V

Located in the backyard of my childhood home in Santee lies the V &M Railroad. Still in its infancy but the owners have great dreams of things to come. Its permanent location still needs a lot of excavating and planning before the first sections of track can be laid.

My dad got me started on trains when I was very young. I remember trips down to Frank the Trainman’s place in North Park long before his building was remodeled into the current steam locomotive profile it has today. My first HO scale train set came from his place. My dad started out with Lionel and spent many hours on off track scenery and workings. He would rather work a coal loader then run the trains. That is what his partner was for. He even had electricity running through the wires on the telephone poles leading to the buildings.

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First stages of demolition. Two sheds removed, 1 to go.

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Retaining walls need to be repaired/built to provide more space for tracks and landscaping.

Inside one of the sheds was the HO layout me and my dad built in the early ‘80s. The shed was 10’x14’ and filled with open bench work layout. It has been recently dismantled and moved to Vista where I hope its new owner will enjoy. It ran on DC. I wish I knew about DCC when I built this one.

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A couple of pictures of the HO layout after the roof to the shed was removed.

To give incentive a temporary starter layout is located in the upper yard area. It was built over a couple of weekends prior to the Memorial Day weekend. Although it isn’t permanent it isn’t stagnant and continues to grow on a regular basis.

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This loop is 8’ diameter track. Bridge supports were cut from a 1”x8” and built freehand

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This loop is 5’ diameter track

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A small yard for staging rolling stock and a place to leave the engines parked

The layout currently and will continue to run on Lenz DigitalPlus DCC. Most of the locomotives have been converted to DCC and a couple have sound installed. Installing the decoders was quite a challenge and I just ended up rewiring the engines. They run on different decoders since I am trying to determine which ones I want to go with. Three of them run on Lenz GOLD Maxi controllers, 2 run on QSISolutions combo decoder and sound and 2 on Digitrax. Track is mostly AristoCraft with a few USA Trains. I have AristoCraft, LGB and USA Trains switches trying to determine which ones I want to go with. The loop around the tree is 8’ diameter track and the loop in the sun is 5’ diameter.

I am constantly scanning Ebay for good deals and find them regularly (my best source so far).

I currently have –

USA Trains Santa Fe NW-2 w/Lenz GOLD Maxi decoder and lighting converted to LED and KADEE couplers

USA Trains Santa Fe GP 38-2 w/Digitrax decoder and SoundTraxx sound converted to KADEE couplers

USA Trains BNSF SD 40 w/Lenz GOLD Maxi decoder converted to KADEE couplers

AristoCraft Santa Fe U25B waiting for QSISulotuions combo decoder and sound

AristoCraft Santa Fe SD 45 w/QSISolutions combo decoder and sound

AristoCraft purple Eggliner w/Digitrax decoder

2 Bachmann Big Hauler 10 wheelers

*** UPDATE 5/30/2009 ***

The first sections of track are on the ground and the first freight has been hauled!
Click here to see the Ribbon Cutting and the first run.