Office Model Railroad - Minnesota Commercial

I will use this thread to chronicle the progress (or lack there of) of my office model railroad - Minnesota Commercial freelanced. This layout is a urban switching layout inspired by the Minnesota Commercial. The office is 9x12 and has been in the process of being remodeled for over two years with sputtering progress. This summer the big push to actually get done has been underway.

Drywall sanding and the last electrical changes took place yesterday. Painting will start tonight and hopefully be wrapped up by Wednesday or Thursday. The office was a build from scratch to included the framing of the walls (started when we moved in 2.5 years ago).

I have not taken many photos of the progress but will be sure to get some pictures done prior to painting. The space is not without flaws but it is much better than what it once was...so overall I am happy with the progress.

I will be installing hollow core doors attached to the walls for the layout base with foam on top of the hollow core doors. Under the layout will be my desktop space (shelving attached to the walls) for my computer empire, electronics, workbench, etc.

BIG STEP TAKEN TODAY!
Layout track order was placed today. Preliminary layout construction with track rough in is expected to take place by late September.

 

This is the layout plan that is being deployed.

 

The office is my home office which is also my "man cave"

 

I have been working liking a beaver....The "Man Cave" / Home Office / Train Room / whatever is pretty much DONE!! about 2.5 years in the making. It is not perfect but frankly, I am happy with it. I made some mistakes and some things I may have to deal with in the future (used only duct tape to secure a/c duct in wall...may come apart someday) but I have backup plans to deal with those possible known issues. I have taken some pics of before, during and present. I will post them in a few days or so.

Biggest impact for the layout thus far is the liftout section is now 24" wide instead of 10" wide. This is because I used a cut section of a hollow core door and it was easier to match everything up. It is pretty light but I do need to install a small handle in the front to make handling it easier.

All the planned track has been purchased and I hope within a few weeks to start gluing foamboard down. At present, I am still in the process of setting up the electronc and computer equipment in the office (servers, security camera systems, etc). But other than some door trim, constuction of the office space itself is complete and the base layout benchwork is complete.

 

Well, the enveiling at the rate at which I am now working should early october 2046 . As some of you might know I am a married man with five daughters, grandson on the way (anytime now), work full time, college student, wife is a college student, and our house is a MAJOR fix-it-upper built in 1900. At least I left the military in 2008 so I have that off my plate. LIFE IS CRAZY BUSY!!

So before this fall semester started I was making mad progress on projects (in part trying to wrap them up before the school tsunami hit). I am near the end of this phase of my college education and am taking my Management Information Systems capstone this semester along with yet another Economics course (Economics is my minor). I will graduate Spring 2012 at 40 years old .

Back to train stuff:
So I have been taking pictures of the home office / man cave / train room as I progress. Man, that got depressing . I looked at the progress from July to the end of August and to me was mind blowing what I got done being a novice in a relative short time frame with the last picture date of that set 16 August 2011. Then I took some pictures late last night (this morning) a full month after the last set.....not nearly as impressive in fact it is a mess right now .

So needless to say, I think progress will move along at a snail pace until maybe the winter break in December 2011. I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO BE DONE WITH COLLEGE. Dont get me wrong it has been a great experience but it feels like I have been going to college for a long long time (Resumed college path summer 2007)

Between work, college, family, and house needs progress is slow but I am still making some progress which is better than not. I will post progress photos soon, hopefully this weekend.

 

Boy, with all of that yammering in the last post you would think I would be too tired to continue.

Almost forgot, earlier this week I did manage to rough in over half of the layout track for proof of concept validation of the layout plan. This was done prior to installing the foam base. I am using Kato Unitrak and found that if used as is, the Kato layouts with their special track sections did change the dimensions of the layout. But with some further experimentation, using extra low cost (urban legend) Kato Unitrak section and carefully cut away some of the roadbed and it worked nicely with the layouts.

Last night I rough installed the foam base for the layout but have not glued it in place. I will need to rough in the track again, triming the roadbed as I go to see how close to my origial layout plan I can achieve. Prior to cutting the roadbed, I ran into the issue that I would not have been able to install a view block backdrop between my yard and two track staging area but overall layout concept, design, and opeations could be preserved. With triming the roadbed and eliminating the "special" turnout track, I think I can get closer to the layout plan and have enough room for the removable backdrop.

Removable Backdrop
The removable backdrop as currently designed (but not built or tried yet) will use steel L-brackets secured to the layout base. I will be using hardboard (Masonite which is staged in the garage right now) with strong magnets attached to the hardboard with adhesive, the backrop will be held in place with the magnets attached to the steel L brackets (and maybe a small channel in the foam base for the backdrop)

The foam base will reside ontop of the lower section of the L brackets with some foam removed to accomidate the thinkness of the bracket.

PHOTOS coming soon.

 

As promised, here are some pictures. These are links to Photobucket and since there are a few pictures, I will spare eveyone and just post the links to the albums.

