Wow, so it's been 7 years since I've posted!

After building at a frantic pace to get ready for the NMRA 2011 national convention, I was experiencing total burnout.  So, for the next four years I operated the Summit County portion of my railroad once a month and dabbled with building structures and rolling stock.  About three years ago I decided that I it was time to build again.  So, I terminated the OP sessions and started the Union Pacific mainline portion of the railroad.

I decided to start building at the bottom of Weber Canyon just outside of Ogden.  Echo, in the upper right was already in operation. The lower deck at the far end is Uintah. The lower right is Gateway where the railroad travels through the rugged narrow Weber canyon.  To the left is the town of Morgan, which will provide considerable switching.

Below is what the area looks like today, looking from the reverse direction.  The track is operational but a couple of bridges need to be completed. The mainline is double tracked with center sidings.  On the upper right is the siding at Emory.

 

The next area to be built was Taggerts on the lower deck where the Railroad crosses the Weber river 4 times and passes through two tunnels.  On the upper deck is the climb up to Curvo.

Finally, I built the East staging yard at the far right.  The wood structure on the ceiling is the support for Devil's slide, Henefer, and Wahsatch which will hang from the ceiling.

Operations

The railroad has been operational for for about 18 months with sessions held every month.  In an op session we try to run the railroad as if it is full size using prototypical rules.  There are two systems in place that are used to run the railroad.  A car card and waybill system is used to route each freight car to its proper destination.  Trains are made up of those cars that perform a specific job such as a local switcher or a through freight.  To move the trains we use the time table and train order system.  This is what the railroad used in the period modeled.  The model railroad combines the essence of the rulebook and a timetable into one document seen below.  The timetable shows only regular trains.  Any train that is switching, and therefore has a variable work time, is an extra train.  Extras are controlled with train orders.

Track plan

The centerpiece of any model railroad article or blog is the track plan.  In my case the plan consists of 4 levels, 0 through 3 although in most places it is a typical double deck design.  The size of the main room is 30 feet by 40 feet with an 8 by 8 foot helix room on the end.



At the lowest elevation, Level 0 is hidden under Ogden yard and is used for staging. 

 

Level 1 consists of the large Ogden Utah yard.  Around the yard there are several industrial switching areas. 

  





There are two railroads on Level 2.  In the center aisle we have the Summit County Railroad.  In the C shaped outer  area is the Union Pacific mainline through Weber canyon.





The center aisle of Level 3 is the upper Level of the Summit County.  The outer aisles are the continuation of the Union Pacific upgrade through Echo canyon.



Two years later scenery nears completion

Here are some photos taken by Kenneth Finnegan http://kennethfinnegan.blogspot.com/ in January 2012.  What a difference a couple of years makes! 


The Summit County's main traffic generator is coal from the three large mines.  Below is the New Church Mine

Here is Weber Coal.

And finally Union Fuel.

Lets follow along with #3 the morning local between Park City and Echo.  We pace #3 as she steams out of Coalville.

Here we see passenger #3 crossing a short trestle...

 ... before arriving at Grass Creek.

Upon leaving Grass Creek #3 heads across the high bridge at Echo Reservoir on its way to Echo.

Meanwhile workers at Park City's Tri-state Lumber wait for the train.

Here a train heads down the Monarch branch to set out coal loads at US Steel's coke facility.

 Then the 2-10-2 crosses a small creek enroute to the Monarch silver mine.

Here we have arrived at the Monarch mine.

Near the mine is a stock pen.

Early benchwork, track and scenery contour photos

The lower level benchwork is taking shape.  Park City is on the left and Wanship is on the right.

Here the track in Park City has been laid.  You can also make out some rough scenery is in place at the far left.  Note the wood cleats on the wall.  These will support the second level.



Here is the helix which is nearly 8 feet in diameter.  It connects the first and second levels.  There will be additional levels added during the next phase of construction.



Here are two shots of the Monarch branch.  First with only benchwork and track.

And then with rough scenery contours.

I guess the best place to start is the beginning.  Although the real beginning involved lots of research, planning and layout design, I would like to show the initial construction of the UP&SC.  In my case that meant building the structure that the layout is housed in.


Here, concrete is being poured on a hot August day.  Luckily I contracted this part out, but I built everything else with help from friends.

Then the building was framed.

The exterior was added and I had a dry place in which to work.



Electrical and drywall were next.  Note the curved drywall.

With the addition of paint and lights, my outbuilding was starting to look like a railroad room.  The photo below depicts one of the three aisles.

If there is any interest out there I am happy to discuss room construction in more detail.

Welcome to my Blog about my model railroad, "The Union Pacific and Summit County".


The Union Pacific and Summit County is multi deck HO scale layout in a 1300 square foot purpose-built building. Currently only the Summit County Railroad portion is operational which occupies roughly 30% of the space. The Summit County is a proto-freelance railroad based on the UP's Park City branch, hauling coal, ore and livestock. It connects to Union Pacific's double track transcontinental mainline at Echo. The yet to be built portion models Ogden and the Weber and Echo canyon portions of UP's transcontinental mainline.


The operating system is TT&TO with telephones for communication. The sound equipped, primarily steam engine roster is controlled with an NCE Radio DCC system. Freight is forwarded with a CC&WB system and all turnouts are Tortoise controlled. Scenery is roughly 90% complete.


The layout is located near Sacramento and participated in last year's NMRA X2011 national convention http://www.x2011west.org/.  During that week we hosted tours as well as Layout Design Special Interest Group http://www.ldsig.org/.  Two operation sessions were held for members of the Operations Special Interest Group http://www.opsig.org/.

Here are some photos from the April 2012 Op session courtesy of operator Jay Hansell.