Lockheed Martin Recreation Association Railroad Club

By Dale E. Schmidtbleicher

The current Lockheed Martin Recreation Association Railroad Activity was started as the General Dynamics Recreation Association (GDRA) Railroad Activity or Club in 1980. There was a previous railroad activity in the years prior to 1980 but very little is known about who was involved and what was done in support of the activity aside from a few photographs...

The current railroad activity is an organization of railroad enthusiasts consisting of many special interest groups. It was formed to provide railroad oriented recreational activities for all eligible members. The activities include, but are not limited to, model railroading interests (all scales, gauges), railfan trips, railroad memorabilia collectors, railroad photography, and railroad historical events.

The Club holds monthly meetings including a program. The programs vary -- there may be a guest speaker, or movies, videotapes, slide presentations, or a modeling clinic, etc. All, however, relate to railroading or model railroading in some aspect. Railroad Activity membership is open for all Lockheed employees and their families, employees of affiliated companies, and a limited number of non-Lockheed/non-affiliated company employee memberships. The Club is guided by a constitution and set of bylaws, created and updated by the membership, a commissioner, and two elected officers. Bob Bray is the Club Commissioner (in his twenty-third year), representative to the LMRA Council, and the Club treasurer. The current elected Club officers are: Dale Schmidtbleicher (in his seventeenth year as president), and Cecil Lasiter (in his second year vice-president and a past Club president).

Each October for the past twenty-one years (this October will be the 22^nd) the Club has sponsored and provided an annual two-day Railroad Fair and show which was contained in the main building at LMRA. Three years ago the show was moved down to the Health Fitness Area gymnasiums where there is more space available. The show is open to all Lockheed employees and their families as well as the general public. Admission is charged, which supports the Club activities as well as provides revenue for the construction of the permanent Club layout. Several modular layouts are displayed during the show, along with 120+ dealer tables. In the past there were also railroad clinics, video presentations, model contest. Dealer show space is always sold out long before show time. The Club still provides a food service for dealers and visitors.

The Club initially began as a HO scales modular layout special interest group because permanent Club space was unavailable at the recreation association. Each participating member of this group constructs railroad modules of standardized construction which link together to form a large layout for operation. This layout has been displayed at the LMRA shows as well as the North Texas Council of Railroad Clubs annual Fort Worth Holiday Train Shows. On special occasions the group will set up just to run trains, enjoy each others company, and take note of scenery changes made to the modules.

The LMRA Railroad Club is also an active, founding member, of the "North Texas Council of Model Railroad Clubs" and participates in the two annual railroad shows sponsored by this group which represents twenty-eight individual clubs. Members work during the shows as well as have in the past provided a switching layout, modular layout for operation and display, as well as provide an open house tour of our permanent layout.

Over the last twenty-two years membership has varied between 20–95 members with the largest membership in the late 1980s when employment at Lockheed (General Dynamics) was at an all-time high. The Club’s current membership consists of 45 members with interests in all aspects of railroading. The Club has various SIG's (special interest groups) including LGB, O-scale, HO-scale, and N-scale. There is an active HO-scale modular SIG, several members belong to the Trinity-N-Track N-scale Modular Layout Club, and a few past members belonged to the DFW O' Scalers. The Club also has a library of magazines and railroad videos. The Club has developed its own patch and pin displaying the logo of the activity.

A permanent Club room, the men's old fitness room in the main building, was attained from the recreation center in November of 1988 after the new Health Fitness Center building and gymnasiums were completed. The planning for the construction of a large Club layout was begun shortly thereafter. The room was renovated, showers taken out, new floor laid down, the walls painted, and track lighting added during the next few months. After renovation, the HO-scale modular layout was set-up semi-permanently and operated in the room until the plans for the permanent layout were finalized. The portion of the room used for the HO-scale layout is approximately 1800 square feet. Construction on the permanent Club layout was started in April of 1989; about six months after the Club obtained the dedicated space in the LMRA main building.

About twenty die-hard Club members are responsible for performing all the design and labor on the permanent layout. Work was/is being guided by a committee of members specializing in specific tasks. The committee consists of bob bray (planning & finance), Cecil Lasiter (planning, benchwork & electrical), Roger McFadin (construction), Charles Linck (track, control panels, & printed circuit boards), and Dale Schmidtbleicher (planning, scenery, structures, & backdrops). Many other members have provided countless of hours working with and under the direction of these committee members.

Some Club members have been writing and providing histories of certain areas of the layout in order to give the layout character and make it more alive for when operation begins. Certain structures, bridges, trestles, etc. are being named after the members that performed the construction, a means of gratitude for the hard labor and extra commitment made.

The layout was named after the original General Dynamics Recreation Association when the Club was formed i.e. - GDRA. An encompassing name was given to the layout which incorporates all the initials. This was not changed when Lockheed Corporation bought out the General Dynamics Fort Worth division in March of 1993. About a year later Lockheed merged with Martin Aerospace and the center became the Lockheed Martin Recreation Association. Although the General Dynamics Recreation Association elected to change its name to the Lockheed Martin Recreation Association, the club's layout still associates itself with the initials GDRA which now stands for the Gulf & Denver Railroad Authority.

