| HISTORY
AND OPERATING PROCEDURES
History (a little fact and a little fiction)
The S&P is an obscure branch line railroad which originally
built from the Santa Fe main line at Seligman, Arizona down the
Big Chino Valley to the hamlet of Paulden. It was started shortly
after construction crews extended the original Santa Fe main line
westward from Seligman in 1883 (which is a little hard to explain,
since Paulden didn't get its post office until 1924 and there is
no formal record of any settlement prior to the ‘20s).
During construction of the Santa Fe, there were severe problems
from a lack of locally available water. Although in a moderate climate,
often hosting pine forests, the land itself has little surface water
available for construction needs or for steam locomotives. The railroad
had to search off line, often miles, to find suitable water sources
which were then hauled to track side.
The Big Chino Valley contained one of those valuable resources.
Lush grasslands, flowing streams and springs could be found down
the valley and its tributaries. The railroad soon established wells
at Del Rio Springs which would later become a stop on the Peavine
branch line to Phoenix.
But that is only part of the story. Enterprising workmen for the
Santa Fe, exploring the valley for water sources, noticed lush vegetation
and native grasses, gourds and fruit growing in the area. In their
equally fertile minds, they saw an opportunity to furnish another
severely lacking commodity to construction camps as well as permanent
towns springing up along the main line. Land like this should grow
one fine crop of corn which could furnish the basis for production
of a real quality sour mash. (And to this day, delicious corn is
a product of this area.)
A test crop in that first year proved bountiful beyond their hopes.
So, even as railroad construction moved westward, a few of these
visionary pioneers patented some of the most fertile bottom lands
in the valley. Staying behind in Seligman, they rode to their lands
in the Big Chino Valley and planted next year’s crop. While
waiting for it to mature, they acquired the necessary artifacts
to turn their crop into the desired quality and quantity of the
healing elixir.
The second year proved as bountiful as the first, but now in commercially
viable quantities. By early fall, the corn had all been transformed
into barrels and barrels of high quality hooch. But, our entrepreneurs
discovered a problem, they had overlooked a method of getting their
product to market via the Santa Fe in Seligman. They were faced
with an overland wagon journey of some fifty bouncy miles. As one
knows, such a delicate product should be jostled as little as possible
and consumed as quickly as one can tolerate.
These being seasoned ex-railroad men, an idea eventually came to
them. “Let’s charter a railroad from Seligman to Paulden
to carry our product and who knows, maybe we can make even more
money by attracting settlers, farmers and towns to this area!”.
They easily obtained assistance from the Santa Fe, which was always
interested in fostering branch lines feeding traffic to their railroad.
In fact, the ATSF was particularly enamored with helping a railroad
who used initials that were suspiciously close to their hated rival,
the Southern Pacific.
So successful were these railroad builders, that the line was extended
to serve towns throughout the region - Aguila, Alhambra, Rock Springs,
Pine, Rain Mountain, Lowell and finally to what would become the
largest metropolis on the line, Douglas (See the About
Us page).
Due to its unique geographic location, the S&P is also able
to offer service on selected passenger  trains
from other parts of the country as well as from other eras in time.
This unique opportunity has come about because the Big Chino Wash
is the headwaiters for the Verde River which soon passes near the
town of Sedona, home to world famous Bell Rock. Many of you are
probably aware that Bell Rock is one of the three places on Earth
where the celestial harmonics converge. People from all around the
world come to stand there in order to receive harmonic vibrations
and to repower their inner selves.
This vortex is known to warp both space and time. Taking advantage
of this feature, the S&P has been able to offer a wonderful
variety of passenger service. Depending on the current alignment
of the harmonics, it is possible to see New York Central, Pennsylvania
or C&O trains, not only of this era, but of the 1950’s
or 40’s and even the 30’s running on S&P lines.
S&P
OPERATING PROCEDURES
How Do We Operate The Layout?
Now that we have that justification, or silliness, out of the way
let us talk about the layout itself. The S&P is an oval with a
main terminal, a branch line, itself with a branch line and six on-line towns. Through trains
run from a staging yard through the S&P and back to the staging
yard. Locals originate or terminate at Douglas and pick up or drop
off cars at each town. Occasionally, if there are enough loads ready,
we will send an engine and crew to Aguila to pick them up and return
to the yards at Douglas. An engine is also stationed at Aguila to run the branch line up to Lowell while at Lowell, the mine train makes its run to the coal mine at Courtland.
