Finally

 This blog is titled “Building and operating the Atlantic Inland Railway”, and for the most part it has been a lot of editorial comment. Finally the building has begun. I’d sincerely like to post a photo but I cannot figure out how. In any case here goes the story…

I want to paint the floor of the basement before I begin construction of the layout. The basement has a lot of “Stuff” in it. We all have stuff. Aside from the nearly 100 cubic storage boxes full of the old AIR, there are boxes of my mementos from childhood, my wife’s, our life together, my Mother’s, Sister’s, the dog. What else?

So in order to paint the floor all the stuff needs to move out of the way. It’s a Chinese checkers game. Move some here, paint, move some there, paint, etc…

A chunk of the basement devoted to the layout, about 1/3 of the layout space, has been painted and I’ve begun benchwork. 

As you may know I’m building a Monstrosity. It’s a long, LONG, triple deck edifice. Mainline length measures, off the print, at 927’.

The benchwork is open grid. What model railroaders know as open grid, is known in the Studios as “Conventional Grid Construction”. This is how I’ve been building scenery, for the most part, for 32 years.

I’ve hit some minor snags. The third deck in some parts of the layout floats. That is, there is no means of support beneath it. I’m going to hand those sections from the joists with threaded rod. Nothing is too heavy. I want to prevent it from moving too much. I’ll have to find some anchor points to stop lateral movement. So far there’s nothing insurmountable.

This current area is 26’ x 20’, and it contains both Pettigrew Yard (My Coal Marshaling Yard) and Chatsworth Yard (The Eastern Terminus of the layout). It also contains West Staging, South Staging, and Western Maryland Staging. So a LOT of flat yard areas.

Most of these areas are not directly adjacent to each other on the track schematic, for the most part they exist of separate levels of this three deck monster. Some are, but when seen on a linear map they have a great deal of space separating each.

On Deck one is West Staging. On Deck Two is Pettigrew Yard and South Staging. On deck three is Chatsworth Yard and Western Maryland Staging.

Right now it’s a lumber yard! A lot of wood has gone into this so far. I’m taking plywood, seven layer-sanded one side, and ripping that into 1x3’s. I’m framing the grid benchwork with this, using a construction stapler and two inch staples. 

The yard areas are being covered with OSB (!) slick side up. I know, “Old Shitty Board”. This is an experiment. The smooth side of OSB should make a good surface to glue down track. It is water resistant as well for paint, ballast, and scenery in general. I said “resistant” not proof. I’m a little concerned. I might shellac it in future depending on how it reacts. We’ll see.

Well I’m building like mad. I’m almost done with all three levels in this area. I still need to build some final benchwork, and I want to build inside “corners”, a radius, to make the inside turn backs a little more pleasing to the eye, and this will also give more real estate to the track curves.

Helena has moved back a substantial amount of “Stuff “ into the dedicated storage space under the layout. I designed SOME storage under the layout, the vast majority of this stuff does not move at all, or once a year (Christmas decorations, for example).

Once this benchwork is complete I begin moving the “Stuff” from the remaining parts of the basement into the aisles over here. Then I paint floor and continue construction of the remaining benchwork. 

Strictly for “Eyewash”* I’m going to lay some track too. I think the body tracks in West Staging.

*Eyewash is a term from the studios. When construction begins on a set, a great deal of progress gets accomplished early on that is not strictly visible to the relatively untrained eyes of the Producers. In order to ease their fears, and to convince them that a lot of things are,  in fact, being accomplished, it is very common (VERY COMMON) to stand some prefabricated walls that are not really part of the set. Often they are borrowed from other sets or even neighboring shows. Producers see all these walks standing, and never look at them with a critical eye. It’s common to send in painters to spackle, sand, and paint these walls. In reality the painters don’t really have anything to do other than unpack their gear and organize their shop. But it makes the producers feel warm and fuzzy to see set walls so far along in the construction process that they are being painted. God! It looks like a lot is getting done! And so soon too. 

So I’m laying track to take pictures of, so I can post them on the Internet, to prove I’m building a layout.

Eyewash…