Layout description

The room the Club occupies is “L” shaped and the layout was designed as an “around the walls” structure with a dog-leg center peninsula with a sweeping gorge containing a wooden trestle on the upper line and a high steel bridge/trestle on the lower line at the end of the peninsula. The main track plan was initially designed by a former member who was a golf course designer in real life. The track plan was modified in committee from a double mainline “eastern” style line look to a single track “western style” look for each main railroad with “over and under” features. This allowed separate elevations for the mainline railroads and many bridges creating unique scenic locations. For the most part the layout is waist-to-chest high in elevation of the mainline track with higher areas on the branch line mountain railroad.

There are four distinct railroads that make up the Club layout. These are controlled by the Gulf & Denver Railroad Authority (GDRA) which is a holding company according to historical records for the various railroads. The rail lines are:

"Gulf & Denver" Railroad (G&D)

"St. Charles & Western" Railroad (SC&W)

"Port Allen Terminal Railroad" (PAT)

"Lone Pine & Eagle Pass" Railway (LP&EP)

The permanent layout incorporates approximately 33 scale miles of ho nickel-silver Atlas code 100 flex-track and 210 Peco turnouts powered by Tortoise slow-motion switch machines. Of the total trackage, 7.5 scale miles are part of the mainline, the rest of the trackage can be found in the yards, or on the loops, sidings, branchlines, or at the wharf. Mainline grades are limited to 1.5% and in most areas do not exceed 1% slope. Train lengths are limited to about 20 forty foot cars on the passing sidings, but on the mainline are limited only by the capability of the engine(s) pulling power.

The layout is a double bridge route concept, since there are two separate minelines, ranging between the two main cities of St. Charles and Cimarron, with way-freight (peddler) operation and passenger service for the local towns on the routes. Rail consists can follow either of the two independent mainline right-of-ways. Five staging tracks under the layout simulating Gulf and Denver in a split length yard service the G&D and SC&W railroads. The yard, along the south wall, can handle 10 trains of average length for the bridge route traffic flow into either of the two main cities initiating as either westbound (from Gulf) or eastbound (from Denver). The trains departing Denver must traverse a large helix to gain elevation from the staging yard to the top of the layout at Denver Junction. A six track fiddle yard (Rock Springs) that runs behind the dispatcher's booth along with a five track fiddle yard (East Fulton) east of the wharf area services the eastbound and westbound bridge route traffic flow for the SC&W railroad. The overall layout is one large loop that takes a train operating at a scale 30 miles-per-hour a little over 15 minutes to traverse the entire mainline from Cimarron to St. Charles and back to Cimarron encompassing trackage on both mainlines. A train following that route would pass through each scene twice, once in each direction, once on each mainline of both the G&D and SC&W railroads, but on a totally different track and at different levels. There is a loads-in/empties-out capability that connects the upper and lower track levels through a coal mining operation on one side and a powerhouse on the other.

Imbedded into the layout were three individual "show" loops. One has since been removed in order to eliminate a mainline switch that was hidden behind the backdrop. The loops allowed more trains to operate on the layout during a "train show" until our Dynatrol/Dynatrol-Conventional, walk-around, command-and-control electrical control system is in full operation, at which time as many as a dozen engineers will be able to operate at the same time. In 2001 the Dynatrol control system was replaced with Easy DCC command and control.

The layout can be run as a point to point system using the staging yards as the terminus along with a wye (valley junction) in Cimarron and a reversing loop implanted in the layout at St. Charles that can be used as required. Layout operation will provide for train makeup and teardown at either end of the layout, as well as intermediate switching and train meets/passing while enroute. The layout can be run by a lone individual, or will be able to be run with several members and two dispatchers.

The layout was envisioned to provide operational capability as well as a high scenery-to-track content. There are several very scenic areas on the layout which were constructed to highlight the specific areas. The most impressive is the "Lasiter high steel bridge" over Devil's Gulch so named after the road engineer that constructed it. This location is also known as Muleshoe curve on the St. Charles & Western railroad. On the upper level line, the Gulf & Denver railroad has an old wood trestle located further up the wall of the box canyon that is known as Garfield trestle located at Widowmaker Pass.

Other layout scenic points include Curry trestle located on the short line to Dead River. Williams’s trestle and Pritchett trestle are located on the route on the Lone Pine & Eagle Pass railway trackage to Silver Ridge. On the other side of the valley the EP&LP crosses over the Douglas Moore wooden thru-truss bridge on the route to red mesa. Beyond Red Mesa and on to Eagle Pass is Mt. McFadin named after an early route engineer responsible for surveying the area for track route locations. The Howard wall is an area of log retaining walls located at Tangleweed which shores up the slope and keeps the trackage clear of loose rock. The Schmidtbleicher viaduct allows the SC&W to cross German Creek to the west of Midway.

Touring the layout

Traveling on the G&D

Let us begin our tour as an eastbound Gulf & Denver freight departing Denver (not modeled). We exit the left end of the staging yard (as you face the yard) and enter the helix to gain elevation. After coming into view, we smoothly pass through the Denver Junction switch and proceed along the room's east wall. Heading toward the dispatcher area via the "Gulf & Denver railroad" our route takes us through:

Denver - off-layout western terminus G&D (staging yard).

