The Situation:
With the room, concept and design complete, it was time to begin construction. That means building benchwork. The size of the room meant a lot of benchwork, and two levels doubled the complexity, as well as the size of the layout's skeleton. Although I have built benchwork before, I must admit that the scale and complexity of this undertaking was way beyond my comfort and experience to tackle on my own. After many unsuccessful attempts to encourage - even bribe - friends to help, everyone seemed more intimidated than I was by the project. At this point I really began to wonder if I was out of my mind to build this thing, let alone ever get it started.
Fear not, for circumstances presented a solution. Brad Strong was introduced to me a in 2014 at my local store, the Train Shoppe. I was immediately impressed with his experience, skill, and attention to details that never would have occurred to me. Right at about the time I was ready to begin construction, he became available, and work commenced immediately. More than a commission, it became a partnership immediately, because we both think and approach layouts in much the same way. We both share the philosophy that less is more - that simplicity makes for better operation and maintenance and track for the sake of track is the greatest sin in model railroading. Moreover, our strengths were complementary - mine with the architectural historian approach to the layout's conceptual design and scenery, his with the operational experience and engineering acumen to make it work.
It takes a community to build a layout. No matter how good the plans are, construction presents changes to the plans to make them work. As a collaboration, challenges are resolved as they arise, and the discussion and decision always produced a better result than originally planned.
The Benchwork Concept:
There are many good books on benchwork, and being the good student that I am I set out to study them. Kalmbach publishes a number of these books, covering basic benchwork concepts to multi-deck approaches. Still I wondered how best to approach my benchwork. The layout itself seemed straight-forward - two large peninsulas connecting a central terminal block mounted against the back wall. Simple, right? Wrong.
For one thing, the curves I wanted on my mainline (minimum 38" radius) forced spans at least 7' across. Adding a second level made the problem much more complex. Anticipating that the main peninsula, often called the 'wall peninsula' because it was built into its own wall, would be a major structure on the layout, I thought ahead when I had the room built. That involved building a wall for anchoring the main peninsula. This wall, 18' long with a slight angle at 6' from the south wall, then a 12' section on the angle, would become the anchor point for the main peninsula. The wall was wired with multiple outlets to provide power to the layout as needed. First shown is the wall before layout construction, and I'll come back to the construction of this peninsula specifically in a moment.
With the room, concept and design complete, it was time to begin construction. That means building benchwork. The size of the room meant a lot of benchwork, and two levels doubled the complexity, as well as the size of the layout's skeleton. Although I have built benchwork before, I must admit that the scale and complexity of this undertaking was way beyond my comfort and experience to tackle on my own. After many unsuccessful attempts to encourage - even bribe - friends to help, everyone seemed more intimidated than I was by the project. At this point I really began to wonder if I was out of my mind to build this thing, let alone ever get it started.
Fear not, for circumstances presented a solution. Brad Strong was introduced to me a in 2014 at my local store, the Train Shoppe. I was immediately impressed with his experience, skill, and attention to details that never would have occurred to me. Right at about the time I was ready to begin construction, he became available, and work commenced immediately. More than a commission, it became a partnership immediately, because we both think and approach layouts in much the same way. We both share the philosophy that less is more - that simplicity makes for better operation and maintenance and track for the sake of track is the greatest sin in model railroading. Moreover, our strengths were complementary - mine with the architectural historian approach to the layout's conceptual design and scenery, his with the operational experience and engineering acumen to make it work.
It takes a community to build a layout. No matter how good the plans are, construction presents changes to the plans to make them work. As a collaboration, challenges are resolved as they arise, and the discussion and decision always produced a better result than originally planned.
The Benchwork Concept:
There are many good books on benchwork, and being the good student that I am I set out to study them. Kalmbach publishes a number of these books, covering basic benchwork concepts to multi-deck approaches. Still I wondered how best to approach my benchwork. The layout itself seemed straight-forward - two large peninsulas connecting a central terminal block mounted against the back wall. Simple, right? Wrong.
For one thing, the curves I wanted on my mainline (minimum 38" radius) forced spans at least 7' across. Adding a second level made the problem much more complex. Anticipating that the main peninsula, often called the 'wall peninsula' because it was built into its own wall, would be a major structure on the layout, I thought ahead when I had the room built. That involved building a wall for anchoring the main peninsula. This wall, 18' long with a slight angle at 6' from the south wall, then a 12' section on the angle, would become the anchor point for the main peninsula. The wall was wired with multiple outlets to provide power to the layout as needed. First shown is the wall before layout construction, and I'll come back to the construction of this peninsula specifically in a moment.
