I started to build my home in North Texas in July 2008. I decided to incorporate a finished train room in the house when I first designed the house. The house was completely finished in February 2009. It is one story home with approximately 4400 square feet. The train room is adjacent to my office/computer room in the front of the house. The train room is 21'x12' which was more than enough to build a inversed "U" shaped large N scale layout.
The layout itself is 18'x12' and there is plenty of room for a work bench and shelving to store locomotives and rolling stock.
Now for a little bit of history of Frisco Texas. Frisco is located where the Chisolm Trail started in Texas in the 1860's. Cattle drives originated from this point on to rail heads in Kansas and Missouri in the late 1860's. A great motion picture to see about this part of the country is RED River starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift (1948). It is often on cable TV.
In the last two or three years The Museum Of The American Railroad now resides in the center of Frisco. They do have one of the last remaining Big Boys #4018 that has been fully restored. It traveled from Lake Park Texas to Frisco in the past six months on BNSF tracks where it is on display. It is a magnificent piece of equipment.
Link For The Museum Of The American Railroad
http://www.museumoftheamericanrailroad.org/
Now onto the photo's of the new train room of the "new" JJJ&E. From July 2008 till February 2009, I traveled to Texas from Florida every three to four weeks to check on the build of my home. One of my daughters lives in Frisco, and she kept up with the daily happenings. The photo's I took of the train room during the build were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 4300 for convenience. I normally use a Nikon D50 or a Nikon D5100 DSLR for all my photo's of the layout.
Most homes in North Texas are brick homes. I used eight high hats in the ceiling for lighting. I used 100 watt CFL natural light bulbs in the eight lights (5500K). This gives the train room uniform lighting with natural light. I keep the thermostats in the house at 77 degrees in the summer and 72 degrees in the winter. This keeps thermal expansion down to a minimum and I never had any issues with the track or wood bench work. 77 degrees might seem high to you folks living up north but you must remember summertime temperatures in North Texas can easily top 105 degrees on a constant basis.
I also use a fan in the train room and fans in all the rooms of my home. This keeps air circulating and the temps in each room actually feel cooler than 77 degrees.
Great post on the history of you layout room.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dwyane for your comments. Hope all is well with you.
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