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Where the Iron Horse meets the Carriage Horse |
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Sunrise Layout |
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"Basements are made to house model train layouts". I believe that quote is found somewhere in the Constitution. But growing up in Arizona, just seeing a basement was a rare occurrence, let alone an opportunity for a train layout. Our house on Darlington Road in Toledo changed all that. They are correct, what a wonderful place for a train layout. So when we designed our house on South Mountain in Phoenix, it had to have a basement - a 30 by 50 foot room to house our family room, a workshop, a bathroom and lots of room left for train layouts. This was to become our ultimate train room.
When it came time to design the layout, I had a dilemma. O gauge layouts had evolved into what we now call "high rail", that is a realistic layout, with full scenery and operations as close to scale as possible while using traditional three rail track and equipment. No problem, on this new layout, the main layout would be a double tracked main line with a city, industry, a river and countryside. The problem came from a growing collection of prewar O and Standard gauge trains as well as recently collected OO gauge trains - all from the 20's and 30's. And, none of that provided for a growing collection of post war military and space era accessories or a town of Plasticville buildings. So what evolved was a room with three independent layouts, but all built on the same tablework and with the same design and appearance - a postwar layout using traditional Lionel 031 track and switches, a prewar layout with O and Standard gauge track and the high rail layout using Gar Graves flexible three rail track. Even worse, as time wore on, a growing American Flyer S gauge collection and HO gauge trains made by Lionel and American Flyer demanded to be operated also. So by the time we were near the end of our 15 year stay in our Sunrise Drive house, two more layouts were added to the remaining basement space. Over the years a lot of people got to enjoy the layouts. We were featured in Arizona Highways, Classic Toy Trains and on the layout tour for our Train Collectors Association Phoenix national convention in 1997. Here are some pictures of the "Sunrise Drive" basement.
Initially the top loop contained a OO gauge layout using contemporary On3 track, which is the same gauge as OO gauge. However, it never operated to my satisfaction and was replaced by the top loop of Standard gauge.
On the left is the main control panel for the high rail layout. It was designed for two train operation by separating the track into blocks so each operator could route power to his own train. However it was never operated that way as the double track main allowed two trains to be run continuously anyway. The introduction of hand held controllers with Lionel's TrainMaster system made central control panels like this redundant.
These photos are of the postwar layout, only five by twelve feet but packed with buildings and accessories. This colorful layout is what you first saw as you came down the stairs into the train room. On the right hand photo you see the display shelves which were removed when the layout was expanded to include S and HO gauge layouts.
This is a view from the HO layout to the postwar layout showing how well Plasticville buildings in HO and O gauge blended together. Shelves holding prewar trains still lined the rear of the HO gauge layout making a somewhat incongruous relationship.
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On
the prewar layout, there were three tiers, the lower and upper had
Standard Gauge while the middle, O Gauge. A lower loop of
Standard gauge also went under one wing of the high rail layout
for a longer run and used all wide radius curved track. Big
sets, such as the Blue Comet shown here, look great on that loop.
Here
you can see the transition between the prewar part of the layout
and the high rail layout, still under construction. The standard
gauge loop on the lower level will circle under the O gauge line.
The main terminal for the high rail layout is named Douglas after
our home town. Now Douglas was at one time a major railroad
junction, but never as important as on my model railroads. To the
rear is the upper level of the main line and a series of HO scale
buildings to offer a diminishing perspective.
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Peter & Mary Jane Atonna
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