24 Post Pandemic August 2022 by Verryl V Fosnight Jr
Wyoming Division HO Operation Layout Wyoming Division HO Operation Layout
24 Post Pandemic August 2022
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Verryl V Fosnight Jr's Gallery Verryl V Fosnight Jr's Gallery
Wyoming Division HO Operation Layout Wyoming Division HO Operation Layout

24 Post Pandemic August 2022
  • Nov 14, 2022
  • 51 Photos
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  1. Verryl V Fosnight Jr's Gallery
  2. Wyoming Division HO Operation LayoutWyoming Division HO Operation Layout
  3. 24 Post Pandemic August 202224 Post Pandemic August 2022
P1101620 PP per TD1 only
It's been a long time since I posted new photos Because we were not having op sessions every 2nd Saturday of each month, Lenny and Allen kept busy applying scenery and new buildings. No op sessions meant we never cleaned up the layout to take pictures, so I finally got to take some just before our first one in August. The following photos in Albums 24 and 25 show our progress as of Oct 6, 2022.
P1001430 Cent Side Wam TD1 exp1_18 SC45
The western end of our center siding ("Harriman Siding") west of Wamsutter. It is long enough for our longest train, over 17 feet with a Big Boy. It is one of the 3 track areas that are controlled by an Arduino computer with inputs from electrical slide switches that set the turnouts at either end as well as sending inputs to the Arduino. I bought two full rolls of commercial carpet several years ago for the floors. The riser shone here is 18 inches tall and is the floor we stand on to operate the upper level.We will lay the carpet when the messy scenery work is done. The Cheyenne yard is across the aisle, and the main staging yard is under it. At the end of this aisle is the east end Cheyenne steam yard with some of the very large buildings. That bench extends to the left across the building and perpendicular to this aisle.
P1001431 Wam from W TD1 exp0.75 SC49
Wamsutter at the east end of the Harriman Siding. On The south side of the tracks is the Station, team track, and a RR outbuilding. Across the tracks are Conoco Oil, and across the road is the stock yard, Ferguson Mercantile, and Snake River Sheering.
P1001433 Wam TD1 Exp 0.75 SC 49
Closeup of most of Wamsutter, Wyoming. This is almost as big as present day Wamsutter. A truck has just loaded a shipment from the team track dock. In the following copy of this picture I have used the Luminar Photo Processing program to put sky over the steel mezzanine base, and I have used a more dramatic sky for the "new sky."
P1001433 Wam TD1 SkyRep1
Wamsutter with a Luminar post processing program sky replacement, which works great, if the sky goes all the way to the top of the exposure. If not I paint (clone and stamp) the sky over the non-sky background (inside of the building, ceiling mezzanine etc.) then replace the resultant backdrop/false cloned backdrop. The cloning and stamping is often done in many steps to first place the clone target properly, so second, the stamp of the target ends up sky. If I'm not careful, because the cloned area moves with the mouse stamp position, I may in my haste stamp a piece of non-sky. That may have happened here. A "shadow" of the first large telephone pole on the right appears to have been stamped on the cloud just above it and to its right. I could open this image in Luminar and stamp some cloud over the "shadow," but why bother?
P1001434 Wam from SE TD1
Sparkling downtown Wamsutter and depot and team track and loading dock. If I wanted to put sky all the way to the top of this image, it would be easy here. I could use the biggest "brush" (actually a round spot with variable "soft" edges--the stamped result becomes less intense down to zero around the rim) could be used to quickly smear parts of the present sky over the hanging mezzanine. Too much sky would probably result, so I might crop part of the new sky off, or I could crop part of the steel first before the cloning and stamping.
P1001436 Wam from SW TD1 Sht
The east end of Wamsutter. Stacks of road crew supplies are laid along the station/team track road. The brick buildings across to way with the tall smoke stacks are part of the Cheyenne steam yard on the bench along the far wall.
P1001437 Wam from SE TD1 Exp 0.83 SC25
All of Wamsutter except the station on the left. Lenny made the crossing signals that work by optical detectors set in the tracks some ways away that drive another Arduino computer. That "dot" between the lower rails near the right hand edge of the photo may be one of the 4 optical detectors.
P1001449 Red Desert TD1 see sht
In this view the camera has hurried ahead of the mains and is now pointing back west towards the other end of Wamsutter around the far bend. This long stretch of track toward the camera is the modeled part of the Red Desert just a few miles from the southern Wyoming border. This country is good mainly for sheep grazing and antelope. Can you see the two antelope near the right edge of the photo? There is also the steel half round top to a sheepherder's wagon just a bit further west, about half way between the antelope and the road crossing the tracks. This is desolate and lonely country, and no one (except Lenny) knows why it was necessary or worth it to put crossing signals and crossing arms way out here, and with electrical motors to automatically lower and raise the crossing arms when a train approaches from either track. Word has it that the disgraced ex-mayor of Wamsutter was on the take from Western Signal, Inc. and bought two installations, one tor Wamsutter and the second from West of Nowhere Wyoming. There are many such crossings across the Wyoming prairie, but I've never see a set of signals.
