The St. Francis Consolidated Railroad of the Colorado Rockies

                        PROGRESS ON THE LAYOUT
                        (from the very beginning until now)

Welcome to what is essentially the build log for the St. Francis Railroad.

The railroad is a 1:24 scale layout, indoor and outdoor, and operates on on-board locomotive power.

Within the limitations and quirks of large-scale modelling, the railroad strives to be a 1:24 scale model,
otherwise known as one-half inch (1/2") scale, which means that one-half inch anywhere on
the layout equals one foot in real life. "Strives" is the key here because manufacturing for large-scale
railroading, as opposed to the dollhouse scale which is 1:12 (one-inch scale) or railroad model scales
such as O-scale (1:48) or TT-scale (1:120), includes 1:32, 1:29, 1:24, 1:22.5, 1:20.3 and who knows what else,
and is known as G-scale, garden scale, F-scale, #1 scale, Gauge 1, and so on. And all this has nothing to do
with the further, maddening complication of gauges, the differences of scale distances between the tracks,
yet another issue. There's an additional factor to take into account: just because a manufacturer calls
its model 1:32, advertising and printing on its models 1:32 scale, or any other scale, doesn't necessarily
mean that the model scales out to the prototype correctly (yes, seriously?). My layout includes models
everywhere from 1:20.3 to 1:32 and I use a variety of strategies to make them more or less work together with
the 1:24 scale I use for most everything I can control, especially scratchbuilt items. There is, believe it or not,
a further complication in scratchbuilding at half-inch scale: sometimes the exact scale doesn't look right in a model,
doesn't appear faithful to the prototype, so you end up using selective compression or simply adjusting proportions
or angles to look right. You can go crazy worrying about all the scales; the basic rule I follow is what some of
the best modellers call the eye test: If it looks right, it's the right scale.

The entire layout runs locomotives that operate on-board power, no track power, which means there are no wires and
power supplies to deal with, nor reverse loops and shorts and the host of other elements that go into track power.
I call it on-board power because it sounds less toy-like than battery remote control!

NOTE: What you see on this page are smaller images of larger, complete images. You can select any image
and the complete picture will appear.

NAVIGATION: Although there is no reason why you can't scroll through this build log up and down
to your heart's content, this is a long page and as work continues the page and log gets longer. To make it easier
to get around, you can use the index below by selecting a section that interests you, and at any time you can
return to the index by selecting the blue BACK TO THE INDEX image on the top left of the page.

Here's the index:

                        Earlier Layouts

                        Beginning of the St. Francis Layout

                        Building a Mountain Yard

                        The Mining District

                        The Double Outdoor Loop Track

Earlier Layouts

There are no pictures that I know of for my first layout in south Denver. It just didn't seem important
at the time to be taking pictures and I regret that. The layout was in the basement in a space twenty feet
wide by thirty feet long with ten foot ceilings (it was a big house for sure).

My second layout was in the basement of a much, much smaller house; the space was probably twelve
or thirteen feet wide and maybe fifteen to seventeen feet long with a seven or eight foot ceiling. These
are the pictures of that layout and are a fair representation of about how far the layout got, which
never reached the level of having a running loop throughout the basement, which was my original
plan extending through my son's room, into the laundry room, under the stairs, and into the utility
through the wall there to connect to the main room.













And then came the day to move, destroy most of the layout, and save what could be saved for the
next layout in the next house. I knew this would happen, but it is a hobby, and, no matter what, the
process of making a layout is more important that the final result.





Beginning of the St. Francis Layout

Here is the start! These are images of the basic space, minus the back yard, where the St Francis RR would be constructed.
The final picture shows the beginning of construction, a 4x4 to support the temporary bridge across the back door.
When the Chinese say every journey begins with one step, a modeller says every layout begins with one support!
The space provides a unique opportunity because it is a forty foot long by twenty feet wide area under a porch
which makes it basically an indoor layout, or at least protected from direct elements, which means that the
modelling can take advantage of most of the indoor skills without finding an indoor space large enough to
accommodate a large-scale railroad. The pet in the cage is either Gizmo, a guinea pig, who turned out to be too inactive
as a pet, or Chizmo, whom we ended up with because someone said chinchillas were more active, more interactive...
not true, and gone to a better home very soon, which led my youngest son to conclude that any pet that has to live
in a cage isn't worth having.







These are three images of the unmodified trackplan for the St. Francis Railroad.
The plan here is an upper loop (green) and a lower loop (red) before the upper loop curves were expanded.
You may select any images to display the full image on the screen. (Trackwork below.)



Here's some pictures of the start of the track laying on the upper loop. A note on track: the entire layout is stainless
steel and aluminum track. No brass.The railroad's supervising station master is also shown (on a lunch break in the sun).
















This set of images shows the first completion of the upper loop, soon revised to widen the curves.
The temporary bridges are in place and the elevations are settled but not the radii.











These images represent views of the new canopies, or extended porch areas, on the north and southeast corners of the layout.
The southeast canopy, particularly, allowed widening of the original curves and added protected scenic layout areas.





Building a Mountain Yard

These images represent views of the new mountain yard. While it is four feet wide, It is accessible from both sides of
the porch area, and the eventual background painting will be removable.















The Mining District
The mines...

The Double Outdoor Loop Track

Most layouts are a work in progress. There are exceptions, but usually they are exceptions built by people with
virtually unlimited resources of time and money. There are exceptions, but for me I needed to get over the idea that
I had to maintain the highest standards, as if I were rich and unoccupied and unlimited it talent. So one day I said
to myself "That's enough!" and I started laying track I could run trains on. I had laid artificial turf in the back yard
and it was time to take advantage. So, finally, after years of having but one loop running, the upper loop through
the porch and the bridge, and that for only a few runs, and after my first layout in the big house basement which
ran a complete loop only briefly, I abandoned all care about perfection and laid a darn track around the back yard,
even though I can't stand trains running around at your ankles, and fully intend to raise this track at some point. I have
a bid from my metal worker for steel trellises, which I may get to some day, but in the meantime, I have a track that runs
trains. In one afternoon, and in two hours the next morning before going to work, I laid 180 feet of the track you see here,
and ballasted it too. Now I am free to be the high-standards modeller I want to be with the perfect balance that whenever
I want I can run trains endlessly around the yard and get endless enjoyment out of it. I went from a work in progress
to an operating railroad. In fact, I liked it so well that during Holy Week I laid another track to go with the first and on Easter
I was running two trains side by side.

This, then, is my best advice to modellers starting out, or to anyone who's been working for years on a layout and still
doesn't have trains running: get something running, anything, just the simplest loop if need be, then begin a lifetime
of improvements and expansion and satisfaction in high-quality work .







(c) copyright 2016 Saint Francis Consolidated Railroad, LLC. All rights to the images and text on this website are reserved.
(c) copyright 2001-2016 Devin Inc website design and coding