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| These two shots show the center wall built with the lower studs exposed to anchor the main peninsula, the outline of which is in blue tape on the floor. Faced with the need to add a supporting column near the center of the layout space, my builder and I came up with this wall concept whereby the wall was framed but only finished above 54" from the floor. This gave my layout both a central support structure and a room division for breaking up the scenery, the latter being a commonly-used approach for dividing up layout spaces.
The Starting Point:
This center wall provided central support for the main peninsula, and work began immediately at the point where it connected to the south wall of the room. First we measured off the two levels of the layout on the main walls with a laser. Starting on the finished walls was critically important because, despite the best intentions and construction, the concrete slab in my basement is uneven and therefore unreliable for setting the layout level. The laser level provided a completely objective way to set each level (upper level at 54"; lower level at 35"). Brad maintains, and I fully agree as a builder myself, that maintaining level track (especially from rail to rail) is essential to smooth operation, and that leveling process starts in the benchwork. For that reason, Brad constantly checked the benchwork as it went in and made adjustments where necessary to maintain its trueness. Once anchor boards were set on the outer wall, we had a starting point for all the benchwork.
As shown in this picture above, the laser level allowed us to set a chalk line to mark the mounting points for the two benchwork levels. These lines, along with the constant use of levels, maintained a consistent level throughout construction. Once the lines were drawn, benchwork started in the south corner with a single span 7'6" wide between the window and the exposed studs of the wall that would become the center of the main peninsula. From there benchwork was built out along both walls, starting with the anchor pieces set on the walls as shown here.
 
As these two pictures show, attached 1x4s to the wall (screwed directly into the studs) to anchor the two layout levels at the chalk lines we set with the laser level. Benchwork was then anchored directly to these mounting boards, starting in the south end of the room, using a single span to connect all three walls (space was 7' 6" across), as shown best in the first of these two pictures.
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Benchwork was cantilevered from these boards (underway, as shown above), supported on L girders on 2x2 legs. The legs all were finished with T bolts for feet. T bolts have several advantages, one being the ability to adjust the level as needed, another being their eliminating contact between the wood and the bare concrete floor. Even in the driest of climates, such as Salt Lake City, unsealed concrete is unstable, giving off both moisture and dust. Straight wood-on-concrete causes wicking, which can distort the wood supports and throw the layout out of alignment.
This picture shows how T bolts (both individual components and assembled under a benchwork support leg), which I've also heard called 'elevator bolts,' are used on the legs of the benchwork for provide both adjustment of legs to keep the layout level over the uneven surfaces of the concrete floor and provide a natural barrier. (My room builder, Rolf, used pressure-treated wood to provide the sill of the central wall for a similar purpose - also to prevent wicking from the concrete into the wall, which can cause distortions.)
Next we turned to building the main peninsula into the center wall. The peninsula was built with several variations of level in anticipation of mountain canyon and river scenery under and around the mainline. This picture shows how we dropped the lower level between 2" and 5.5" from the main part of the lower level to accommodate future scenery below track level. As shown below, the benchwork supports were attached directly to the studs using 4 grab screws per board in the corners as shown for extra stability.
Lower level benchwork continued from this point around the wall, widening out toward the end to accommodate the mainline curve, which is 42" Radius. That made the end of the peninsula about 8' across to accommodate the gentle and more realistic mainline curves I wanted:
  
More will be shown in subsequent posts. Shown so far is how the benchwork started at the lower level and wrapped around the main wall. Looking closely at this last sequence, one can see how the lower level took shape around the wall, with the last shot showing how the level changes were easily incorporated into the exposed studs. The 5.5" total drop allows for eventual mountain canyon scenery - particularly a river - to be incorporated beneath the tracks.
My next few posts will show both the progress of the benchwork and provide detailed discussion of some of the construction techniques used, along with the challenges we faced in the setting track grade that connected the two levels. One of these techniques, pocket screw joinery, turned out to be a better approach to this layout's construction overall, adding greater strength and stability that allowed for longer cantilever spans.
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