My Colorado Joint Line Layout

[railfan4life]

All,

Along the line of Mike's Before and After thread, here's some shots of the layout I'm working on. I've been working on the layout since last Fall. I model the section of the Joint Line between Denver and Palmer Lake in the 1990-1995 time period.



Here's the track plan. The upper left is North Denver which is an industrial section. The main yard is the SF/BN yard in Denver. The joint line begins at the double crossover in the lower left. The joint line has a dedicated northbound and a dedicated southbound line between Denver and Palmer Lake where the two lines combine into a single track mainline.


Benchwork is almost done (Nov 12).


Sky boards going in (Dec 12).


Beginning work on Palmer Lake (Dec 12).





Shots at Palmer Lake (May 13).



Cheers,

Railfan4life

[atsfan]

I see pink foam for the benchwork, but what is on top of it? The tan stuff?

Nice work and thanks for sharing. Keep going.

[mlehman]

Railfan4life,
That's some quick, clean work! Looking good so far.

Looks like you're able to walk around the back side of things, although the camera angle is not the best for seeing that?

[railfan4life]

The brown on the pink foam is nothing more than paint. It going to take me quite a while to get all the scenery in and I didn't want to be running trains on top of a pink landscape all that time. So I painted the foam with the same acrylic paint I use under the ground foam when I'm adding scenery.

Cheers,

Railfan4life

[railfan4life]

Mike,

Thanks for the complement.

Jun 9, 2013 5:21:53 GMT -8 mlehman said:

Railfan4life,
That's some quick, clean work! Looking good so far.

Looks like you're able to walk around the back side of things, although the camera angle is not the best for seeing that?

Yes, you can walk completely around the layout to access the hidden staging that's behind the backdrop (uppermost tracks in the track diagram). Hidden staging serves as everything south of Palmer Lake and everything north of Denver.

Here's a link to one of my YouTube videos on my layout. This one gives an overview of the layout as well as follows a train through the entire layout and into hidden staging.



Cheers,

Railfan4life

[riogrande]

Looks good. I'm a D&RGW fan (can't you tell?) but model the time period before graffiti, ditch lights and strange things on the joint line or other Rio Grande haunts. Still, I expect you'll have to include some SP and D&RGW stuff even during your time frame. Look forward to seeing photo's with trains too!

Cheers.

[sd80macs]

Looks nice and my 1 question I have is whats the point of the crossover before the crossing if the track turns to single track right after the crossing?

[railfan4life]

Jun 9, 2013 12:04:09 GMT -8 sd80macs said:

Looks nice and my 1 question I have is whats the point of the crossover before the crossing if the track turns to single track right after the crossing?

Thanks. The crossover at Palmer Lake is the "caboose runaround". The runaround is prototypical, but the actual track arrangement of the switches had to be changed to accommodate the compression between Palmer Lake and Larkspur on the layout. The runaround was needed for Rio Grande coal trains, some Burlington Northern coal trains and a few others when they had cabooses and helpers. Most BN cabooses were structurally sound enough to have the helpers just push on the rear of the caboose. However, with the Rio Grande cabooses the helpers couldn't do that. The helpers were cut into the train directly ahead of the caboose when they were put on in Denver. So when the train got to Palmer Lake the helpers had to cut off the train, run around the caboose and then push the caboose onto the end of the train. Cabooses aren't used in my primary timeframe ('92-'95), but I wanted to include a working runaround track so I could run trains as they did in the 80s sometimes. Cabooses were used regularly on the Joint Line until the very late 80s and some trains still had them in the very early 90s.

[railfan4life]

OK guys, here's some shots of trains at Palmer Lake.



A southbound BN coal train crossing County Line Road.



A southbound SP/D&RGW Colorado Springs Department of Utilities coal train.



The southbound coal trains, and some others, require manned helpers on the Joint Line. These are cut off at Palmer Lake and they return to Denver, or Big Lift, on the dedicated northbound track.



Ah, times are a changing. A southbound BNSF freight rounds the curve at Palmer Lake. While I mainly model the early to mid 90s, I do have a few modern BNSF and UP trains.

Cheers,

Railfan4life

[riogrande]

Thanks for those photo's. Very nice!

I'm stuck in a time warp and buy only rolling stock used as late as 1991, so technically I may overlap your era only by a year or two. The speed letter SP came after 1993 so I only have "classic" Southern Pacific and Rio Grande SD units.

[railfan4life]

Thanks again for the complements. Though I say I model the early to mid 90s, most of the time I operate the layout as 1995 since I run Santa Fe SD75Ms which they didn't get until 1995. I back date the layout by removing the later engines (SD75Ms, SD70MACs, speed lettered SP units, Dash -9s, Dash -8CWs, etc).

Cheers,

Railfan4life

[buffalobill]

Very nice layout- like your operating period. Those years give you a lot of latitude. To run a large variety of equipment.
Bill

[railfan4life]

Rio Grande - Here's more in your time period.



5 Rio Grande SD units up front pulling a CSDU train over the Palmer Divide.

Railfan4life

[riogrande]

Thanks rf4l! Thats a nice looking train!