UPDATE: Coal Spring and Gilbert RR

Cool layout, professional presentation! JohnA

Thank you!

Great back story! Gives your railroad a good reason for existing!

Looks great!

This is a very neat layout! A reverse loop (or two if you take the trolley off the track), a turntable, double-track mainline, a very nice, large yard - it's impressive! You've made great use of the space available to you! What diameter are the two main loops and the switches? The outer loop looks like it can support some larger steam engines.

That turntable looks like it uses FasTrack - where did you get it, did you make it?

It's also great that your wife supports the hobby - it's always great to hear of family members who are on board with the hobby

The Coal Spring "main" layout has O-72 on the outer loop, and O-54 on the inner.  There was a gentleman in Texas that had dismantled a huge layout, and I picked up the track and switches at a great bargain.  I like to run different trains, and swapping the nicer models off of a shelf is tedious.  That's why I really wanted to find a way to make the yard, and why I needed a turntable since I didn't have room for an O72 reverse loop.  So, the yard's reverse loop is O36, but the "Gilbert station side" uses O72 switches so I can store more of the big stuff there if I run out of room on the turntable spurs.  I switched to Fastrack because traditional O track is getting harder to come by, and I do like how easy Fastrack is to work with.  The turntable is totally scratch built.  It turns on a lazy susan, and underneath I used an old boat anchor winch motor and gear box with homemade plywood pulley's to automate it.  I did come up with a semi-automatic indexing feature using "whisker" limit switches, but they only get the track to within an 1/8" or so, then I use momentary toggle switches and visual for final alignment.  I'd like a better indexing system, but haven't found one that I think would work better at a reasonable cost yet.  The whole turntable at this point cost me less than $100 and I can turn anything up to 30" front wheel tangent point to rear wheel tangent point.  That means I can turn my Allegheny if I get it positioned "just right!"

I thought I'd provide an update on Coal Spring.  We finally moved into a house with a basement I could put the layout in.  It took some figuring, but I managed to design a track plan that let me integrate the three layout sections together into a single, continuous layout.  This enabled me to add another mountain and the town of Gilbert.  Here are some pictures of the finished layout, and there is more information at the link in my signature block.  I hope you all enjoy looking at it.