Silvertongue Southern RR Layout

My layout has gone through many changes over the years, even the physical room dimensions and location have changed. I started building a shelf layout in the garage. It seemed to be the logical place for me to build it. However, as that first summer progressed the problems of having a garage layout became apparent. Temperatures fluctuated wildly. Sometimes as much as 40*F in one day. Those temperature changes made the track work buckle and shift wildly, even with expansion gaps cut in the rail. Obviously, this wasn’t going to work for me, so I needed to find another solution. I had thought of converting one of the bedrooms to a layout room, but that wasn’t going to work either, since the stork was set to deliver twins. I needed an alternative solution. My father in law had built a storage room under the house. I was given the directive that room was off limits, but I could do whatever I wanted in the crawlspace under the house The basement idea took hold and the layout in the garage was removed.

Since our home is on a hillside, part of the crawlspace was over nine feet tall. This meant I only needed to dig out a wedge shape of dirt. My cousin Randy and I dug this out with a pick and shovel, and carried the dirt out in buckets. I’m not sure how many cubic yards of dirt were removed, but I was able to create a couple of terraces in my backyard with the dirt from under the house. We then built forms and poured 16″ thick concrete retaining walls and a 6″ thick slab for the floor. Under the floors and behind the retaining walls we installed drainage, gravel, and a vapor barrier.

The basement stays a constant temperature with low humidity. Even in the most extreme heat of last summer (108*F) the temperature in the basement didn’t exceed 74*F. This winter our temperatures have been below freezing and the basement hasn’t dropped below 65*F. To regulate this even more I have installed a heater/ac unit and it maintains the temperature to an even 68*F all year. I feel very fortunate to have been able to build this space for my layout. It was a tremendous amount of hard labor and took the better part of a year to get the basic space built out.

The greatest benefit of building the basement is space. The garage shelf layout was “L” shaped and measured approximately 14′ X 20′. While this was a nice size layout, it was limited because I needed to get the Triumph Spitfire in there as well. So, every time I wanted to work on the layout, I had to move the car out. I also wouldn’t leave the car out over night, or put it out in the rain, which meant that everything had to be cleaned up and put away even if I wasn’t finished with a particular job. The bedroom idea didn’t last long and the layout would have been even smaller 12′ X 12′. The basement is almost 450sq ft., which is enough space to keep me busy for years to come.

The odd shape of the basement was dictated by the way the house was built on a stem wall foundation. This posed some interesting challenges for layout design. The advantage to this was not being able to see the entire layout at a glance. Moving from room to room adds to the illusion of traveling greater distances, and actually going somewhere.

The overall concept of the layout has significantly changed as well. It has always been a freelanced design, however, it no longer follows Hwy 299 through the Trinity Alps in northern California, with real locations. No railroad actually followed this rout, but I loved the concept of a fictional narrow gauge bridge line to connect the NWP on the coast with the SP in Weaverville. This concept changed when I realized I wanted more latitude with the creativity of locations and industry. The most effective means for this would be to have my layout be completely fictitious. It also allows me to have a lot of fun with the location and business names as well as the stories behind them. That has always been something I enjoyed discovering on other folks layouts.

The Silvertongue Southern concept originated on the Yahoo HOn3 chat group. Everyone there had a nickname. In 2012, I set about making a contest. In which, I would supply a set of decals for a couple of bucks and anyone who wanted to could build something and use the decals on it. The contest would conclude at the 2012 National Narrow Gauge Convention in Seattle, Washington. I put together a prize for the winner of the contest, a custom painted and decaled Blackstone HOn3 boxcar. Anyone who entered the contest could cast a ballot. The most popular entry won the prize. The winner was David (Mule) Barron, with his Durango Wheat, double beer bottle car. It was quite an entry. Two full beer bottles epoxied together to form a giant tank car. The chassis for the car was milled from billet brass, with four sets of trucks. I think the whole thing weighed 3 pounds! That was a lot of fun and it served the group well. As for the name Silvertongue Southern, many of the folks on the HOn3 chat group really enjoyed writing poems and silly, tongue-in-cheek stories which were published in the Silverton Sub-Standard Gazette, by Laurie(Scoop) McLean from Australia. Thus the Silvertongue Southern Railroad was born.

Along with the Silvertongue Southern decal contest, I built a module depicting the town of Silvertongue, which I displayed at the Pasadena NNGC. We, the North Coast Narrow Gaugers, brought our modular layout to the show. We were stuffed in a back room, away from most of the action, and didn’t get much foot traffic here. The Silvertongue module was on the table in the room with our layout. A couple of folks built structures for the next module, but by the time I was able to build the next module, interest in the project fizzled out.

I didn’t intend for the Silvertongue Southern to be the name of my railroad. At the time, my railroad was the Trinity Pacific. I decided to change it after my previously mentioned revelation and the fact that it’s nickname became the Toilet Paper rout. I still think that’s hilarious. I had some of the Silvertongue Southern decals left over and thought about making the contest an annual event for the Narrow Gauge Convention. I placed an order for several dozen more decals in multiple colors, and the contest idea fizzled out because most of the chat group couldn’t attend the next convention in Pasadena, and I wasn’t able to attend the one after that. Since I had all those decals, I may as well put them to good use. So the Silvertongue Southern was adapted as my personal layout, and many aspects of it will be named after the various members (friends) on the chat group.

One other thing I should mention are the traveling people. Laurie Mclean had painted up a set of HO scale figures representing everyone in the chat group. These were mailed to members around the world and placed on their layouts for a photo which was published in the Silverton Sub-Standard Gazette with some crazy story. After the photo was taken, the little folk were boxed up and mailed to the next person. What a hoot! That was sure a lot of fun with a great group of highly talented modellers. I am so honored to have been associated with them and continue to maintain these wonderful friendships for so many years.

That being said, I have a town planned for the layout called Chatterston, where all the businesses will be named for the Chat members. The Silverton Sub-Standard Gazette auxiliary branch will be there as well. I hope Scoop will fire up the presses again, so that visitors to my layout can read all the goings on with the little folk.

The current work on the layout is in the middle room. Once the benchwork and sub-roadbed are complete, the entire layout can be connected by rail. I have completed the sub-roadbed for the mainline which needed to climb 4 1/2″ from the workshop to meet the benchwork from the big room. The grade was kept to 1.75% and curves were 18″ radius. I have started construction of the high line sub-roadbed to connect the upper deck of the workshop (Spitfire) with the big room. At 9 1/2″, the elevation change is more than twice that of the mainline. Initially, I thought of building a helix buried within the mountain, but I don’t like loosing sight of my train for extended periods of time. So, I decided to build a sort of figure eight with some short tunnels and tall bridges. I should be able to keep the grade under 3%. The curves will also be limited to 18″ radius. I have two bridges built by Jim Vail that will be used on the high line. One is a tall wooden trestle , and the other is a brass, pin-connected, deck bridge. I will probably need some bridges on the mainline as well, but I’m not sure how that will work until I get the basic scenery forms installed.

As far as operations are concerned along the mainline in the middle room, I have a small town planned, with a passing siding, but no switching yet. I would, however, like to add something along the lines of a team track and a small industry spur to make opperations a little more interesting. I do have some fun ideas for the town of Sheberville (named for my close friend Dave Sheber), which will be a small cliffside town, hangin’ on for dear life. I’ve started scratch building the depot, and built several other structures for this town. I will post photos when the structures are finished.