P1001448 Red Desertto Rawlins TD1 see Sheet
Leaving the Red Desert again looking east, this photo shows three fascia signs to aid operators, mounted above the open end of the end cap that joins two benches, which benches are for the Red Desert (looking east again away from Wamsutter), and the Rawlins bench. The wall mount phone if one of 16 that connects to the Dispatcher on the mezzanine. On the left hand end of the bend in the track are the remains of an old cabin and well of homesteader, aka "squatter" to cattlemen. There is an alternate main through all the yards of the layout,so superior trains can get around trains that are working at the yard. This is the western end of the Alternate Main of Rawlins. The painted frame beyond the bench supports the main two track helix of 2 3/4 oval turns with ends of 35" radius and 7 foot long straights. Below the fascia signs are several 85 oz. popcorn barrels handy to hold scenery sand, grass flocking, gravel, etc. and various bits and pieces of scenery, including a mat of sagebrush that Allen had left over.
P1001445 W of Rawlins shack TD1 per sht
Another view of the junk under the benches, and this also shows, the rock modeling just west of Rawlins WY on the right. The framework of the main helix can be seen here. It is about 13 feet long by 6 feet wide. It was built with casters, so it could be rolled to three different locations of the layout. These three locations were the then current end of benches and tracks as construction proceeded on each of the two levels. As benches were completed, we lifted the main helix off blocks, set it back down on its casters, and rolled it to the end of the newly constructed benches, and set it back up on the blocks, and connected it to the ends of the new tracks. This made the layout into essentially a large circle with the upper level track connected to the lower level tracks at each end, the "connectors" being the small helix permanently fixed in place connecting Cheyenne (upper level and east end) and Staging (lower level under the Cheyenne yard) to the other ends of the then completed benches. If you examine the track plans in the top level folder/album, you can see how the straight 504 miles of track we model becomes a giant circle with the ends of that straight track joined by the small helix. The cover of that album has the black mailbox I turned into a locomotive.
P1001447 W Rawlins TD1
A dizzying overhead view of W Rawlins. This photo has been kept to show Lenny's and Allen's rock work in the cleft around the tracks west of Rawlins. This is also a neck craning view of the Rawlins stockyard, the Rawlins Mercantile Co, and the depot. This also shows how the free standing mudroom "stacks up." In this elevated view, beyond the Rawlins backdrop, the lower level of the next bench over is visible, and above it is the blue painted Masonite back side of the upper level which is manned by operators on the the second upper aisle over. Because this is a free standing mushroom design, operators down any aisle are all running their trains on the same level. A real advantage is that when you are operating, you can only see the scene directly before you or the track to the distant right or left, just like you are trackside out on the prairie. You are so engaged with your own scene directly before you, that you become unaware of other scenes behind you ,or on the other side of the backdrop, or on the other level. And you are not mindful of the bench behind you on the same aisle, especially if the aisles are 42 inches wide like ours.
P1001444 Rawlins Around Station TD1 per sht
This is looking west toward the rest of Rawlins, the Mercantile Co. and buildings, or the computer drawn (or cut and pasted from computer images) backdrop. Instead of a new Corvette I wanted, I hired a local artist to create the backdrop, which runs continuously around both the upper and lower levels of the layout, except for the no-scenery staging,and the back if the Cheyenne yard bench. A New York modeler named John Busa scratch built our Cheyenne, Rawlins, and Rock Springs depots. Here at the Rawlins depot we have cut away the backdrop, so the street side of the model can be seen. Unfortunately, one as to stand on a step stool on the lower level floor to see it on that side, so hardly anyone notices the cut away backdrop, or if they do they don't look, largely because there is no sign and permanent step stool there. I am going to try to change that. There are two retail oil distributors here but the second one is just to the right out of view. No mater the brand name on the local dealer's tank, it is Sinclair refined. This is a family joke. My pipefitter dad moved mom an baby me to Cheyenne to work work building the Frontier refinery in Cheyenne in 1942 for the war effort. He got a kick out of the trucks that hauled gas to local stations. Frontier trucks delivered in the day, other brands were delivered at night, filled from the same refinery tank.
