 Hey, I'm Dan Parmoly and January's What's Neat starts right now. The What's Neat show is sponsored by Caboose, sharing our passion for trains since 1938. This is What's Neat for January 2020. I'm your host Ken Patterson and this month we've got a really good show. First of all, we take a look at this beautiful layout built by John Schindler. This is one of the layouts in St. Louis that will be on tour for the NMRA 2020 show this summer. And I'm going to be sure to feature every layout, every single month of different layout that's going to be on tour on that show this summer, all the way through July when the show takes place. Otherwise, it's a magnificent layout, fully operational, runs in the car card system and it occupies its entire basement. Plus, for how to tips this month, I show you how I built this 13 foot long section on my layout. It took me about two and a half, almost three months to build it up to this point. So this is going to be part one in a two port series on layout construction. And in this, we cover everything to create the base, frame it out, essentially create a canvas for which we will do our scenery work on. So that's the lineup for January 2020 What's Neat. For this segment of What's Neat, I'm with John Schindler of the St. Louis Junction Railway. And John, this is a magnificently large layout. I mean, it is snaking around the entire basement and you operate. Tell me about your passion for building this work of art. Well, when I was a kid, my dad had a layout. When I got old enough to figure it out, I put a staging yard on it because I didn't like watching him run and run. So the whole layout, the house was bought for an operating layout. So the basement came first in your mind. Absolutely. My wife did not like this house, but I converted it. I made it into what she wanted though. About what's the size of this room, this whole layout? It's 60 by 32. It's a lot of work. Did you have a lot of folks help you build this? A lot of folks. There was a group at one time called the Hidden Valley Rural Railroad Club. They helped a lot and most of the scenery and the structures are not mine, but I've done most of the structure, the track work, the operating singling system is all on me. I wanted to talk about that because it's beautiful. It is a great system. What duty do you use for that? It uses CATS for the graphics and rides on the JMRI platform. And then it uses Digitrax hardware to make it all work. What's your minimum radius on this? 32 inch in one place, the rest of it's 36. And I love the height and the curtains you've got. What's the bench work height on this? I think 54. Is there anything you do different starting over now that I've seen this work of art? Would you change anything? What's the way it is? The one, when we started this, my wife said you have to have wide aisles because she doesn't go on lay out tours and be butt to butt with people. And it works very well in similar things in operating. So wide aisles, you can see these are five, six foot aisles. I wish the one on the other side was only 36, I wish it was 48. How many years have you been working on this? I moved in here in September 2004 to a concrete basement. Wow. That's a lot. Now I understand you're going to be on tour for the NMRA 2020 show in St. Louis. Is that right? That is correct. When I'd be operating on one night and then also on a bus tour, you know, LD sick tour. It's amazing. I can't wait to run trains on this. The buildings are amazing. I noticed a lot of your buildings are printed out cardboard. Tell me about that. Well, gentlemen of mine by the name of Dave Rader is a master model railroader. He was helping me build things. He'd come over, he'd decide what he wanted to build. He'd make drawings of what he wanted. He'd go to his house, design them onto a software package called model builders. And then he'd come back over here. We would print them out on my printer, my photo paper, and my ink. And then he'd take a stack of paper home with him. And he would, in a few weeks, he comes back as these marvelous buildings that would have taken thousands of dollars and years to build in plastic or some other farm. And they work. I notice you've got, I think, two hidden staging yards. Is that right? Are there two? There's three in here. And I've also noticed you've got lower areas in the layout where it's like almost double deck. Because the one staging yard is real low. And when it comes over, it used to be completely covered, but we had to open it up because it was too far away without seeing the train. And then it goes into a turn and a half helix and then comes back out on the railroad. Boy, this is real eye candy. The people that go on this tour are going to enjoy it. John, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful layout with all the viewers on What's Neat. Thank you very much. For this segment of What's Neat, we're going to do that long-awaited layout construction segment that y'all have been waiting for, because I'm about to build a new segment on my layout. It's going to be 13 feet long, designed primarily for doing outdoor run-bys. So that means this piece of layout is going to have to be removable and easily taken outside so I can create the effects that I want. But to begin with, I want to talk about my basic layout construction and how I'm going to go about doing this. I'm going to start out with the simplest thing that y'all can pick up at the hardware store. And that's the simple closet shelf brackets. These things have been around for years, dozens of years. But the fact is, that's exactly what we're going to use today to create this section of 13-foot layout. Now, these