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The switch-back layout is built up from a piece of 3/4” thick plywood with risers added for the second level. The turnouts and track have been laid and the bridge with bridge abutments. The cardboard lattice has been added ready for plastering.
Note the two empty wood fruit crates that are used to set the layout on. The wood from other fruit crates were used in the construction of the layout. The picture was taken outdoors on the back patio of the apartment I was living in at the time. I did all the early construction on this patio with power hand tools.
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The plaster scenery has been added and colored. The ballast has been glued in place. The control panel is screwed to the edge of the layout. The green metal box is a rectified transformer that I built in my pre-teens in the 1950’s. The box and the components were purchased from a war surplus shop. Behind the control panel is a second (flat) control panel that was built to get better control of the locomotive. A third panel with a DPDT toggle switch was mounted between the two control panels to give power to the track for just one control panel.
A time period had not been chosen yet for the model railroad, so an Athearn SW7 diesel switcher is doing the switching choirs. The word “UNION” was removed from the hood and replaced with the word “GILA” to give it the correct road name. Later the locomotive was only run on a club layout.
The short passenger car in the foreground is still under construction. The car is an Ambroid kit that was cut in half to make two shorty passenger cars.
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An overall view of the finished layout with Ponderosa in the foreground and Gila in the background. The two water towers and station were all scratchbuilt long before this layout was started. The engine house at Gila was scratchbuilt for this layout. All of the turnouts have ground throws and the one in the foreground is an operating switch stand. It is a little large for HO scale.
The shortened Ambroid passenger car has been finished in this picture. The other short car from this longer combine car is still under construction.
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The Gila Pacific RR switch-back layout #1 was started in 1967 and completed in 1968. It was a very simple layout. It satisfied the desire to build a layout yet small enough to move. I had started it while living in one apartment and had no problem moving it to another apartment where it was finished. It was moved again the following year and then incorporated into layout #2 in 1972.
The railroad owned only two locomotives at this time: the Athearn SW7 diesel and a Ken Kidder brass 0-4-0T plantation steam locomotive. The RTR steamer is shown in one of the pic's in the as dilivered "brass" color. Several freight cars were completed that were started years before and placed on the layout from time to time. Also different structures that were built over the previous 8-years were tired out on the layout.
See
Layout #2 for the track plan and photo's for the next phase of the Gila Pacific RR.
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