0005 Savannah Central - Measuring Up

(Note - my posts are sometimes delayed for a day or so in case I want to change something)

It's Friday!  Only two more working days until Monday.  The little woman went to bed early, as did the children, so its quite time here in the basement.  The radiant heater is on so my toes don't freeze and I've got a big glass of ice water.  Let's draw.

 The first thing we'll do is create a DIMENSIONS ROOM layer, turn off the track generator and leave the color black.

 This is also a great way to check your dimensions again!  We start by saving the room drawing again.

 We'll make our hash lines and draw in the lines and arrows on the East wall.  Using 2.5" type I record the line length.  If I did everything right the arrow lines will match the length of the wall lines.  Why not just use the line length option?  The dimensions can't be turned off by layer like hand drawing can, and they are too small to read.

 See?  I told you that this was a good way to find errors!  My room is 3" longer than the other side, so it is not square.  This is a VERY common problem and the reason I use the 2" to the wall rule of never putting anything within 2" of the wall.  I'll have to make some adjustments and remeasure the room.

 Ok, we've got the South wall complete.  Let's move on to the West wall.

 Now let's dimension the bay window wall.  There is a built in bookcase and cabinets here, which are really nice for my many train books so we aren't going to build here.  All of the dimensions are not critical.

This is a bad picture, but it gives you the general idea.  I'm working to move all my Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette magazines to these shelves.  I have them all!!!

 Once we get the North wall done, we have all the dimensions completed.  Great!  The room measures to the drawing and everything has been checked twice.  We are ready to track plan!

One last quick check.  We'll turn off the DIMENSIONS ROOM layer and see if any were set to the wrong layer by accident, which happens often when you move things around.  Looks like we are good.

Oh, my buddy Thayne sent his electrician friend over yesterday to see how much it would take to get a large 4 lamp room light installed so that I can get better lighting.  The price was excellent, so we'll do that Sunday.

Next stop...railroad design!

0004 Savannah Central - Climbing the Walls

Thursday night I started drawing very late and was quite tired.  Still, I pressed on.  The best way to make mistakes is to do detail work when you are tired.  Here's the story.

Let's finish the room out tonight.  First, let's put in the concrete block outer walls.

 All of the area around the basement bay is concrete, so we'll make it solid to show it can't be penetrated.

 Next, let's check the dimensions using my original measurements.  Oops!  The very first wall I check is a foot short!  Have to fix that.  Good thing I checked.

 There!  All better.  Now let's draw in the two book cases so that they can be considered in the drawing.  They are 4' x 12 3/4"

 Oh rats.  I put in the dimensions but something went wrong and the CAD system drew an errant box.  It won't erase.  Double @$@#$@.   I tried everything to remove this from the drawing but it won't select or erase.  Here is a good example of why I keep multiple saved copies of the drawing every few minutes.  Now I have to go back and get an older drawing and start again.  Just one of the many perks for using Turd Plan It.

 So I go back and get drawing file 104 and save it as 106, making sure to mark 105 as defective.

 First we fix the long wall again...just love rework!

 I need to enlarge the graph area as I've run out of room on the bottom.  I make two parallelograms and shade them dark.

 I then connect the two with a rectangle and color it solid gray as well.  Then I add the upper walls.

There!  We are done!  Next step is to add dimensions.

0003 Savannah Central – Measuring Up

I don't care how many !@#$@# tape measures you own you cannot depend on finding one when you need it.  Every year after Christmas I go to Home Depot and buy four more on sale and STILL can't find one.  There must be two dozen here someplace.

Time to take measurements.  I did measure the room before, but often I use one of two methods to measure a room; either to the inch or to the quarter inch.  To the inch is used for sketching purposes or for unfinished rooms.  To the quarter inch is for detailed drawings especially for smaller layouts and tight spaces.  We'll go to the quarter.

The drawing that I made will come in handy for recording measurements so I printed it off and grabbed a pen.  I did finally find a tape measure.