shelf brackets, if you ever consider and look at them up tight and close, you'll notice that they're a little bit cantilevered. So that things that get put on the shelf roll backwards instead of rolling forwards off the shelf. And when we lay our layout, we want it to be level. So we've got to make up for that cantilever effect by simply when we screw this into the wall to make sure using a level that we need just enough room for the top screw to leave about an eighth of an inch of divide, which we can shim out, which will then make our surface absolutely level, which is what we want for great performance of the models. I'm using two different types of shelf brackets for this section of layout because the shelves that I've got that are already on the base sections, I want them to clear the metal brackets that run at a 45 degree angle. So the first shelf brackets, I'm going to use three of these to hold up the segment. And then I'm going to use a simple bookshelf bracket like this to hold up the last segment on the very end. Now, what I like to do when I'm building situations, segments like this, as you've seen in past videos, I like to use metal studs as my basis for the subsurface. And the reason for that is metal doesn't warp. I can expand six or eight feet with one of these studs and have absolutely no problem with something sagging because these things stay rigid. But what we do is, as you see here in this video clip I'm about to show you, Mitchell Buffoden and I took two of these and we put them together into a complete box. We pop riveted them together by drilling out holes first, eighth inch holes, and then sticking liquid nail and pop rivets into the studs so that they wouldn't rattle, they wouldn't have any opportunity to make sound, but they'll stay very rigid. So what I did was I cut these studs to fit the 13 foot long segment after the shelf brackets were put into place so that they would simply sit on top of the shelf brackets. Now let me go back a step. I also used one by four material to shim it out just to make sure that I've got the length that I need for the width of the diorama. And these one by four simply sit on top of the shelf brackets in place just like this upon which I will then set my foam. So with that as the basis for the bench work, let's continue on with cutting things out to the right shape and size so that I have a nice narrow section of layout for a long double track super elevated curve to go through the scene with our metal studs, our wooden one by fours, and everything into place. Another thing I want to discuss is this. Now I've built the walls that are in my layout room. I know where the studs are. I know where the wires are. So I know where to anchor the shelf brackets into my studs to make sure I've got a securely fashioned bench work with no legs coming down. Now, if you're building in a layout room that you're unfamiliar with, maybe it's a home that you bought previously not too long ago, and you maybe it's a bedroom. Maybe you're building this layout in a bedroom area of your room. Area of your home and you do not know exactly what's behind the walls. So with that, I suggest you invest in a stud finder. Now these things are available at any local hardware store and they also make them where they'll discover electric wires in the background too. Because the last thing you want to do is end up screwing a screw for your bench work into a wall and hitting the electrical wire makes for a great fourth of July, but this isn't the fourth and that's something we're trying to avoid as a fire. So invest in a stud detector that will let you know where the studs are to securely anchor your bench work and also alleviate the fact that you might hit some electrical wires as you screw in your bench work. I cut one by four dimensional lumber to the width of the diorama using a radial arm saw. I then fit these pieces of wood parts on top of the steel shelf brackets. The metal studs will sit on top of this creating stable bench work as a base for the scene. I checked my work with a level ensuring a straight and level base for the foam diorama. I used liquid nail adhesive to glue the one by fours to the top of the shelf brackets. I built a one by four section to bridge the gap where two of the metal studs would butt together ensuring an even and level bridge gap. This too was attached with liquid nails adhesive to the shelf brackets. After the one by four dimensional lumber was set into place, I applied liquid nails adhesive at the top of the one by fours to which the metal studs would rest completing the bench work for this section of the 13 foot long part of the layout. I precut two inch foam gluing two layers together precut to fit into the space of the adjoining layout along the wall. One end of this module I needed to bring three tracks into the scene coming off of the small switch yard. The track closest to the outside front edge of the layout needed to have a small angle of wood cut allowing a smooth transition into the new scene with two inches of extra space on the outside protecting the modules in the event of a rollover accident. This would prevent the models from hitting the floor. This was cut from a scrap two by four with quarter inch oak providing a protective wall along the edge. Everything matched up on this end to the foam module ensuring a smooth transition. I stain and finish all of the sections of my home layout with oak plywood. This beautifies the room and gives structural integrity to the overall module. This module being 13 feet long, I needed this one to be wrapped with wood to prevent it from flexing when being moved outside for outdoor photo shoots. It