Formal operating sessions can consist just of running trains, making stops in towns or running up the branch or more formal ones with train orders for car set outs and pickups. The size of the layout dictates that we should not have
more than two trains operating on the main line at a time. But,
as one train completes its run, another can be brought on line,
so several trains can be operated during an evenings session. In
addition, there is plenty of work for a yard crew and operations on the Lowell branch.
Passenger stations
are located at Douglas, Rock Springs and Seligman. (Paulden is only
a flag stop!) Switching of passenger equipment occurs only at Douglas.
Suburban trains lay over at Rock Springs.
HOW
IT STARTED
A New Opportunity
Retirement in 1999 also brought a change of address for Mary Jane
and me. Selling our Phoenix home offered a chance to design and
build a new house here in Paulden. And with that, came the opportunity
to design a new train room.
The Phoenix layout was designed in the early ‘80s and I was
very happy with it. But, we always think, “what would I do
differently today?” Well, now I could do just that.
Know Thyself
This is one of my central themes in layout design. What do you enjoy
most about your trains? Once you identify that, the task of designing
a layout becomes much simpler.
For me, there were two observations. First, I like operating trains.
No matter what, it gets run - prewar or postwar. Evaluating my Phoenix
layouts, I decided that those I enjoyed most were the prewar O and
Standard gauge layout, the high rail layout and surprisingly, the
most recent addition, an S gauge layout. So, these would be the
basis of the new train room.
One of the most popular of the Sunrise Dr. layouts was the postwar
military-space-Plasticville layout. Although everybody seemed to
enjoy it, I thought it took a lot of room and could better be integrated
into the high rail layout.
Another observation, I spent probably 75% of my train time operating
the high rail layout. With its scenery, accessories and the fun
of operating Lionel’s new Trainmaster controls, it really
seemed to be the focus of my enjoyment of the hobby. So, a high
rail layout would dominate the new train room.
From Concept to Plan
The new house went under construction in late spring of 1999, but
beyond these concepts, I didn’t really have an idea for the
train room and layout design. So, it was back to the basics. Since the
principal layout would be the high rail layout, I started with it.
A few years ago, Mary Jane and I were fortunate to visit Lorell
Joiner’s fantastic O gauge layout in San Antonio. His layout
is located in two connected rooms. One contained his downtown scene,
train terminal and yards. From there the layout turned a 180 to
follow the walls of the other room where there was a very long run,
several small towns, and a layout that was not more that 3 feet
deep at any point.
The scenic effect was spectacular, you could watch trains go from
town to town. At each town would be industries or a branch line.
Some portions were flat, like west Texas, some had mountains built
along the wall, almost to the ceiling, but only a foot or two deep. So what I
decided to try was an around the wall layout, based on the traditional
tinplate loop.
I would squeeze the loop along the walls so that along most of the
layout it would look like two railroads, one in the foreground,
one to the back. The layout would be three feet wide except at the
end where loops would flare to eight feet to provide for the 3’
minimum radius curves. That provides a wonderfully long run for
the trains to leave the terminal, travel around the room and return
to a different city.
With this concept in place, I found I could also build two freestanding
layouts in the middle of the room, one for postwar American Flyer
and one for prewar O and Standard gauge.
Along the main line would be a series of small towns each with a
passing siding. Sidings were to be about 16 feet long and spaced
about 16 feet apart all tied to my maximum length train. In that
way, I felt we would be able to watch a train leave a town and actually
travel to the next, passing an opposing train at the next siding.
Each town would contain various industries and each would have
a theme. There would be one with oil wells and a tank farm, one
with log loaders and the fork lift unloader, one for coal, etc.
At the far loop, there was space for “big” accessories,
such as the MiJack piggyback unloader and electromagnetic cranes.
There also would be a river so there would be a reason for placement
of the Lionel lift bridge and the reissued Bascule bridge.
Finally, I have always loved subways and trolleys and wanted
to try a real catenary to run electric engines. So, I added a trolley
line running behind the main station, through down and ducking underneath
the table to a subway station. Then, a separate suburban line starts
from the main terminal and ends in a loop around a suburban town.