P1001443 Rawlins Depot and Stk Yard TD1 per sht
I bought three depots from John Busa who lived in NY, and I want to give him credit for his fine work on them. This is the Busa built Rawlins station. Lenny and Allen built the Mercantile Company general store next to the Depot. The stock yard is this side of the tracks. On the fascia are the car and block card holders with some car cards of the "Four card Operating System" I developed. The car cards are printed 4 to a sheet of card stock. These quarter page, 4.25 x 5.5" large and easy to handle car cards, are in the plexiglass card box , which is only about 3/8" thick. Some cars slots are only wide enough to accommodate the 4.5" wide cards, but some slots lot 8 3/4" wide like these two. They are wide enough to hold the 1/2 sheet ( 8.5"" x %.5" tall) Block Cards used for a string of cars (2 to ??). Block cards identify only the first and last cars in a block, and the block and its card move across the layout together. If one or a few cars are needed to be taken from the block or added to it, it is easier to add or remove inner cars of the block, so only the number of cars that make up the block is erased and changed on the card. If the first or last car of the block is removed, then the pencil written ID of the first or last car is erased and rewritten as is the number of cars in the block.
P1001442 Rawlins from W TD1 C&R
Rawlins looking east again toward the Sinclair refinery. At the lower left is the stock yard to load livestock on the way to the packing house or to rest them per the legal requirements. Left to right across the tracks is the kit coal tower and an overpass scratch built by Allen. Behind it is the 3D printed scratch built freight house by Lenny. The second oil distributor is behind Texaco. The 7 row houses are by Allen. The Sinclair refinery is represented entirely on the backdrop except for the loading dock, which is a combination of four kits. Lenny built the loading dock after I turned it over to him. That was where I first suspected that I might have Parkinson's. With shaky hands I turned it over to Lenny to finish. The loading dock can be seen better in two other photos coming up in about 4 screens.
P1001441 Rawlins W TD1
More of our Rawlins. The last row house has a great view of the fragrant stockyards across the tracks from the scratch built station. The hinged doors below the fascia cover a wire channel for this upper deck of the mushroom benches. It goes all around the layout, and holds the track wiring, signal wiring and control components (a tiny circuit board about 1 x 2" for each track electrical block). The rear wall of these ducts is the back of the lower level's back-drop that curves up and toward the front of the rear bench fronts. The wire duct for the lower level has a square cross section and is built of 3/4" dimensional lumber in a box just below the edge of the lower benches. My design drawing of the mushroom design with wire ducts is shown in the next image.
Wyo Div Mushroom Bench Cross Section
This is a cross section of the two level free standing mushroom benches. the upper level is worked from a 17" high riser which runs continuously all around the entire upper level. A step up is shown, but the only way up onto the riser is by an 8' long ramp in line with the aisle, which is safer than steps. The lower level is worked from the building concrete floor. The concrete contractor promised to make it uniformly level over the whole 25x50 foot area, and he delivered. This made it easier to lay the tracks with the design model grades, which are proportional to the UP prototype. The model grades are 1.29 x prototype grade. I got the prototype grades from a sheath of profile charts of UP from Cheyenne to Ogden. A free standing mushroom is a great design, but it does take a lot of room, because there are no benches attached to the walls. With this design there are aisles next to every wall, and those aisles might be better used for benches and track. The Wyoming Division is in a 50 x 75 foot steel building especially built for the layout. The two outside aisles are only 2 of 9 aisles with 8 benches in between. If benches were on the walls we could have had 9 benches, but upper and lower operators would have to share at least the 2 outer aisles. So we lost only 1/9 of our benches by being free standing.
P1001440 Rawlins TD1
This is part of Rawlins west of the Sinclair Refinery. We also have a Model of Cheyenne's Frontier Refinery, which built with government financing. My pipefitter dad helped build it starting in 1942 when I was a baby. It was believed that Japan could not bomb Cheyenne which is 1,200 miles from the Pacific. After the refinery went into wartime production of high octane aviation fuel, mom and dad bought a house in Cheyenne and we lived there (brrrrr!) till I started high school when I was just barely 14 in Long Beach California (trading the bad 50's smog for blizzards). Lenny Made a terrific model of the Rawlins freight house with his 3D printer. He detailed it inside including lights.
