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Education
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Directions
Contact Us
Club Cars
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Members Area
Permanent Layout
Updated on February 11, 2018
Updated on February 11, 2018
The second floor of the PSMRC clubhouse is home to our 1000 square foot layout.
Initially, this layout began as collection of club-owned, and member-owned modules.
Currently work is being done in sections to remove these older modules and create a new, more consistent scene.
Some of the modules taken from the "permanent" layout may be used when we attend shows.
We have moved from operating our layout from using either DC or DCC, to primarily operating using DCC now.
The permanent layout has a double track mainline to provide for operating multiple trains simultaneously, a section of track that was replaced with a rather interesting gauntlet bridge, has now been updated to dual trackage.
The gauntlet combined the two sets of tracks into the space of one track by interleaving the four rails. In the prototype this was done to save space and to decrease the cost of construction. While two trains may be occupying different tracks and traveling in opposite directions, only one train can cross the bridge at a time. The rails on this section is hand-laid, as are the frogs which guide the trains onto the appropriate set of rails at one end and onto the correct track at the other end of the bridge.
The gauntlet bridge proved to be a bottleneck to traffic operations and was upgraded to double trackage.
In the center of the layout room is a peninsula is split down the middle by a traditional freight yard and engine terminal and servicing facilities on one side with an intermodal rail/truck facility on the other side.
We have moved from operating our layout from using either DC or DCC, to primarily operating using DCC now.
The permanent layout has a double track mainline to provide for operating multiple trains simultaneously, a section of track that was replaced with a rather interesting gauntlet bridge, has now been updated to dual trackage.
The gauntlet combined the two sets of tracks into the space of one track by interleaving the four rails. In the prototype this was done to save space and to decrease the cost of construction. While two trains may be occupying different tracks and traveling in opposite directions, only one train can cross the bridge at a time. The rails on this section is hand-laid, as are the frogs which guide the trains onto the appropriate set of rails at one end and onto the correct track at the other end of the bridge.
The gauntlet bridge proved to be a bottleneck to traffic operations and was upgraded to double trackage.
In the center of the layout room is a peninsula is split down the middle by a traditional freight yard and engine terminal and servicing facilities on one side with an intermodal rail/truck facility on the other side.