It took only 15 minutes to get all the dimensions, so instead of doctoring this drawing I'm going to start all over with a clean slate.  First thing I'll need to do is set up my drawing in 3PI.

My scale is usually always set to HO, so the next step is to change the grid.  I like to use heavy lines at 48" intervals, instead of the default 36" interval.  The minor lines will stay at 12".

The drawing grid needs to be four feet wider than the room for dimensional data and notes.  The room's longest wall is 16 feet, so I'll use 20 feet wide.  Since I always need more room than I think, I'll make it 20 feet tall as well.

The final step, though I seldom do this, is to name the drawing and put my name on it.  The only reason I'm doing it this time is because I'll probably share the drawing with folks.   Once I have everything set, I'll save the file as Savannah Central 101.  The first 1 is the major revision number.  This changes whenever I through out the whole drawing and start over or make any major philosophical change (or scale change).  The 01 is the revision number.  Should I use more than 99 revision (which often happens) then I just roll up to 201.  The main reason I do this is because I save my work every evening under a new revision number so that I can easily revert to older drawings.  It also keeps the files in order in my computer file.

I draw in layers.  A layer is a grouping of like lines or text that can be turned off or on.  For instance, my first lines will be WALLS so I set up a layer called WALLS and make its color GRAY.  Because I don't want this drawn as track, I'll turn the track option off.  When I draw a wall, there are two types; those that can be penetrated with trackwork, and those that cannot.  Those that can't may be concrete (I know Paul, you can bore through concrete as you did!) and those that can't be penetrated due to foreman direction (a.k.a. the wife doesn't want track in the shower).

 We'll start with the long straight wall first as this will be a key support for the layout I'm sure.  Let's also draw in the other side of the wall which is down the hall going to the bedrooms.  This hall is wide enough for a 6" railway access along its length.  I'll put line dimensions on these two.

 Next I'll draw three 12" sections of wall and put them in their estimated places.

 We'll draw the deep windows in (these are basement windows below ground, so the are set deep into the wall and have a 9" window sill.

A little blue makes it look like glass.  We'll then draw in the fireplace and mantel, then make the exterior (non penetrable) walls a solid gray color.  Good so far!

Traintools Post - Craft Sheers

My wife came home with these today...

 Pink pinking sheers.  I started laughing.  Then I got to thinking.  She bought these at one of the one million scrapbooking stores or Target.  Salt Lake City is the capital of scrapbooking.  For $10 she is going to use them for Christmas card trimming.

 Wait a minute!  Can I have those?  Zoom to the basement.  Look at all the cool shapes.  Ever see gingerbread trim on a house or old hotel?

 Wow!  Look at that!  What a neat pattern.  It would take forever to build that for a HO scale front porch.

 Maybe we can cut thin plastic sheets and layer them?  I see lots of possibilities.

What a great scallop shape!  This would make a nice awning.  Thanks honey!  I'm keeping them.

0002 Savannah Central – Purpose of the Railroad

It's 1947 in the deep South during Indian Summer.  The war had been hard on everyone but most of the country seemed to be pulling out of it except those in the cotton business.  Cotton prices plummeted as cotton is produced in the Middle East and elsewhere and boll weevils were on the rise.  The Savannah Central Railway, already bankrupt once as the Savannah Central Railroad, was barely making it and could go into receivership at any time.  Times were tough.

It's fleet of three ex-Southern locomotives were in dire need of heavy maintenance and the track was unreliable.  Heavy rains in the spring coupled with a drought during the summer had caused countless trees to fall on the tracks.  Bridges were patched up and patched again. New rail cars made entirely of steel were starting to show up, but none were owned by the tiny railroad.

229 miles of track stretched out from the port near Tybee Island, Georgia, along the Savannah River, up to Toccoa, Georgia.  Most of it is a hodge-podge of abandoned right-of-ways left over from other bigger railroads like the Southern, Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line.  The State of Georgia continued to want the struggling railroad to survive as agriculture is still the state's bread and butter.