also needed the oak plywood wrap to be placed on the back side now before I could lay track as the quarter inch oak fits between the wall and the foam dictating where the track would lay and line up with the adjoining ends of the existing layout sections. I use small three quarter inch blocks of wood that will be laid into the foam. The fence attached to the router keeps the three quarter inch router bit centered along the four inch thick diorama sides. I also set the router bit to three quarter inches deep to match the blocks of wood their dimensions exactly. Then I started the router and routed a groove along the entire length of the back side of this module that will fit up against the wall. As I vacuumed out the loose foam from our router channel you can see the perfectly smooth square groove ready to accept our block anchors. I ran a piece of quarter inch oak plywood through the bandsaw cutting this into four inch strips that will become the beautiful sides of the module. Now it was time to install the wood blocks into our newly cut groove. The wood blocks are placed in a pan of water and the groove is sprayed with water making everything wet. The gorilla glue reacts to water starting the curing process. Each block of wood is coated with polyurethane glue and pressed snugly into the groove. This takes time as I work along the entire back side of the 13 foot long module. During the curing process the gorilla glue expands causing the blocks of wood to be slowly expelled out of the groove. It takes 30 minutes for the glue to cure and the expansion process to stop. So I counter this act and the movement of the wood by pressing in each block back into the groove using a screwdriver along the entire length of the seam repeatedly as the glue cures over the 30 minute time. It is very important to stay on top of this during the expansion process. Once the glue has cured I simply remove the excess with a Stanley shore form planer making the side of the module smooth and flat. I then spray the side of the diorama with water making it thoroughly wet. I also wet the 4 inch wide strip of plywood. I then apply the gorilla glue thoroughly to the side of the diorama. As I press the plywood onto the side of the diorama laying it into the bed of glue. I follow this with an electric staple gun shooting half inch staples through the plywood and into the blocks of wood ensuring a tight fit as the gorilla glue cures over the 30 minute setup process. Now it was time to wrap plywood around the front of the module. Repeating the process with a few variations as it is curved making the wood work longer. I routed the 3 quarter inch groove in the foam about 13 and a half feet long. I sucked out the loose debris with a shop vac. I then cut 3 quarter inch square stock on the bandsaw about three and a half feet long to try something a little different. These pieces were test fit into the groove on the front of the diorama. These longer pieces of wood save time although I still needed small blocks to round the curve. At this point everything was dry fit into place just to make sure that the concept would work. All of the wood was sprayed with water along with the diorama's face and the groove. The gorilla glue was applied to the long wood pieces and pushed into place. The longer pieces of wood worked well on the straight sides of the scene. The curved part of the diorama base still required smaller blocks of wood glued into the grooves individually. I marked the face of the module with circles or lines leaving a gap in the wood blocks so that in the future I could add block switches for track and or street lights and building light switches and the necessary wiring that would go with this into the foam. Again I pressed the blocks into the groove constantly as the glue expanded pushing the blocks out. Over a period of 30 minutes everything cured and the pieces were set into place. Once the glue dried I used a planer to scrape off the excess making everything flat and flush to the surface. Turning my attention to the top of the module I had in mind to lay a long sweeping double track mainline with a gentle sweeping curve as this would make for a removable module with great outdoor video potential for shooting athern social media type of run buys. I drew a few lines atop of the module with a magic marker but was never really satisfied with the results until I could actually see the track in place. I painted over these black lines just to lessen my confusion and started laying microengineering code 83 track from the existing mainline on top of our new foam diorama. I also knew I wanted to lay a third secondary track towards the front of the diorama and either code 70 or code 55 microengineering track making for three tracks total running through the scene. I laid the track with a sweeping curve using prototype standards of about 14 foot on centers. Once the first track was in place it was easy to lay the second track alongside of this. I also plan to add super elevation to these mainlines raising the outside rail with 30 or 40 thousands styrene strips. One of the nice working characteristics of microengineering track is that once you have the curve you want it holds its shape without flexing which would turn out to be very handy for this project. I used atlas and scale rail joiners to connect the code 83 track together and proceeded to solder the mainlines into place. We will fill in the missing ties at the connecting joints when the track is eventually glued into place later on this project. The last thing to decide is whether the third secondary track would be code 70 or code 55 microengineering track. Code 70 would look