Home of the St. Louis, Leadville, & Rosetta Railroad, my model railroad layout project.
"Holy cow! What's that track radius?"
Piper Junction is my first layout project since, what, 2018? It's a bona-fide micro-layout at only 16" x 32", with 6" radius curves and fortunately some no. 5-ish Atlas turnouts to balance out the universe a little bit. It's based in kind of an Anytown, USA sort of setting. It was originally planned to be an abstraction of the California Western's Skunk Train I visited in 2025, but I gave up on theming once I realized how out of practice I was with layouts. It's named after a local favorite coffee shop, Piper's.
Operationally, it's rather simple. Trains come in on the interchange track, do a little work at the car-spots, and then come back out the way they came. There's no way to turn a train, but there is a secret runaround: the whole loop! The two industries are a roastery (the brick building with the crane) and a brewery (the stone building). The roastery dock also doubles as the locality's team track. An old signal-tower serves as the railroad's office, and the yellow section house provides the crew someplace to rest their heads. The shed serves as some tool storage. Sometimes a few bags of roasted coffee are foisted over to the brewery for their signature coffee stout.
The layout was designed with DC control in mind, but there's nothing preventing it from being upgraded to DCC in the future. I'd probably use a Bachmann EZ command or a Digitrax Zephyr, but DCC-EX could be fun, too. That does mean I'll need a DCC locomotive that can handle the 6" radius. The only locomotives I have that can do so thus far are the Atlas 19th century moguls and the Bachmann 0-6-0s, and neither of them are DCC yet. I haven't tested the H-12-44 out with it yet, but I've swapped the couplers to body-mount N-Possibles so we'll have to see how that goes. I use 40' or smaller stock, mostly box cars and gondolas (I need some shorty gondolas).
Here is the early track plan back when it was still the California Western. I did it up in XtrkCad, my favorite. Not much has changed, though I extended the long siding to the end of the layout so it could be an interchange. It was originally planned as a passenger station.
Baseboard built from scraps at the makerspace. The track has been purchased, much more flex than I'll need.
Cork roadbed and the loop are complete. D&RG 950 hanging out with a boxcar; she behaves fine going forward, but the driveshaft seems to pull her off the track when reversing. Ah well.
Blocked out with structures and terrain...
...and painted!
Very proud of this wooden culvert and retaining wall. It still needs its pair on the other side of the track as of April 2026.
Good ol' Sculpt-a-mold! Resting on some trestles as it dries, the buildings in their final locations. The section house is freshly repainted but needs a few more bits glued back on. All the buildings are consignment except the shed, which I bought new years ago.
Lots happening here. Painted the Sculpt-a-mold and added accent colors, blocked off my roads and paths, added some rocks (unfortunately rather clashing in color), and started my first patch of static grass. I made the static grass applicator out of a metal sieve and a Harbo Freight flyswatter. It works pretty well for costing about $10! I did zap my hand pretty good, so now I wear nitrile gloves while static-grass-applicating to have an insulating layer.
Grass and bushes! This is my favorite part.
Some trains visit Piper Junction.
Ballast! Now it's looking like a real railroad. A shot of my favorite corner. Can one have a favorite corner? I think so.
Yeah. This is definitely my favorite corner.
Getting it ready to be the Christmas train. Little paths all finished. It's looking fleshed out!
Trains running the day after Christmas. Man, I need some backdrops. (Touchdoowwnn!)
Check back soon for more updates! I have yet to upload my 2026 work (as of April 2026), though it's been a bit since I've worked on it properly. Thanks for reading thus far.
