In 2003, after retiring, I took this layout and moved it into its present location, a train room that I built onto the house in the 1980’s. The new room is 16 by 19 feet with the old layout against one of the walls and two new sections under construction to form a 16’ x 15’ layout in an inverted “U” shape. The towns of Gila and Ponderosa are on one leg of the “U” and the new city of Grande Pass is on the other leg. Between these two areas is the Timberline Logging Company saw mill, Cedar City and Summit the highest point for the railroad.

The layout is basically a double dog bone that is folded into a “U” shape. A train starting at Grande Pass will travel twice around the layout before it gets to its final destination of Gila. The train can continue East to and interchange with the Southern Pacific (a hidden reversing loop with storage tracks) and emerges as a westbound train into Gila. The train will proceed to Grande Pass and the train broken down and the locomotive turned on the turntable. The Gila Cutoff connects Gila directly to Grande Pass and can be used for continuous train running, my preferred method of operations.

The benchwork is L-girder construction with the roadbed built up of ½” thick birch plywood and ½” Homasote. This surface is the base for the yard and siding tracks with cork added for the mainline. Track is prefab Walthers code 83 turnouts and Walthers flex track for the yards. The mainline is Atlas code 83 super flex track which is nailed through the ties and cork into the Homasote.

The mountain contours were formed with three layers of paper towels, dipped in Hydrocal, over a crumpled up newspaper form. Then thin casting plaster was painted on with a paint brush and strata added with the brush and other flat areas stippled with the paint brush. A large number of wet rock castings were added to the steeper mountains with the aid of commercial and home made latex moulds.

Turpentine stains made with tube oil paints were used to color the plaster. After that cured for a week, thinned acrylic tube paints and poster paints were used to brush paint the rock strata. This was allowed to dry and then the rock faces were dry brushed with off white acrylic paints. I use decomposed granit that I get from the local mountains for the ground cover. I shift the dirt through three sizes of screen to obtain a fine, medium and course ground cover. I also save the tailings which gives me ground cover with small pebbles and large pebbles. I use the pebbles to outline roads and paths and at the bottom of steep hillsides.

Small pieces of processed lichen were place on double sided tape, attached to a piece of cardstock, and spray painted brown. Then sprayed with hair spray and sprinkled with commercial green foam. Trees are made with bush clipping armatures, lichen and green foam. Other trees are made with Woodland Scenic flogiage. The pine trees are made by the Jack Works method using air fern, asparagus fern and caspia glued into hole drilled into a tapered cedar trunk. Various shades of green foam was added to some of the trees. Background pine trees are made from Bumpy Chenille material and Woodland Scenics ground-foam foliage material and 1/8” dia tapered dowels.