The railroad was the better choice for shipping cotton, as compared to the barges that used to run the length of the Savannah River.  The river is the eastern boarder of Georgia, separating it from South Carolina.  Cotton was grown all along its length and the rich soil along the river gave the soil depleting cotton a great source of nutrients.  The boll weevils thought it was tasty, anyway.

Sharecroppers manually chopped (hoed) the cotton and picked it by hand, but some machinery was starting to come into play.  Cotton gins were located in most every town and wagons and trucks brought their loads in for processing.  Mill were built to process the cotton into articles of clothing, sacks and other commodities.  Much of the cotton was still exported at the ports in and around Savannah.  The railroad tied the network together.

This year's crop might be the first good one in years, so we have a chance at making a little money.  If the locomotives run, the bridges hold and the boll weevil doesn't eat it before its picked.

Purpose of the Layout:

To represent a struggling Georgia shortline in the late 1940's that handled transportation of agricultural products (mainly cotton) for production and export.

The Willamette River Railway - The Whole Story

Thayne asked me to put together the whole design story for the Willamette River Railway and I thought I'd share it with you as well.  The PDF file is here...

http://www.mediafire.com/?6h8hhn82k3egcke

0001 Savannah Central – First day! First Post!

Welcome to the Savannah Central Railway!  Follow along as we design and build a small layout from day one through completion.  Stop laughing.  I have completed layouts!  At least, until I had children.

First, we'll start off by creating a file in my computer called SAVANNAH CENTRAL.  This will be the archive for all information and will keep everything separate from my original Dixie Central plan.  Then I'll create a !SAVANNAH CENTRAL file in the folder.  This is my main notes file and where I'll keep notes, information, maps and communications from friends who help with the project.  You will help, won't you?

I've already done a lot of theoretical work on the Dixie Central and you can read about it on its own blog: http://dixiecentralrailroad.blogspot.com/.  The first thing we'll do is copy it's layout parameters over and make a file called SAVANNAH CENTRAL LAYOUT PARAMETERS.  This is the archive where I'll keep all the specifics about the layout.  We'll start with this:

Savannah Central Layout Parameters

Rev 01/01/2012

Name: The Savannah Central Railway

Scale: HO 1:87

Gauge: Standard 4' 8 1/2"

Dimensions:

Prototype: Freelanced, based on Southern

Theme: Late 1940's cotton and textile hauling

Railroad's Purpose: Move cotton from the fields through finished textile stages and export

Layout Purpose: Complete NMRA AP Program requirements for Civil, Electrical, Structures & Scenery

Location: East to Southeast Georgia

Era: Late 1940's

Style:

Mainline Run:

Min Radius: 22" min radius

Min Turnout: #5

Ruling Grade: 2.0%

Track Saturation:

Design Parameters:

Benchwork:

Scenery:

Control: Digitrax DCC or equivalent

Operation:

Track: Walthers code 83, some turnouts manual throw for realism and more complex operations.

Other: Waterways removable for "off layout construction"

Next, we'll need some layout dimensions.  I'll need to double-check these, but they are just about right.

Well, so much for that idea.  I drew it once, but must have just sketched it so I didn't put in proper walls or dimensions.  Guess we'll start over.  The room dimensions MUST be perfect, especially in this room where there are a lot of obstructions including one that breathes fire.  A.k.a fireplace.  We'll work on this during the week and while we finish cleaning out the basement room.  The basement room is small, but is totally finished.  The trick to this layout is making sure I meet the NMRA AP Requirements for Civil, Electrical and Scenery while not making the layout hard to navigate.  Essentially what I do best - designing small layouts with a lot of impact.

Luckily I have all the files from the Dixie Central, so let's go see what we can steal.

I've got a rolling stock acquisition roster which needs to be updated.  I'll move that file over.

Here's a rolling stock requirements spreadsheet that we can use.  Actually there is a bunch of stuff.  Let's see if I had a railroad string diagram.  Nope.  None.  Ok...this will get us started.  My next chore is to move my new computer over to my main desk.

All for now...be sure to sign up for email posts on the top right!

Oh, shoot...I did have a string diagram!  It is on the bottom of the layout drawing!