I would welcome all comments and suggestions.....Roger Malinowski... roger@stoneycreekdesigns.com

This is the CAD design of my On30 layout. The upper level, shown at the bottom, will be an oil drilling town. This area, as you can see in the pictures, does not connect with the lower level. My idea was, to have this small, old western style town with a few  small funky locos, Porters, Bachmann's small diesel, etc, all with "Backwoods Miniatures" dress up kits. If I stick to  short wheelbase locos like that, then I can use 15'" radius curves. All the buildings are either past kits or future ones. The ones in blue are past kits already in place. To see a larger view of the plan, just click anywhere on the image above.
Here's a new fisheye-panorama of the layout.  All the fiberglass hard shell is in place. Fiberglass, you ask? Yep, read below. ...roger

I've started some scenery. I'm using the Joel Bragdon process. This is done with expandable foam and casting resin. Having done some, I love it. Beautiful castings and absolutely no mess.

Canyon at the end of the room

Town on oil side of layout

Below is old news but explains some of what I've done
OK, here's the deal on the scenery. First I wanted to try something other than plaster. Partially just to be different and partially because I didn't want to bring plaster and the mess that ensues into my finished basement. I tried a method Joel Bragdon came up with using expandable foam and loved it. Looked good and met most of the criteria I had. The one thing I didn't like was the method he uses for the hard shell base for the foam castings. Back in the 70's I did an article for RR Model Craftsman, where I built an On3 module out of fiberglass. That module turned out super. So, drawing from that experience, I decided to go with the fiberglass but with a slight twist. Before I continue with the fiberglass part, lets back up a minute. First, I routed a 45 degree angle on all the homasote. This would insure that the screen would come off at an appropriate angle. Second, my face boards are 3/4" pine with a 3/8" offset routed in them, 1/4" deep. I know it's hard to see in this photo, but by doing so my finished scenery will match the profile and finish almost even with the top. Neat!

Now, back to the fiberglass. the photo above shows how the screen goes on. After the screen is stapled, I trim the excess off with a Dremel tool using a cut-off wheel.  Next I cover the edge with masking tape to hold down any small wires that might stick up. You can see the green masking tape in the larger picture above. Anyone who has done any work with fiberglass resin knows how strong and dangerous the odor is. Well, not if you use Z-poxy, absolutely odorless. Kinda messy though. That is if you try to lay down the cloth then brush on the epoxy. I've worked a way around that also. I lay the cloth in place and give it a coat of satin varnish. I'm using Minwax Polycrylic, it cleans up with water and is also odorless. It is water thin, so it saturates the FG clothe quickly. and since it is so thin the brush doesn't drag on the cloth. When dry the clothe will be adhered to the screen. I trim of any excess and then give it a coat of resin. What I end up with is a very strong hardshell base. I can't wait to get into the castings but that will have to wait. I still have homasote and screen to install and then the track work. Stay tuned......

Concept:
This is a point to point layout. Actually all I really want is a large diorama to put my models on. Running trains is secondary.  I want to build a layout that will be home to all the kits I've produced and plan on producing, as well as some scratch built stuff and  a few from other manufacturers. I also wanted to model something a bit different, so, I chose oil drilling. The area the town occupies is  42"' deep.

Room Finish.
Round corners with backdrops from "Backdrop Warehouse".

Control:
A NCE DCC "Power Pro" unit. Wireless DCC..How Cool!  I'll be adding sound of course.

Track Work:
Hand laid of course. Turnouts were always a chore I didn't particularly look forward to, until now. I purchased all my turnouts from Light Iron Digest. I was going to make them using a "Fast Tracks" jig but LID does such a good job at a good price, I couldn't say no.

Bench work:
Traditional open grid BUT using metal studs rather than wood. This topped with plywood (cookie sheet) landings topped with Homasote.

Scenery:
Fiberglass hard shell with foam rock/scenery castings, as developed by Bragdon Enterprises. 

Here's a picture of my train crew, five grand daughters. This is Halloween 2009 (like you couldn't have figured that out). .They sure get grow up fast...