really good and allow the models with deeper flanges on the wheels to roll smooth as code 55 track doesn't really get along very well with the european models that have deeper flangeways on their wheels. I chose to go with the code 55 for this third track and plan to bury this in the dirt with grass and vegetation growing all around it and also lay this third track about two scale feet lower than the double track code 83 mainlines. I wanted to cover the metal stud bench work with stained wood to match the theme of my entire layout room. I did this by cutting two pieces of oak plywood two inches wide and cut to the length of the two flat sides of the metal studs making up our 13 foot long bench work for this section. I applied liquid nails to the sides of the metal studs pressed the wood into the glue and secured the wood with small 12 inch bar clamps and let this set up overnight as liquid nail adhesive cured. To start carving the topography on our scene I used a bent horse rasp and started carving the shoulders of the double track mainlines. Just like the prototype imagine how the rainwater would drain away from the tracks. Notice that I had drawn an area where there would be a road crossing the tracks in this scene and I avoided carving this area. Now this process takes hours to perform but it is the one step in the process that makes your scene look realistic. Once the ballast slash track was carved I vacuumed up the loose foam to reveal our mainlines track shoulders. I then started carving the lower topography on the front of the diorama where the third code 55 track would be laid. I used a flat horse rasp and the bent rasp to carve the foam on this part of the scene avoiding the track bed areas. Upon vacuuming this area of the loose foam you can see how this area was carved about two to three feet in scale lower than the mainlines and still avoiding the area where the third track will be laid. Now it was time to carve the area where the code 55 track will be laid to match the scenery that is about two scale feet lower than the mainlines. I carved this with a straight rasp, cutting away areas about nine inches to a foot at a time, skipping a small area and then continuing on. I did it this way to have a base point to make sure that the track bed would be even throughout the length of the entire run. Once these areas were cut I then went back and carved out the remaining two inch sections that were uncut until the entire length of the roadbed area for the code 55 track siding was smooth and even. To cut the approach or the ends of the module where the siding track would transition downgrade from the adjoining layout sections I used a 14 inch long hand sander with 36 grit sandpaper to cut the foam. It was important to keep the downhill transition even and gradual as I cut the foam downgrade to scale feet. It was easy to feel or teeter-totter the long hand sander as I worked this area flat at an angle from the high point of the switch yard down to the low point about 20 inches in or so into the diorama. I did this on both ends of the 13 foot long scene. This may be unconventional and look very strange, but it worked because the microengineering track holds its shape. I was able to suspend the main lines above the foam module and then pull the module out. As you see I used simple masking tape to do this. I had to remove the module in order to carve the scenery and stain the wood on the back side. I used the bent rasp to again carve the scenery working away from the main lines on the inside of the curve. I then smoothed the rough cut area with a hand planer so that the scene could accept either a train station or a grain elevator to vary the video potential of this module. To contour the plywood sides that wrap the scene to the carved topography in the foam I used a cabinet laminate bead trimmer. The ball bearing on the trimmer rolls along the foam as the trimmer's sharp bit cuts the plywood flush to match the topography in the foam. With the wood shaped I stained the backside of the module with minwax red oak stain covering the edges and the sides with a very thorough coat of this. With the topography all carved I sealed the whole scene with brown latex paint. The plywood that covered the metal studs was stained in the same red oak stain to give a nicer color and overall appearance. The module was set back into position atop the metal benchwork and the main lines were released from the masking tape holding them up and everything was set back into position. The code 55 third track was bent and formed into position and placed atop the module creating a long gentle curve. The best way to curve microengineering track is to bend a few inches at a time working your way gently through each three foot section. It holds its shape and always looks very realistic. Now it was finally time to finish the front of the diorama with the quarter inch plywood fascia. I cut a four inch strip on the bandsaw and attached this in the same method as I've explained before with water and gorilla glue bending the plywood to match the curve and stapling it into place. The recessed blocks of wood every foot or so helped things in perfectly. It took about one eight foot section and one piece of plywood measuring five foot four inches to wrap the entire front of the diorama. I covered and filled the staples with wood putty to give the woodwork a more professional looking finish. Using the laminate trimmer I contoured the plywood's edge to match the topography in the foam as was done on the backside of the seam. I then followed up this with a Stanley shore form planer just making the plywood further conform to the scenery. Using a