P1001439 Sinclair TD1 per sheet
Sinclair Refinery just East of Rawlins WY. Rawlins is one of the minor yards on the layout. Evanston on the lower level is one of the three others (Echo, Utah, and Hanna are the other two.) I usually work Rawlins, Echo and Evanston, in one full day operating session. The hard part is clearing the mains when through trains pass though. Like all model yards some of the yard work requires using the mains or at least crossing over them. We ease that crowding by having an alternate or third main through that yard or designing the tracks so that the yard is clearly separated from the mains, as in Hanna. Working all three yards in one day should be done by floating back and forth between them. I do some or all of Echo, and then float between Evanston and Rawlins, so I can keep both yards cleared out for the two locals that must switch them on their runs, each of which are 1/2 of the layout long. If one of those yards gets overcrowded with cars, I make up a train, and in prototype railroad fashion move those cars to the next yards they are to go to, and make them someone else's problem. With my car forwarding system all YM's are empowered to act as local agents and send any car to its next place, as long as it is a logical move (pretending only that he got a call for an MT car for that spot. Confusing? No, it is more prototypical than 4 cycle cards repeating endlessly.
P1001438 Sinclair Warehouse TD1 per sheet
The Supply warehouse of the Sinclair refinery just east of Rawlins. This view is two benches east of the Wamsutter bench. The refinery is completely on the backdrop, except for the loading platform. The clear plastic tabs are to hold a clear plastic shield to protect the signal from damage by an operator's arm. I remove the shields to take pictures.
P1001452 Curve W of Hanna TD! per Sht
Leaving Rawlins heading east the double mains curve on the inside of the endcap that joins this bench and the one further east of Rawlins. On the joining endcap of these two benches is the Hanna mine complex, hidden by a clever rock wall from the tracks laid on the prairie. The stub track is the small Rawlins yard's tail track..
P1001451 Hanna fromS TD1 per sht
This is the Hanna coal mining complex on the endcap of two joining benches. The curving two mains from the last picture near the top left as they finish their 180 degree turn onto the next bench leaving Rawlins are barely visible coming out from behind the rock cut (see the the last photo). Part of the Laramie yard can be seen on the other side of the aisle between this bench and Laramie's. Just above the center of this photo is the underpass from the 4 track coal marshaling yard of Hanna, WY. I was in CA when Allen called me and hesitantly suggested the design of this 4 x 8 ft mine scene. We agreed that it could almost be a 4 x 8 foot HO layout. I trusted him and readily agreed to it. "After all," I said, "We have everything else, why not have a 4 x 8 layout?" The 4 track mine yard on the far left is shown in the next photo. It is at the lower end of this spiraled track that goes under the far wooden trestle. The winding near part of this spiraled stub track goes to each of the area's different parts. Loaded hoppers from Mine #3 on the right wind down the grade past the supply/#1 Mine Building with a single stub track for unloading supplies and loading coal. Further down the grade another stub track serves Mine #2, and the main stub continues under the wooden trestle and on to the Hanna Coal marshaling yard on the next bench shown in the next photo..
P1001450Hanna Bridge TD1 per sht
The steel girder bridge over the gully in the coal mining region of Hanna. Three of the real mines are modeled here. I also used the Luminar 4 Sky Replacement function on this photo, and the result is shown in the following picture.
P1001450Hanna Bridge TD1 per sht SR
I used the Sky Replacement tool of the Luminar 4 post processing program to replace the fluorescent fixtures, sprinkler pipes and walls and inner side of the steel building roof. Luminar replaces only sky that starts at the top of the image, so I had to fool it by "painting" clouds and sky over the building parts down to the sky existing in the original image. The "painting" was done using the program's Clone and Stamp tool to copy one circular area of the cloudy sky and paste it over another area to be sky. The part picked to be copied elsewhere does not matter as long as it is sky, and the cloned and stamped intermediate result usually may have repeating cloud/sky patterns which really stand out. But for an intermediate step to fool Luminar that id OK, because when the Sky Replacement function is called and finished, all sky/clouds will be replaced with a entirely new sky from the program library. That step takes only a second or two which allows you to try many different skies in its library or some of your own you have shot and saved to it.
P1001454 Hanna Yard and station TD1 per sht
The Hanna Depot and the town on the backdrop. The two track near the Depot are Tracks 1 and 2, the W and S mains The nearby tracks are the 18 foot long Coal marshaling yard.The background scenes are from real photos of Wyoming captured from the Web. They are artfully stitched together into three long continuous strips that lines all of the backdrops for the upper and the lower layers. There is one 10 or 12 foot gap around the Dale Junction on Sherman Hill to allow access to the tracks there in case of a derailment, and that counts for two strips. The third is the continuous one around nearly all of the lower level, except for the 25 feet or so of Ogden which is hand painted. (Bad mistake. The high school art teacher we hired slopped more paint on the floor and our shop than on the backdrop, and he did not clean his brushes or the sink. I fired him the next day.)
