Tom Holley has modeled the Denver and Rio Grande railroad in Grand Junction Colorado. Normal operating sessions feature running up to four 4000 foot through trains on almost 4500 feet of HO scale track while others do local and hump yard switching.
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Tom's huge layout resides in a dedicated 1500 square foot building at his home. Tom has been collecting since the mid 1970's, when he was 9 years old. After a 4 year enlistment 1979-1983 (Thank you fir your service Tom!) in the USMC he took up the hobby again. This is his 5th Model Railroad, the larges of three massive layouts.
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Tom built 2 earlier large layouts in single wide trailer homes, so they could move with him. The railroad has currently about 800 pieces of rolling along with 25-30 highly detailed locomotives. These trade out with a dozen or so which are on display in his home.
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It is an "old school" DC operation with 9 operating cabs. A yard master, two yard switchers, and 3 locals can work at a time along with 4 huge main line trains. AND Grand Junction has an operating hump yard,so full operating sessions can get really busy.
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The operation starts in the Grand Junction yard at 54" elevation from the floor and climbs to 74" inside a "wedding cake" peninsula at the main entry door. The floor inside the peninsula is elevated 24" so operators are unaware of the high benchwork. This "trick of the eye" makes the layout seem much larger that it really is, in spit of it already being huge. The ruling grade is 2 1/2% time table west, and 1 1/2% east.
********************************************************************All switches going to yard leads a well as 4 double X-overs are #8 Shinohara switches with nothing smaller than #6 on the railroad. Minimum mainline track radius is 54" , the giant "Nincompoop loop" is 72". There is more than 4500 ft of track at this point with about 500 feet more to be laid. The main line is 475' of dual track with 4 dual crossovers. There are 2 hidden staging yards that hold 200 cars each, 2 reversing loops, 3 large yards and 2 smaller ones.
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The main line trains lengths are based on length of the departure tracks, 50 65' modern freight cars or 75-80 earlier 36 to 40' cars. All rolling stock uses metal wheels, (Reboxx or Intermountain), locos and cars use Kadee metal type couplers as plastic ones just have too much flexibility on the drawbars for the grades and weight of these trains. Cars are weighted to between 2-3 times NMRA standards.The heaviest unit train weighs in at just over 35 pounds!
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30 powered axles is the limit for the head end so if more power is needed then mid train ("swing") healers or rear helpers can be cut in.
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As with all model railroads Tom tells us the railroad will never be done. Signaling is planned, and Tom will never be done making and putting in trees and adding ground cover.
********************************************************************Tom tells us project would not have been this far along if it were not for the generosity of many friends for their time help and advice, "I cannot thank them enough".
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See more at

http://oscaleguys.com/oscaleguys.html

http://guyshobbyshop.com/

eBay store Toy Man Television

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Please watch: "The Trains of Santa Cruz California"
   • The Trains of Santa Cruz California  
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