Denver Society of Model RailroadersA Long History in O <strong>Scale</strong>Doug Schmidt, photos by Erik LindgrenA Sunset 3rd Rail CB&Q M-4 Colorado #6310 exits Grove Siding past the station. The station is a Builder’s in <strong>Scale</strong> model of a formerD&RGW Tennessee Pass Station.Denver’s Union Station has long been one of the city’sarchitectural and historical treasures. The cavernous waitingarea holds countless memories for hundreds of thousands oftravelers involved in greeting and saying good-bye to friendsand family members returning from or leaving to go to worldwars, family vacations, college educations and journeysacross the country. In its basement resides a truly marveloustrain layout that has been a part of the Denver model railroadingcommunity for 74 years. It is one of the oldest andlargest O <strong>Scale</strong> layouts in the United States, the ColoradoMidland.Union Station was built originally in 1881 and rebuilt aftera disastrous fire in 1894. In 1933, Cherry Creek flooded andfilled Union Station with a foot of water standing on the mainfloor with the basement filled to its ceiling. Lost were all ofthe records of the Colorado & Southern Railroad. A small O<strong>Scale</strong> layout had been on display on the mezzanine, but afterthe flood, a large storeroom in the basement was offered tothe Denver Society of Model Railroaders to build a muchlarger layout. All they had to do was clean out the mud, muckand the remains of the records, which was six feet deep ina 75’ x 90’ basement room. The club named the layout theColorado Midland and their handiwork depicts specific andcomposite scenes from the state. O <strong>Scale</strong> was the choice ofthe Denver Society as not much else was readily availablein model railroading at that time. Work on the design andimplementation began immediately after the cleanup wascompleted in 1935. The Colorado Midland is one of the pioneering2-rail layouts.There are two separate mainlines, one standard gaugeand one narrow gauge. The standard gauge line measuresapproximately 1200 linear feet, and the narrow gauge coversjust over 600 linear feet. The yards and sidings add almostanother 1800 feet, bringing the total trackage to just less than4 • O <strong>Scale</strong> <strong>Trains</strong> - <strong>May</strong>/<strong>June</strong> ’103600. It takes almost 30 minutes for a standard gauge train totravel the entire mainline and 25 minutes to travel the narrowgauge route.Much of the track laid in the 1930s and ’40s features tiesthat were nailed to the underlayment as adhesives were stillrather primitive and scarce due to the war effort. The track is98% handlaid with code 148 and 172 rail for the standardgauge and code 100 for the narrow gauge. The standardgauge curves are 72” radius with a 2-1/2 % maximum grade,and a 48” radius on the narrow gauge with a maximum3-1/2% grade. Army surplus B-25 bomber horizontal trimmotors were used to power some of the turnouts, and two stillfunction flawlessly today.The scenery is plaster over chicken wire and the layouthas been painstakingly scenicked with thousands of trees,hundreds of details, and many bridges and trestles. Graveland rocks from Colorado railyards, most from the area beingmodeled, are used throughout the entire layout. Industrialareas, railyards and small towns are spread throughout thelayout, and the attention to detail, especially on such a largelayout, is quite impressive. Almost all the traditional methodsof scenery creation have been used over the course of theseventy-four year history of this layout. The cottonwood trees,of which there are many, are made of Colorado sagebrush.Some pine trees were made by the ”Jack Work” method ofdrilling sticks to hold caspia branches and then spray paintingthe caspia. Members have also used the ”twisted two wire”method to create tree trunks. The towns of Sargent, CerroSummit and Marshall Pass are modeled as accurately as possibleto the real thing, and all structures are scratchbuilt.All the rolling stock and locomotives are owned by theclub’s members and on the monthly operating night, clubmembers can run a complete California Zephyr, Yampa ValleyMail, San Francisco Chief, The Prospector, a long Burlington
<strong>May</strong>/<strong>June</strong> ’10 - O <strong>Scale</strong> <strong>Trains</strong> • 5