multi tool oscillating sander I sanded the wood putty smooth that was covering the staples. I then stained the front of the diorama with minwax red oak stain. Once the stain had dried it was time to put a high gloss finish on the wood using minwax high gloss polyurethane. Now I put three coats of polyurethane on this diorama to give it a real smooth real nice gloss finish but the one thing that I did do was after the second coat of polyurethane I used 1000 grit sandpaper and water and I wet the polyurethane and sanded it by hand giving a glass smooth finish right before applying the third coat of polyurethane to the seam. Now to finish up the track work on top of the diorama the code 55 track connects to code 83 track on the approach to the module on both ends of this new module that we're building. Now in order to connect code 83 rail to code 55 rail it's actually quite simple. Using atlas and scale rail joiners I slid the joiner onto the code 83 track. Then using a pair of pliers I flattened the rail joiner like you see in this video here. Then I placed the code 55 rail on top of the flattened rail joiner and proceeded to solder everything together. The transition is smooth on the flat all the way across the top on both sizes of rail permanently connecting these sections together. To bury the code 55 track into the dirt I drew lines with a black magic marker on both sides of the track. Then using a dremel with a flat bit mounted along with the dremel router attachment I set the depth of the bit to the thickness of the microengineering ties on the code 55 track and then proceeded to router out the foam in between the black lines where the track would be further embedded into the foam. I used a rough diamond file to transition the routered section of the foam where the track transitions up to level. I then sealed our newly routed groove where the track would lay with brown latex house paint. I then released the track hanging above taped in place with masking tape and fitted into place in our routed groove making the ties flush with a surrounding scenery. Using dap quick seal plus caulking adhesive I used this to glue down the track. It really works well because it dries clear it is paintable which allows our ballast to adhere to the road bed. I put the aheez of on top of a tile and used a painters knife to apply it to the scene. Here you see how I use the knife to scoop up the glue from on top of the tile and apply it to the track bed areas and then press the track securely into the glue. It only took about 15 minutes to securely fasten the code 55 siding track into its router channel working the glue in the place and pressing the track into the glue. It was during this process that I added the missing railroad ties at the connecting joints where the track sections went together then pressing the track into the bed of glue running my fingers on top of the rails throughout the length of the module. Now it was time to lay the main lines with a super elevation using evergreen styrene strips. I used 40,000 thick strips on the sharpest part of the curve and 30,000 styrene strips along the rest of the curve. I laid the strips along the sides of the track figuring the lengths and about how many I would need in order to run the length of both main lines. I test fit two strips of 40,000 styrene under the outside rails of both main line tracks at the sharpest radius of the curve. Starting with the inside main I pulled or drew the styrene strips through the quick seal plus adhesive then proceeded to place each strip under the outside rail of the track creating our super elevation effect. Once I had the strips glued into place under the outside rails on both main lines I then proceeded to apply the glue using the painter's knife evenly under the track which will hold everything into place. This process went really quick as I secured both of the main lines into place. Once the glue was spread smooth under the track I ran my fingers atop the rails pressing the track securely into the bed of glue. I put weight on top of both main lines and let the adhesive set up and dry overnight. This dried clear and everything worked out great up to this point. The next day I painted all the track using Rust-Oleum camouflage brown paint. Actually Earth Brown is a name of the color painting both sides of the rail evenly. This eliminates the rails solder joints and the color of the white styrene giving the track a very realistic appearance. After the paint dried I sanded the tops of the rail with 120 grit sandpaper removing the brown paint from on top of the railhead. And just like that the first segment of this how-to video for what's neat on layout construction is finished. Essentially it took three months to build this this was August, September, October and part of November to complete this section of layout but I gotta tell you when trains run through this entire diorama in the super elevation part of it it looks absolutely fantastic to watch the train leaning through the scene. All we've simply done here is we've built our canvas it's framed with wood this is our base for the project. So next time on What's Neat we've got to build roads we've got to ballast everything create scenery decide where to put buildings lights block switches there's so much more to do on this diorama so stay tuned for a future episode of What's Neat as we finish this layout building construction project the brand new scene that I'm building for my layout and that ends this segment of What's Neat. All of the model railroad products seen in this episode of What's Neat are available through Caboose in Lakewood, Colorado or order online at mycaboose.com