Double Helix

More progress on the layout. The second helix is now in place. I'm thinking of naming this the Helixtown & Helixville RR since that's about all there is to it so far.

This scene shows the east end of Chattahoochee yard. The mainline enters the helix on the left and winds its way up to the middle level. There's room for more staging tracks under the helix. Just to the right of the mainline will be a longer track representing the connection with the Apalachicola Northern. I used a more standard framing method for this helix rather than the threaded rod approach. The wood supports are much easier to install, but you can't control the grade as precisely as with the rods. There are probably some slight humps in this helix (you can kind of see a dip/hump on the upper level in the back). I just hope it's not enough to stall trains.

Below is a larger view of Chattahoochee yard with the new helix on the left (excuse the mess). The tracks on the right are in the approximate location they'll be positioned in the yard--the leftmost track is the mainline, next is the siding, then two yard tracks. Two or three staging tracks will be to the right of the yard tracks.

So all the subroadbed for the lower level is now in place. Now it's time to actually try laying some track!

FSU in HO

Since Tallahassee will be a prominent city on my layout, I've been on the lookout for structures that would accurately represent Tallahassee in the early 50s, and I've found a winner:

I just purchased this kit this week (no, this isn't my work, this is the stock company photo). It is actually based on a famous synagogue in New York, but the architecture is a spitting image of many of the older buildings on the FSU campus, as seen here:

I plan to place it on the back of the layout on a slight hill behind some of the Tallahassee industries. I think this will make an excellent Tallahassee landmark to anyone who's familiar with the FSU campus.

L&N Paint Schemes

Awhile back I posted some photos of Seaboard diesel paint schemes (http://longleaf-rails.blogspot.com/2006/09/seaboard-paint-schemes.html). Here are some photos of L&N diesels. The first photo shows the classic blue and cream scheme used on most of their early diesels. I plan to have a couple of E-units in this scheme to pull the Gulf Wind.

Early road switchers had a similar black and creme scheme into the mid-50s, when L&N switched to an all-black scheme. I plan to have a GP-7 similar to this one:

Not sure if I will have a diesel or steam switcher for the L&N, but the diesels would look like this S-4:

In the mid-60s, L&N switched to their gray and yellow paint scheme that was used until they merged into the Family Lines. I won't be using this scheme since I'm modeling 1951, but here's what it looked like:

The L&N had many variations on these, but these represent some of their common paint schemes. These are classier than the Seaboard paint schemes in my opinion.

Tallahassee Then & Now

I recently took some photos of the Tallahassee freight and passenger depots. Here's a comparison with historic photos. Here's the freight station today (it now houses the Amtrak station and some county offices):

Here's the same building in the 1880s:

Here's the passenger station today. It's still CSX property, but not open to the public:

And here's the same building in 1910 and 1924, respectively:

Pretty cool. In layout news, I'm getting ready to place an order for some cork roadbed and track. I'd like to have the track layed on the lower level by February, then finish the framing for the rest of the layout after that.