P1001456 Hanna E Side houses Overpass TD1 sht
Hanna Coal Yard and employee houses and sheds, and a truck less boxcar for storage. The big house is for the Hanna superintendent. There are 3 RS-3 diesels to head the completed coal train for delivery to all the UP coal bins and coal retailers on the entire upper level in two runs, E and W. These coal drags are for complete trains of as many as 35 cars east through Cheyenne. They do a second run of up to 7 loaded hoppers west bound through Rawlins. In the distance is the diesel Chicago and NW mine switch engine and the road caboose--it is 1957! Also shown is the Hanna stock yard and the US 30 Hwy overpass.
P1001457 US30 Overpass E of Hanna TD1 CropRot
Looking back west toward Hanna. Lenny and Allen made a great many wooden snow fences scattered around the layout. And here is the ore-Interstate Highway US 30.
P1001458 Hanna to Med Bow TD1
The next scene east from Hanna is Medicine Bow WY. Here we have Conoco Oil, W F Shields Warehouse, Hanna Supply and Lumber and the Stock Yard. Across the tracks and the 2 lane US 30 is the historic Virginian Hotel where Owen Wister wrote The novel "The Virginian," which made the hotel equally historic. "The Virginian" was the first full length western novel. Nearly all succeeding novels, movies and TV shows follow the patterns and conventions Mr. Wister set down in his book.
P1001521 lookTD1 per sheet
The Hanna coal yard is on the far end of the right hand bench, and on the other side of the US 30 highway overpass is Medicine Bow, WY. The Laramie River is next and then is the Laramie yard. The wide gap between the two tracks next to the two mains is for the 6 foot long icing platform. We run a lot of Special class trains of all PFE cars, and Laramie is on of the major icing stations. Our era is harvest time on the west coast in 1957. This explains the yellowing late summer grass on our prairies, and several PFE Specials a session, plus 4 "City" passenger trains each direction (Cities of LA, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Portland) makes operations more challenging for all other trains, because they have to watch for all of them, the PFE's and the City trains, and yield to them. Lenny has 3D printed a fine depot for Laramie, but it had not been set in place when this photo was taken.
P1001427 Lar Hanna RD1
This is taken with me standing on the west steps to the mezzanine. The east steps can be seen about 73 feet away. The Laramie yard bench is on the left. On the right bench near the camera is Medicine Bow, and Hanna, WY is in the distance. Hanna was one of the huge coal mining areas across southern Wyoming. Medicine Bow was the center of the 1800's Sheep herding. The Red roof is The Virginian Hotel where Owen Wooster wrote the 1st book length western novel ("When you call me that, smile.")
P1001474 Laramie TT Roundhouse TD1 per sheet
This is our 9 stall roundhouse in Laramie. Even limiting it to 9 stalls for the model and putting the turntable close to the structure, still makes this a large model. Sherman Hill is along the wall. This bench is the standard free standing bench with an aisle between it and the wall, but to make the bench surface of the top level wide enough to have a fair amount of space between the mains, Tracks #1 and #2, and Track #3, the Harriman Cutoff, we extended it over that aisle. This extension to make a wide bench for Harriman, WY, the coaling station and water pipe about one half way up the Hill (seen between the burner sack for the Tie Treating Plant's sawmill, and the Laramie water tower), serves another important function for the layout. Every layout needs a "duck under," and this is ours. Actually it is a "stoop under" because it is about 40 feet long, and one must stoop a bit for 20 to 30 feet of it, even if you are less than six feet tall.
P1001475 Larimie RndHs Tie Tr Plant TD1 see sht
Just at our beginning of the east end of the Laramie yard is the Tie Treating Plant where ties and piles are creosoted. The near building is the retort building. Inside it small narrow gauge dollies with ties and beams and poles are are pushed into retorts to be impregnated with creosote. We occasionally try to creosote a skewer in hopes it will make uncoupling cars easier. One is leaning up against the retort building here.
P1001477 Ti Tr Plant from E TD1 per sht
This is the Laramie Tie Treating Plant to the left of the mains #2 and #1 under the signal bridge. Track #1 is on the left,and it follows the original single track route over Sherman Hill found in 1867 by General Dodge (a few route improvements have been made since the 1860s, and all the rails have been relaid with heavier steel as the loco weight increased). The right hand track is #2, the 1905 addition to double track the whole UP. On this western slope of the Hill, all traffic is left hand running to take advantage of the new and longer more gentle grade of #2. Our model has the non prototypical double crossover to help us at this Laramie end. Near the summit the change back to right hand running is made at Dale Junction where #3, the Harriman Cutoff, joins #1 and #2. The far building of the Tie Treating Plant is the sawmill and waste burner. Untreated ties are stacked between the narrow gauge tracks, as are treated ties and long poles used by the MOW department in Green River on our lower level. The building with all the windows is the office over the fire department on the first floor. The Engine house is partly seen on the left. The Retort building is out of the picture on the far left.