GETTING
STARTED
Train Room Preparation
Not everybody gets to design their train room when they build a
new house. But many of us do a fairly major remodel to create a
train room or separate train building. Here are some of the things
I did so the basement would be compatible for the layouts.
First, I had two 20 amp circuits put in for wall outlets. You may
not need two, but it is important to make sure your train room is
not sharing a circuit with half the rest of the house. In
addition, there are two more circuits for ceiling lights. I found
in my old layout that I drew too much power for the single 15 amp breaker. So,
check your lighting plan to make sure you have enough power.
I placed a string of floor outlets down the center of the room.
These make it possible to bring power to the island Flyer and Prewar
layouts without having to run an extension across an aisle.
There are five locations around the high rail layout where I’ve
placed power centers. At each of those locations, I installed 120
volt outlet boxes connected to the wall outlets. Not only does this give me a convenient location to plug in power
strips for the transformers, but the outlets make it easy to plug
in an extension cord or vacuum cleaner without having to crawl under
the layout to a wall plug.
Finally I carpeted the
room. Carpeting does wonders for reducing sound while makes
working under the layout much more tolerable. You do have
to spend more time making sure it is kept clean, but for me is worth
the effort.
An Approach to Benchwork
I have a design for building benchwork that has served me well over
the years. It is very quick to erect and when done, you can dance
on it. In fact, one of Mary Jane’s suggestion was that we
build the American Flyer layout early so we would have something
for trains to run on. We built the entire seven by sixteen foot
table during the afternoon of one of our work sessions.
The table work design is very simple. Framing consists of 1x4 inch
lumber set on a four foot square grid. Legs are 2x4’s. The
flat sections of the table top are sheeted with one half inch CDX
plywood onto which a layer of Celotex is glued. For mountains or
sceniced areas, this grid supports plywood/Celotex sections placed
only under the track itself. These are attached to the grid with
1x4” risers screwed to stringers.
With a four foot square module, it is easy to work with 4 by 8 sheets
of plywood. Even if you vary a dimension from the four feet (such
as the seven foot width of the Flyer layout), the rest of the four
foot dimensions remain the same. You only have to trim one area.
By using eight foot long pieces of lumber, you can also minimize
the number of cuts (and potential  errors)
by running full length boards one direction and then filling in
with the cut, four foot lengths. The only trick is to remember to
account for the 3/4 inch width of the boards when cutting cross
members so that the final overall dimension remains a multiple of
four or eight feet. In that way your plywood top will fit exactly.
There is a leg at each intersection of the four foot boards. (I
inset the legs along the table’s outside edge by 4”
to leave room to hang display shelves under the layout.) A 1x2”
diagonal is screwed from each leg to the table framework to brace
the leg.
 As
each section of open framework is finished, it
is awfully flimsy. Upon screwing on the plywood top, the whole assembly
gains its rigidity. Finish each work session by cutting and gluing
Celotex onto the plywood. Let it dry overnight. (I always put the
painted white side of the Celotex up so it works as a good base
for paint or scenic materials.)
You may want to make some alterations to your basic benchwork. For
example, about half of the layout is built on an open framework
with track elevated one to two inches. The track’s plywood
base is elevated with risers cut from 1x4’s and screwed to
the stringers of the open benchwork. Use a level or check the elevation
of grades carefully by temporarily clamping the bottom of the riser
to the joist. When you are satisfied with the grade, screw it in. Here, four foot spacing between risers is too long for rigidity for track on the open benchwork. Add a new stringer halfway
to support the track every two feet.
That is all there is to it. If you want to tack your track right
onto the Celotex, you could be laying track the next day.
Scenic Backdrops
 I
noticed an ad in CTT for Backdrop Warehouse. They had a web address,
so I logged on and it changed my whole approach to the background
for the layout. What they do is print digital photographs of real
scenes, over 100 of them. You can assemble them in any order to
make your personalized backdrop.
The sheets are printed on a heavy plastic and are available in several sizes, scaled all the
way from N gauge to O gauge. Mine are the largest, three feet high
by twelve feet long - and I ordered nine of them!
Fortunately I discovered the murals while planning the layout. There
are several ways they could be mounted, but I decided to glue them
to 1/8” sheets of Masonite hung along the back side of the
layout. Masonite was screwed to extra long legs which
extend up from the back of the table. I then spackled screw holes
and sanded seams to make the Masonite as smooth as possible
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Part 2: Building the Layout
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