Here is what office looked like in October 2010 just at the time that I started to gut the office to prepare for the remodeling project:
http://s1129.photobucket.com/albums/m506/pebcak2000/Basement Office - Build Log/October 2010/

Fast forward to August 9th 2011 it looked allot differnt....there is progress!!
http://s1129.photobucket.com/albums/m506/pebcak2000/Basement Office - Build Log/August 9 2011/

A few short days later, August 12th 2011 more progress
http://s1129.photobucket.com/albums/m506/pebcak2000/Basement Office - Build Log/August 12 2011/


And here we are at August 16th 2011, all major construction is complete....remodeling wise anyways.
http://s1129.photobucket.com/albums/m506/pebcak2000/Basement Office - Build Log/August 16 2011/

And this is pretty much where I am at now - September 16th 2011, most computer systems, servers, security video system, electronics, are in place.....AND WHAT A MESS!!!.
http://s1129.photobucket.com/albums/m506/pebcak2000/Basement Office - Build Log/September 16 2011/

Hard to say what progress I will make today, 9/17/2011 as it is 4:41AM and I just got home from work.....yuck

 

Speaking of HCDs, how are you attaching them to the walls? I have a 19" wide HCD sitting on shelf brackets, but I have a 27" wide and a 30" wide left to put up. I didn't see any legs coming down the frong, so can I sassume you used shelf brackets?

 

Yes I used shelf brackets if I remember correctly, I used 14" or 16" shelf brackets attached to studs in the wall. On the top of the HCD I used some metal L brackets (not shelf brackets) also attached to studs in the wall. The L brackets on top of the HCD helped stablized the HCD wanting to sag (tip op). I also used metal plates to secure the HCD sections together. When I get home tonight, I will take some detailed photos and post them here as well as a breif description. Hopefully that will help journal what the heck I did

 

Actually these pictures may help:









The last picture you can see the small metal L brackets on top of the HCD used to help stablize the doors.

 

OK, I see now.....definitely not something you want to lean on. With a 30" wide door, I may still be inclined to used some legs for support given its weight, but I'm pretty much doing the same thing you are with brackets. I am thinking of going a step further and gluing pieces of 1/4" OSB (again, leftover construction material) on the bottom of the doors where I would screw them to the shelf brackets. My scenery will be no more tham foam sheets and good ol' fashioned Woodland Scenics, with maybe some plaster for roads- in this way, weight won't be a problem.

Looks like a trip to Lowe's is in the offing this weekend for yours truly....... .....and again, please, keep us posted with how you're doing.!

 

The layout benchwork is shockingly pretty sturdy. I think because the room is fairly small and all of the door pieces are interconnected and with the top mini brackets, the doors are pretty well sandwiched. Now the bad part all is not 100% level and with the foam ontop there are some pretty hefty dips. The foam appears to have been compressed in some areas. I am not too concerned about this except for an area where track comes pretty close to the edge. So I will have to build up that area. I have a test loop connected to a roughed out yard (yard from plan) for space condsierations for the planned backrop between staging and the layout. I am debating with myself if I am going to use the removable backdrop or not. Plus to not using it are easier build, easier track work and easier to access trains. The bad side is I will be able to see my staged trains unless small view blocks are installed (small hills). Also, my big grain elevator is built as a backdrop building....might look weird with no backdrop.

 

Well I finally have some progress started on the office layout. It is small progress but it is progress never the less. After having some proof of concept track in place for a couple of months and running some of my rolling stock (although most of my locos were purchased for the long delayed attic layout to be built someday) I long at last have some time to work on the layout. I removed all of the concept track and glued down all the foam to the hollow core doors, painted the foam what Home Depot calls "Winter Wheat", and began installing track for the actual layout. I painted the foam to give a earthy base look, I will be filling in allot of areas with plaster to raise the ground levels in areas (especially the yard and sidings) and will apply various grond covers, static grass, weeds, grass clumps, trees, etc etc. The paint is there to help in areas where either the ground cover in non plastered areas to stop the pink from showing anywhere and hopefully give a sandy clay soil look.

After long debate with myself, I have decided to not install a removable backdrop to hide my two track staging. Instead, I will use background building in between the staging tracks and the actual layout along with scenic material such as trees and shrubs. While the background buildings are not perfect and when viewed from a side angle one can see that it is not a true model.....I decided that it will be good enough. The concern is I do want to see the trains in staging from an operations perspective and I do not want to hassle with getting at and removing the backdrop for derailments and track maintainence. The backdrop would have worked but the cons outweighed the benefits for me.

The mainline is installed and most of the yard is installed. I still have to install the remainder of staging, rest of yard and more industrial spurs / branch.

With the mainline installed I deciced to test the track with some locos. My Minnesota Commercial locos which call the layout home ran fine on the mainline. However, some of my six axle locos and my Challenger found a couple of trouble spots. My Athearn locos tested (RTR C44-9W and Genesis F45, SD60M) locos found an area of track where it is peaking. I think I glue this track down in this spot (will glue all at some point) to see if I can make this section behave. The elevation between benchwork sections (foam issues mainly) is not a pefect 0 but the joint between benchwork sections is just at the right spot to cause some grief. If the temp glue down solution does not work, I will have to landscape the area some to smooth the transistion between sections some what. In the upcoming photos, this trouble spot is marked with two head pins, as you can see in the picture....it is not a huge peek but enough where some of my locos were having problems with it. Happy to say that this is the only major issue found.......so far.

Other issues, I think I killed one of the Kato turnouts as I had to custom trim the roadbed on some track pieces and turnouts to match my layout plan (anyrail does not include the funky "required" kato track pieces" But I think I may be able to fix it. And it appears that I ordered two left turnouts intstead of the right turnouts as I have to extra left turnouts and short two right turnouts.....DARN IT.

First photo will show the trouble track section.



Here are some photos of the concept track and my office prior to track removal and actual start of work on the layout.

 

More pre-construction photos

 

Photos of the foam post gluing and views of the office (excuse the mess)