P1001476 Tie Tr Plant TD1 per sht
Here you can see the 3 open doors for access to the retorts. The engine house is in the center. Stacks of treated ties and poles are ready to be shipped out. Many go to the MOW instillation in Green River, WY.
P1001479 Tie Tr Plant BETTER Sawmill TD1 as per sht
Freshly cut new ties. Why they put them on flat cars is unclear. They must be incoming from some remote mill off the Coalmont Branch up in the Mountains southwest of Laramie. They are also cut to size in the sawmill right behind these cars.
P1001480 Monolith Cement TD1 per sheet
Going up Sherman Hill from Laramie on the western slope is the Monolith Reddy Mix concrete plant, right next to the Tie Treating Plant. They are Wyoming's biggest cement customer for the Ideal Cement plant on the lower level at Echo, Utah.
P1001481 Monolith fNW TD1 per sht
Another view of Monolith with numerous details added. Up on the mezzanine the far left workbench is Verryl's, the next table is the dispatcher's desk, then is my desk. Lenny and Allen have modeling benches further to the right.
P1001483 Colores TD1 as per sheet
On up the western slope of Sherman Hill are the solitary Red Buttes.
P1001485 Hermosa Tunnels fWTD1 per sheet
Hermosa Tunnel in the distance. The longer and newer left hand track up this side of "The Hill" is used for the milder grade. When I first saw these nearly parallel tunnels I wondered why they did not just daylight them, if not originally when the first was bored for the original 1860's tunnel, or then for both when #2 was bored about 35 years later. Even if it is solid rock, the rise through which they are drilled is not all that thick, and the tunnels do not seem all that long. When I visited the area, driving from Laramie, then onto the UP service gravel road along side the tracks, from the west (opposite end from this photo) you can see the tunnels and the leading cut up to them. Then following the road up just slightly, and over the low rise, on this side from that road neither the cut nor the portals can be seen. I drove slowly to where it seemed to be way past where the cut and portals of the straight tunnels should be. I turned my truck around and drove back slowly, and still I could see no cut or portals on this west side. Finally, I got out of my pickup and walked up the slight rise toward where my senses said they should be. I walked maybe 75-100 feet, and they were visible over the edge of the cut! A few more steps and I was standing near the edge of the cut, and like the other side, it did not seem worth tunneling through! Why not just blast the cut all the way across?
P1001428 W Sh Hill Lar Hanna TD1
This is taken with me standing on the west steps to the mezzanine. The east steps can be seen about 73 feet away. The Laramie yard bench is on the center bench. On the right bench near is Medicine Bow, and Hanna, WY is in the distance. Medicine Bow was the center of the 1800's Sheep herding. The Red roof is The Virginian Hotel where Owen Wooster wrote the 1st book length western novel ("When you call me that, smile.") Hanna was one of the huge coal mining areas across southern Wyoming. The bench in the center has the Laramie yard. (MOVE YOUR MOUSE over the photo, so the cursor turns into a little magnifying glass with a "+" in it. Click your mouse with that "+" visible and whatever part of the photo the cursor is on will be displayed in a magnified view. The "+" turns into a hand, so you can move the enlarged view around your screen.) This makes the Laramie coal tower and round house easily visible. And the Cheyenne bench with the buildings of west Cheyenne further away are easier to see. If you use your imagination, between Wycon and the many buildings, is a large plot of yellow prairie grass, and nestled into it is the Wye at Speer. We model in the late summer of 1957. That time of year the grass has turned yellow, if it was ever green. And there is no snow--well rarely, anyway.
P1001453 W Chey TD1
Here I am standing in the building at the junction of the west end of Aisle 10, the Cheyenne aisle across the 50 ft width of the building, and the Aisle 2, perpendicular to 10. This is the west end of Cheyenne. Laramie was off the rear of my left hip across Aisle 2. To the right of the down sloping end of the backdrop is the Cheyenne yard. The yard bench is 84" (7 feet) wide, so operators need to be able to rerail trains from both sides of the bench. Some of the structures here are out of place. This wide bench is a natural place to set buildings while the scenery is being completed elsewhere. The Wye nestled in the ground scenery is at Speer (upper left). One leg is in front of the Wycon Chemical plant. Tracks #1 and #2 have started their climb up Sherman Hill just behind the large steel building on the right of the photo (the barn of the Cheyenne Stock Yard.). The south corner of the triangular wye is just a few inches out of the left center edge of this shot, and the south track leaving the wye past the misplaced stock yard is the Denver track which connects to the small helix and down it to the main staging. So staging represents North Platte, Nebraska, and all points east, and, if entered from this "Denver track," them staging is Denver. If it is entered from the lower level Ogden end it is LA and Oakland/San Francisco. The west corner of the wye, off the left edge) is the start of the Harriman Cutoff.
