It was a LONG week, but we have made the move into the new house. Were still waiting on a front door, and cabinets, but the house was done enough to live in. The builders should be back in 2-3 weeks to start on the layout building. Right now, our biggest hold up will be the roof trusses. We're looking at the second half of September before those come in. I don't have an official timeline yet, but I'm hoping the building will be done by early November. In the mean time, I'm gonna continue to revise the layout plans and hopefully start discussing operations soon.
With the building plans finalized and turned in, I went through another round of revisions on the track plans. I made some slight changes to the Rosedale/Glenn Park area so there's some separation between the two. Other than that, no major changes, just some clean up and scenery notes.
I reuploaded pictures/PDFs in the above thread. The plans are now marked where the track goes up/down to another area. I think I've said it before, but I have this drawn up as a 2 level layout. The bulk of the action (Kansas City - Springfield) is on the bottom level at setting height. If I decide I don't want the extra stuff on the upper deck, I can easily scale it back to just staging yards.
It's ambitious, and it looks like lots of opportunities for operations. But no passenger service. Bah. GS
At 75 years old, I wish I had 30 years to build something like this layout. The layout building appears to be about twice the size of my whole house. However, since that house is only periodically occupied, my present layout takes up almost half the house. And could take it up even more if I could elevate my energy level beyond the relatively somnambulant present condition. If I might ask, what is the origin of the name?
Well, Iantha is the name of a small village (I guess village is the right word?) down the road from my family's farm where I grew up. Iantha was a stop on the Frisco's Ash Grove Subdivision. There never was any sort of branch line off of the main at Iantha, so dreaming one up was a direction I naturally went towards when I was younger. So, I wound up using Iantha Branch as kind of a running title for all the non prototype layouts I've made since then.
I’ve had the name Midland Western for every layout I’ve ever had since I was 14 in 1962. We were on a family trip to Houston, traveling west down US 90 in southwest Louisiana paralleling the T&NO. Midland, Louisiana was out on treeless Prairie, nothing but rice fields, a Crossroads, a couple of grain elevators and a wooden depot that had not been torn down yet. The whole scene was unbearably evocative of the railroad past, always looking westward. I named my layout the minute I saw that scene and I have kept it ever since. I thought about changing it a couple of times, but I thought that it would be turning my back on my childhood. So the name persists to this day. Even though it’s really a Missouri Pacific operation.
This morning we officially broke ground for the layout building. In the span of about 5 hours the foundation was marked off, footers were dug, rebar was set and concrete was poured. Its amazing how fast this crew can work. I'm hoping by Friday morning they'll be pouring the actual pad that will be the floor.
I like the way you think. It's not the right shade of orange, but it's what I had available quickly tonight. I got lucky, when I was setting up for the picture I could hear a train headed my way, so I waited for it to show up. I got double lucky because 6022 decided to make another appearance.
I like how you staged the shot with the model of the prototype in the same shot. Is the area inside the formed walls going to get filled with gravel before pouring the slab? One thing to consider, if the slab covers the full length and width of the building with the exterior walls on top, the slab will have an edge exposed to weather (aka low/high temperatures). The exterior insulated walls should cover the ends of the slab. That way you will reduce heat gain in summer, heat loss and possible frost or moisture on the floor around the inside periphery of the outside walls in winter.
Thanks, that's what I was hoping to capture. I will admit, I had a bit of a heads up that something was coming soon-ish. The CTC Signal was lit up as I was coming home from the store. Yes, this building will have a slab. I didn't get a clarification on why, but they wanted to form and pour the stem wall separate from the slab. Maybe it makes a stronger base? Anyway, tomorrow they'll knock the forms off, then pour and pack in base gravel. As for the insulation, I'll ask them about it, but I'm sure they've already got that accounted for. After watching them build the main house, I have ZERO doubts about the quality of their finished product. There were a lot of little things they did to help insulate the house that I never would have thought of. I'll report back next week when that part of the building starts going together.
