An In-door/Out-Door Layout

The large size of G gauge cars and structures makes prototype layout planning difficult but not impossible 

I visited Fred and Helen Hutchison today to see Fred's work in progress on his new 1:22.5 scale model railroad.  I also got to meet their new grand daughter! He and his wife live in the Maryland suburbs northwest of Washington, DC. Fred is a fraternity brother from Kappa Sigma at MIT. Fred was class of 75, three years ahead of me at the 'tute. It turns out that there were several model railroaders  and one serious railfan in my fraternity. Along with Fred, Andy Zalewski, and Steve Semken are model railroaders. Steve was a member of the Tech Model railroad club while he was at school.  None of the rest of us were members of the club, as far as I knew. Steve claims he tried to recruit me to the club, but I wasn't interested at the time. The serious railfan was Larry Gross. He ended up making the railroad business his career. He was heavily involved in the development of the Roadrailer concept. Larry also has several by-lines in Trains magazine.

But back to Fred's layout. He is planning a G gauge (1:22.5) layout in his garage. His objective is to have an operating layout that also allows him to do build and showcase some fine scale modeling.  His concept is quite clever. He plans to use about one third of his two-car garage to create a switching layout based on the town of Black Hawk, CO on the Colorado and Southern narrow gauge railroad. His plan is not quite finished, but it is prototype based and depicts most to the railroad items of interest in the town including the station, turntable, beer distributors, ore mill, and two run-around tracks.

To fit this along one side of his garage and make it operational, he plans to add a temporary staging track at one end. That track will extend out of the garage. He will only set it up when he is operating. Thus, his layout has elements of both an indoor and outdoor layout.

The benchwork is about 21 feet long and 5 feet wide. He plans to  build large, rolling storage bins under the layout to keep various household items. To provide access to the rear of the layout, he plans to mount all of the baseboards on a rollers. When needed, he would be able to pull the layout benchwork away from the wall to access the rear without disturbing the 2x4 supporting framework.

Some of Fred's C&S Station decor

He has decorated the walls of the garage to look like the exterior of a Colorado and Southern Railroad Depot. He made a replica station sign and has several cool posters on the wall to set the era and mood.

Fred has some impressive motive power. It will be fun to watch the large scale rolling stock in action at nearly eye level.  The higher layout height will also allow one to see all the impressive detail that one can model in large scale.  This is going to be neat layout.

Fred posing by the framework that will support the baseboards.