Cheyenne depot trackside PPvv TD1 exp1.45
This id the Romanesque Cheyenne depot placed on the builder's layout. This is one of three I bought from the New York modeler, John Busa. I am happy to credit him for the three Depots, Rawlins, Cheyenne and Rock Springs,so I can credit him. I put all three in this folder so they are together. This is his photo I assume on his layout. I placed the depot on the edge of the 84 inch wide bench that holds my model of the Cheyenne steam yard. It is placed like John had it on his layout in this photo, just like it still is on the prototype. This is the track side. The other side, shown in the next picture is on the edge of the 84 inch wide bench so the front can be seen. Photo by model builder, post processing by Verryl
Cheyenne depot Street side PPvv TD1 exp 1.36
The street side of the Cheyenne Depot I bought from the New York modeler John Busa as it sat on his layout. He contacted me as I asked when he saw these photos, so now I can credit him. They are terrific models, and we are prominently placing them on our Wyoming Division layout, so all sides of them can be seen.The others were the Rawlins Depot and the Rock Springs Depot. I put all three in this folder so they are together. Photo by model builder, Post processing by Verryl (Note how focus stacking would have helped this image.
Rock Springs trackside 1 PPvv TD1~60% C&R to vert
This the Rock Springs Depot scratch built by modeler John Busa from New York as it sat on his layout. It is a fantastic model, and I am glad to give him credit. The others were the Rawlins Depot and the Cheyenne Depot. I put all three in this folder so they are together. Photo by model builder. Note how the near tracks and the backdrop and street light are all badly out of focus. The meta data for this photo of his says it was shot at a rather large aperture of f/4.5, at 1/60 sec and ISO of 100. To have a larger depth of field, a very small aperture of f/16 or f/32 would have helped, but those would require a very slow shutter speed of a few seconds, which would require a tripod and cable or electronic shutter release and a higher (faster) ISO.
Rock Springs 3 TD1 exp1.58 PPvv Drastic Crop&Rot
End view of the Rock Springs Depot by John Busa. The others he built that we have were the Rawlins Depot and the Cheyenne Depot. I put all three in this folder so they are together. Photo by model builder. Photo has a very short depth of field (near and far objects badly out of focus). Photo by model builder. Meta Data F/4, 1/60 second, ISO 100
Rock Springs 2
Same Depot, street side. Photo by John Busa. I bought the three depots from. He could have used focus stacking like I use EXCLUSIVELY since there is scenery that needs to be in focus over a long depth of field. It did not matter for the bare benchwork early photos; I did not even notice the extreme reaches of the scene being out of focus. I was interested only in capturing the large extent of this huge layout. But now that we have scenery and structures that deserve visual attention I shoot only focus stacked images, so that all the objects in each photo, the near objects, the far ones, and all in between are in focus. For more details about focus staking see my Sept 2020 article in "Running Special," the add on publication of "Model Railroad Hobbyist."
P1001486 Bitter Creek TD1 per sheet D&B
Bitter Creek stock loading pens and ramps, mainly sheep in this dry part of Wyoming. Speeder shack and speeder, barely visible. Note the large fuel tank for it. I like the woody, even though I'm from Wyoming, so I was never into surfing.
P1001488 Hiway OverPass Bitter Cr TD1 +D&Bshodow at OP
US 30 just west of Bitter Creek. This shows the curved backdrop throughout the lower level. All three of the turns of the main helix can be seen here. the top one connects with the upper level where the center siding is heading into Wamsutter. That photo is where this third album started. See the next photo for a heavily post processed version of this shot.
P1001488 Hiway OverPass Bitter Cr TD1 +D&Bshodow at OP
Same US30 photo with sundown Sky Replacement (SR) #1 of 7 sunsets packed into Luminar's library. I did extensive Clone and Stamp to smear the original sky over the bench structure before using SR. Afterward I "completed" the nearby rock on its right half with more C & Stamp. The bench lighting illuminates this scene on the lower level, and every fixture for several feet is on the same circuit (24" fluorescent fixtures wired in parallel). The brown horizontal "band of brown haze" across about 1/3 of the bottom is the 60 cycle sine wave darkened as the lamps cycled off. Over two years ago I first encountered this problem. Up until then I took few photos of solely fluorescent lighted scenes, because I favor expansive scenes that show off the great size of the layout, and, lets face it, we had very little completed scenery to photograph. So I quick like a bunny bought some tripod mounted lights and that solved the problem. Well, one problem, the other being my memory. Yup. For this image I forgot to use the studio lights down under for narrow scenes, so they were exclusively fluorescent lit under the overhanging upper level. Photo f/3.2 at 1/640 sec, iso 1600. it was of course a focus stacked image of about 30 frames of a video, so I am not sure what those numbers mean.
