Name: Iron Gorge Subdivision
Layout owner: Bob Hamm
Scale: HOn3 (HO scale, 3-foot gauge)
Size: 28 x 45 feet
Prototype: Denver & Rio Grande Western and Rio Grande Southern
Locale: Durango to Montrose, Colo.
Era: 1938 to 1942
Style: multilevel walk-in
Mainline run: 400 feet
Minimum radius: 22″
Minimum turnout: no. 4
Maximum grade: 3 percent
Benchwork: L-girder and open-grid
Height: 36″ to 66″
Roadbed: Homasote and cork
Track: handlaid and flextrack, code 70
Scenery: extruded-foam insulation board and Hydrocal over cardboard lattice or chicken wire
Backdrop: photos
Control: CVP Digital Command Control
This track plan originally appeared in the September 2017 Model Railroader. Click on the link to download a PDF copy of this track plan.
Why would you spend a lot of time modeling the real prototype, then create a trackplan that has no resemblance to the real place. Ridgway Colorado yard is depicted on the layout, but has no similarity to the actual prototype itself. The whole layout is messed-up in that way. In that case it should have freelanced.
Would like to have seen a photo of his shelf structure — 1.5″ L plus 1/2″ plywood on a shelf beracket. How are the brackets hidden? Otherwise a good article on a very nice layout.