Utacolzona Railroad in On30 (built 2020 - 2022) Last Update 10/14/23

Fabulous craftsmanship Dennis'.. Excellent and interesting layout'...Nice'..👍✔

Thank you, Ted.

Sunday, 4-24-2022
Viewed from the roof on the Utacolzona Hotel we see the creator of Utacolzona & URR.

Thanks for looking.  Dennis.

Dennis,

  Excellent craftsmanship there, my friend.

Tom

Sunday, 5-1-22

Getting in that last round of checkers as the sun goes down.

Ready to dump the last load of coal.

Thanks for looking.
Dennis

Sunday  5-8-2022

Before and after.

Sunday  5/15/22

Threading the dangerous downhill coming into town.

Utacolzona is a busy place!

With everyone busy, the boss decided to take a nap.

Pushing full coal loads to the chutes.

Hauling & dumping coal.

This is just awesome! I can't believe how much detail there is. This is also a really great thread! Thank you for sharing every step along the way

Dennis,

  I relooked at all your posts and I need to once again say you have done some amazing work. Wow.

  Glad to know I could tap into the work of someone who is able to successfully channel his "Inner John Allen." Please keep these previously hidden talents handy when I need help with my next layout!

  Excellent work my friend. Very proud of you!

Tom

Recently a fellow OGR modeler requested a tutorial on how I made the guide rails (or guard rails).

It really is simple and I did not take pictures of the construction but here are some shots of a post I used for a starter.

This post was short because the part going into the foam was not factored in at this point.  I figured how high I wanted the post then cut all the rest longer as I needed.  The posts are 3/16 dia. wooden dowels and the holes for the cable (string) are 1/16 dia.

I painted the post white and then painted the yellow tops after the white was dry.  I used a stretchy necklace string for the cable.  This is the same string I used for the power lines on the poles.  I dirtied it up just a little with thinned black paint as I did not want it too shiny.
I laid out the posts to figure out how far apart I needed them and drilled holes into the foam... carefully by hand.  Foam will tear when drilling so this process is slow.
Before installing the posts I strung the two rows in all the posts.  This was a bit tedious as the thread & holes were a close fit.  I did not want the holes too big as they would not look correctly.  I set all the posts in the foam with yellow carpenters glue and when dry, I pulled the string so it was fairly straight and ran it into the "ground" at both ends.  That's it.

Dennis,

  Very nice, but what material is the actual post made from? I see you said 3/16 but is it just a wooden dowel?

  Thanks for posting.

Tom

Beautiful craftsmanship, Dennis! i love it!

Dennis,

I can't believe I missed this one.  What incredible workmanship and artistry.

John

DennisB, Craftech, and PRR8976 Thank you for the wonderful compliments.
Coming from DennisB, a master himself, that is great praise indeed.
Thank you all for the great compliments.

Dennis

During the early days of single prop fly over we see Utacolzona Railroad still working the mines.

This is a view standing on top of the "Lucky #7 Mine" where we can see down to Utacolzona,
not a quiet but a fairly peaceful town.  I hope the man loading the box onto the pick-up
does not trip over the old gentleman laying on the ground. (oops. )

Down at the end of the yard.

Mr. Hinkle opened up the store for the day.  Needs a bit of cleanup Mr. Hinkle.

No Gold,  No Silver,  Just Black Diamonds.

I have done little to finish the small 38" X 78" Utacolzona layout this Summer.  After the gardening season is over, come September, I will get to it.  Plenty of little things to finish up.
Here is an overall view while standing on a step stool.

Some more and slightly different views of Utacolzona.

It's Autumn 2022 and UTACOLZONA is back to work after the Summer layoffs so people could do the home, yard (whatever kind of yard they could possibly have in this environment), and garden work.

Here are a few close-ups I took when I was taking pictures to see what details I need to finish up.

Very impressive there, Dennis.

Tom

Making sure UTACOLZONA Railroad employees are still on the job.

It's almost Christmas but the southwest continues to scratch out a living moving coal all the while looking for that elusive shiny ore.

Early morning on the Utacolzona RR with the sun rising.

Up early moving coal

At the Never Mine trying to earn a living

Dennis,

  Thanks for sharing your layout. Looks like they are mining enough coal so we can all have coal in our stockings!

Tom

Evolution of a mine construction in 2 years on the On30 UTACOLZONA layout.

Dennis,

  Nice to see you are channeling your inner John Allen! Excellent work there.

  Merry Christmas!

Tom

A new year on the UTACOLZONA Railroad.

If they ever find this trainman sleeping, I'm sure his next bed will be a park bench.

Setting the tank car to load with water to take up to the mines.

1-29-2023 Some scenery picture updates.

The yard at Utacolzona.

I'm sweating just looking at all the images! Nicely done.

Tom

2-5-'23  Some new views.

How it looks coming downhill into the town of Utacolzona.

Spotting a freshwater tank for the mine.

You deserve some sort of award for putting wires on your telegragh/telephone poles!

Tom

@Hartman posted:

2-5-'23  Some new views.

How it looks coming downhill into the town of Utacolzona.

A terrific job of modeling a Western mining town and short-line railroad.

MELGAR

@PRR8976 posted:

You deserve some sort of award for putting wires on your telegragh/telephone poles!

Tom

Thanks, Tom.  It is the stretchy necklace string that I colored & glued to the posts without stretching them.  Some look straight & some with a tiny bit of sag.

@MELGAR posted:

A terrific job of modeling a Western mining town and short-line railroad.

MELGAR

Thanks so much, Melgar.  I just put down what I remember seeing in life, but mostly on TV.  You know, those old cowboy shows from the 1950s.  Of course, the rocks were inspired by my 2018 trip to Utah, Colorado, Arizona & California with lots of pictures that I took.  Dave Meeks of ThunderMesaStudio of Youtube fame, gave a tutorial on coloring western rocks.  I learned a lot from that.  Of course, it took a LOT of layers of paints to get the correct colors and blend them.  That was probably the most difficult effort for me.  My son lives out west & said the colors were perfect.  That really made all my work worth it.  The track plan was a series of pencil scribbles, then laying track and making many, many revisions.

Standing on top of the Balanced Rock on Handle Mountain looking towards the town of Utacolzona...

...and towards the yard & coal loading dock.

I'm still adding some finishing touches to the Utacolzona Railroad.  A few other things left to do.

Utacolzona's "Never Mine" finally got the loading track finished to dump into the rail cars.

Brand new used diesel on the Utacolzona.  Bought from the Midwest Q&M Co.  Utacolzona was in a hurry to get it on the job they did not get a chance to patch it.  The UR WILL be on the cab!

Finishing up Utacolzona's Lucky #7 Mine by adding a coal chute.
Will need some more finishing touches.