P1001489 Bit Cr OverPass TD1 per sht + D&B and Adj Grad
Same US 30 from other side. I am tempted to "fix" the curved Backdrop with Clone & Stamp and Luminar's Sky Replacement, as described earlier in this album in the photo "P1001450 Hanna Bridge". It would also be nice to get rid of the loop of brown wire hanging down in the center. I hope you notice that whenever I "phony up" a photo to "improve" it, I always show the original, so as not to deceive with the artsy stuff.
23 Structures During Pandemic
23 Structures During Pandemic
25 How We Operate-Fall 2022
25 How We Operate-Fall 2022
03 Phase III Construction
04 Phase IV All Track Done--Details
05 Structures
06 Wyoming Division Operation Sessions
07 Fall Invitational Nov 12-14, 2016
08 First Annual Winter Invitational
09 Backdrops Signals Scenery
10 Backdrops Signals Scenery
11 2017 Winter Invitational Meet BBQ
12 2017 Winter Invitational Meet Ops
13 Winter Invitational 2017 Lenander Photos
14 2018 Fourth Winter Invitational
16 Spring Invitational (5th) Ops Meet
17 Photographing the WyoDivOps 12/14/19
18 Ops 121419
19 Photos "Lightweight Ops Article"
20 Scenery and Structures June 2020
21 Wyoming Division Scenery
22 ABS Signals
23 Structures During Pandemic
24 Post Pandemic August 2022
25 How We Operate-Fall 2022
P1101620 PP per TD1 only P1001430 Cent Side Wam TD1 exp1_18 SC45 P1001431 Wam from W TD1 exp0.75 SC49 P1001433 Wam TD1 Exp 0.75 SC 49 P1001433 Wam TD1 SkyRep1 P1001434 Wam from SE TD1 P1001436 Wam from SW TD1 Sht P1001437 Wam from SE TD1 Exp 0.83 SC25 P1001449 Red Desert TD1 see sht P1001448 Red Desertto Rawlins TD1 see Sheet P1001445 W of Rawlins shack TD1 per sht P1001447 W Rawlins TD1 P1001444 Rawlins Around Station TD1 per sht P1001443 Rawlins Depot and Stk Yard TD1 per sht P1001442 Rawlins from W TD1 C&R P1001441 Rawlins W TD1 Wyo Div Mushroom Bench Cross Section P1001440 Rawlins TD1 P1001439 Sinclair TD1 per sheet P1001438 Sinclair Warehouse TD1 per sheet P1001452 Curve W of Hanna TD! per Sht P1001451 Hanna fromS TD1 per sht P1001450Hanna Bridge TD1 per sht P1001450Hanna Bridge TD1 per sht SR P1001454 Hanna Yard and station TD1 per sht P1001456 Hanna E Side houses Overpass TD1 sht P1001457 US30 Overpass E of Hanna TD1 CropRot P1001458 Hanna to Med Bow TD1 P1001521 lookTD1 per sheet P1001427 Lar Hanna RD1 P1001474 Laramie TT Roundhouse TD1 per sheet P1001475 Larimie RndHs Tie Tr Plant TD1 see sht P1001477 Ti Tr Plant from E TD1 per sht P1001476 Tie Tr Plant TD1 per sht P1001479 Tie Tr Plant BETTER Sawmill TD1 as per sht P1001480 Monolith Cement TD1 per sheet P1001481 Monolith fNW TD1 per sht P1001483 Colores TD1 as per sheet P1001485 Hermosa Tunnels fWTD1 per sheet P1001428 W Sh Hill Lar Hanna TD1 P1001453 W Chey TD1 Cheyenne depot trackside PPvv TD1 exp1.45 Cheyenne depot Street side PPvv TD1 exp 1.36 Rock Springs trackside 1 PPvv TD1~60% C&R to vert Rock Springs 3 TD1 exp1.58 PPvv Drastic Crop&Rot Rock Springs 2 P1001486 Bitter Creek TD1 per sheet D&B P1001488 Hiway OverPass Bitter Cr TD1 +D&Bshodow at OP P1001488 Hiway OverPass Bitter Cr TD1 +D&Bshodow at OP P1001489 Bit Cr OverPass TD1 per sht + D&B and Adj Grad
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