Jim Courtney]

Beautiful work, Doug.

What scale you working in, HOn3?  Or is this HO standard gauge? What are the rough dimensions of your Georgetown Loop?

Are you planning to build up to Silver Plume and down to Georgetown? Any track plan?

[Doug Tagsold]

Good questions, not so easy to answer in one or two sentences.
 
If you purchase Kalmbach's "Model Railroad Planning 2018" coming out in January, my lead article will have all of your answers, with a detailed track plan.  Super short answer: It is 1:72 scale, using modified HO standard gauge motive power and rolling stock.

The layout represents the entire Clear Creek line from Denver to Silver Plume, with the Black Hawk branch to Central City included.  Mainline to Silver Plume is 450 ft, with another 150 ft. on the branch from Forks Creek to Black Hawk and Central City.  Double deck design.  Timetable / Train Order operation based on an actual 1912 C&S timetable.

The Georgetown Loop module is 4.5 by 9 feet.   The layout now is fully operational, and about 30% sceniced at this time.  After I get more scenery finished, I plan to go back and re work the engines, adding more C&S specific details.  Most obvious discrepancies now are the headlights being mounted on top of the smoke boxes, rather than on brackets in front of them.  But for the time being, they are good enough for me.  I am a prototypical operator first, prototype modeler second.  

Doug Tagsold
Blissfield, MI

[Matt Hutson]

Hi guys,
Well, this was going to be C&S #641, but the actual dimensions just did not pan out. So, it's now going to be Rio Grande #1151, the last standard gauge steam engine to operate on the Grande back at the end of 1956. I began with this 1:29 scale Aristo-Craft locomotive:


Now at this stage:


On my way to this:


More on that later!

Cheers,
Matt

[skip]

Mike Trent wrote

Two pics, one for Skip, it's excellent that we will have complete sets of "them Boulder Engines" in three scales within this group.

Skip, if I can help answer any questions you might have on these engines, fire away. Each is similar and different from and to the others.
For instance, that rounded steam dome cover on #75 appeared after the 1935 Como roundhouse fire, the new sand dome was a replacement for the original after 1922. My #75 still has it's original Brooks cover as it is "pre-fire".

Mike,

Thanks for the offer. I think that I will soon have the opportunity to take you up on that. Your posts (as well as those of many others here) have been a gold mine of information on detailing these engines.

As this is Keith's "What is on your workbench" thread, I will give an update on the workbench contents and soon post a set of pictures for comment and discussion in a new thread. Right now, the last of the three, the #74 is reassembled after her paint job and the test run shows her to remain one of my nicest running locomotives. Whoo-Hoo! I didn't break anything! The tenders are currently on the workbench with the glue drying around some of my 1910 Alpine Tunnel C&S coal.

I should have some pictures for a new thread soon.

Skip Egdorf

[Jim Courtney]

Fascinating concept, Doug!

It looks like your layout will be the cover article in the Model Railroad Planning 2018!

https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/special-issue/vt-mrp180101-c?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Rsend_HBS_171004_P31702_MRP18Presale2_MRR-HBS_Final&utm_content=&spMailingID=30849423&spUserID=MTE2ODA0NDI3NDYxS0&spJobID=1140223044&spReportId=MTE0MDIyMzA0NAS2


So, we have folks here modeling the C&S in 1/48 scale, 1/72 scale, 1/64 scale, 1/87.5 scale and I believe John is working in 1:20.3 scale as well. Anyone working in Nn3 (1:160 scale)?

Of course ComoDepot seems to be working in 1:1 scale . . .

[ComoDepot]

Actually a bit more than that as the rail is a bit heavier than would have been the case.

[Chris Walker]

Once you go 1:1, you'll never want to go back. and the Rail doesn't have to be heavy.

[Jeff Ramsey]

In the process of moving my workbench (and tools) today down to the roundhouse.

[John Greenly]

This is a fun thread.  Lately I felt like taking a break from analyzing murky anomalous caboose photos, and Doug's wonderful Georgetown Loop photos may have brought to my mind that I don't have a layout at all, and so my eye fell on a box in the corner, an old Model Masterpieces basic three-stall Como roundhouse kit that I found a while ago.   It had a bunch of broken and some really shattered plaster wall parts that would have taken serious sculpture work to fix, and also it seemed both too big for the space I anticipate, and too small- three stalls just can't do full justice to Como. So it sat in the corner awaiting inspiration.  But now I took it out and played around with the fixable parts for an evening, and finally came up with this (it's just taped together at the moment):







the bits on the right of the last photo are about all that's left over except the really shattered parts.

I hope this doesn't offend anyone (including me) who treasures the Como roundhouse.  I'm thinking of it as what might have been built someplace else by the same stonemasons, an homage to Como in a small way.  So this, along with my pin-connected truss bridge, are the first glimmerings of my future layout….

Cheers,
John

[skip]

John, I am really impressed. I had no idea that the Como roundhouse parts could make such a neat looking two-stall engine house. It even has shop space with the parts available to you.

But you have to realize that you are causing a great dilemma here. Do we cheer you on to complete your #59-ish engine? Should we be pushing you to do more caboose stuff? And now I really want to see the completed engine house.
I'm not sure what will come next, but the one thing I do know is that I love seeing all the great things you are working on. Please keep them coming.

Skip Egdorf

[John Greenly]

Thanks, Skip, for the kind words!   This was just having some fun and decompressing from caboose thinking.  I think now I'm going to go back to my #59ish intermediate tender, and then try to gather the energy to put together a proper post on the caboose stuff.  The enginehouse I think will go back on the shelf for now, but it's nice to see that it can turn out to be something that I will like to look at and to use someday.

Cheers,
John