Denver Junction - western interchange and loop-1

Valley Junction - series of switches forming a wye

Cimarron - major yard, engine facilities & industries.

Lone Pine - interchange yard with the LP&EP branch line

Buffalo Junction - interchange point (loop-2)

Post Oak Gap - switching area

Widowmaker Pass - Garfield wood trestle scenic point

Dead River - switching area

West Fork - switching area for St. Charles power

Greedy Junction - interchange on branch line (loop-2)

Greedy - switching branch down line from west fork

Ironwood Junction - interchange (loop-1)

Upper St. Charles yard - interchange yard (passenger service)

Elm Mott Junction - crossover trackage

St. Charles - 2nd largest city on layout (largest urban scenery area).

Stage Junction - eastern interchange (staging yard) exit visual portion of G&D line for eastern locations

Gulf - off-layout eastern terminus G&D (staging yard).

Working the PAT

Port Allen - home of the "Port Allen Terminal Railroad (PAT)", a large river/gulf port with barge traffic and some industry. Shipping point for freight such as ore, coal, oil, and grain, etc. PAT locomotives switch the yard as well as pickup and drop off traffic from St. Charles yard (SC&W) and north St. Charles yard (G&D).

Traveling the SC&W:

If we now choose to travel on the St. Charles and western railroad headed westbound, we enter the scenic portion of the SC&W: line from east Fulton, a five track fiddle yard representing all points east of port Allen. We travel the mainline through port Allen and glide through Rio junction and into lower St. Charles. We run past St. Charles yard and head into river valley country west on lower level via the "St. Charles & western". From its eastern terminus our route takes us through:

East Fulton - off-layout eastern terminus SC&W: (staging yard).

[Note: this yard is slated to be merged with Port Allen when the steel mill is built.]

Port Allen - interchange yard with pat railroad

River Junction - Port Allen or new St. Charles yard.

Stage Junction - interchange (loop-3)

Jackson Springs - switching area

Muleshoe Curve - Lasiter high steel bridge over Devils Gulch

Midway - small town with switching yard.

Gila Basin - switch area and coal mining area.

Tangleweed – small town with limestone industry.

Valley Tower Junction - western interchange / loop-1

Rock Springs - off-layout western terminus SC&W: (staging yard).

The LP&EP railroad

The branchline "Lone Pine & Eagle Pass" (LP&EP) railway starts at the mainline G&D interchange of Lone Pine and travels either east or west through the mountain districts of:

Red Mesa - mining operation west of lone pine (top of helix). Additional track added for logging and lumber industry.

Lone Pine - interchange yard with the LP&EP branch line

Silver Ridge - mining town east of Lone Pine.

Still Under Construction

There are still several portions of the layout that have not been completed to some extent and construction on the layout is on-going in those areas as well as all areas with more buildings, figures and details being added. A logging industry is in the process of being added on top of Red Mesa Mountain with the sawmill located in the town of Red Mesa. For planning, an approximate 48 sq. ft. steel mill area will be added in the future by Port Allen to include all the normal structures and facilities associated with the steel industry, coke oven, blast furnace, rolling mill, power house, machine shop, warehouse, etc. The Port Allen yard will be re-worked and incorporate the East Fulton staging yard.

The Club has designed and special ordered from Accurail, Inc. five sets of 48 cars each that are designed for each of the layout railroads. This increased the number of cars on the layout while adding the unique railroad names to the rolling stock. Each set was a different car style with individual logo, motto, and look. The first two sets ordered were: (1) 40 foot AAR double-door boxcars in caboose red for the St. Charles & Western Railroad and (2) a different style boxcar with a single door, 40 foot PS-1 steel boxcar in pine green for the Gulf & Denver Railroad.

For orders three and four we had a special Club 40 foot PS-1 steel boxcar in pine green made for the Gulf & Denver Railroad Authority (GDRA) with its unique “Texas w/ exploding star” logo and a 34 foot Canton Car Co. twin-bay hopper cars for the Port Allen Terminal Railroad.

Finally a 40 foot wood sided reefer with ice hatches was created for the Lone Pine & Eagle Pass Railway.

There have also been a couple of “company” multiple car sets decaled for layout use: twin-bay hoppers for the Gila Basin Coal Company that are used to run between the Gila Basin Coal Mine and West Fork Power generating plant, and Lone Pine Mining Company ore cars for use running ore from Silver Ridge, Red Mesa, and Lone Pine to the Port Allen steel mill.

2005 Update

During 2005 the layout underwent several construction changes:

Rock Springs: Scenery was added including painting the backdrop, adding ballast to the staging tracks, building up the terrain, and constructing and placing several structures in the area.

Dead River: Additional switches were added creating a run-around. Later in the year some scenery was cut out and a new mainline track was added which allowed for more switching capability while having the ability to run other trains through the area. The Dead River panel was reworked and updated.

Downtown Cimarron: A backdrop was added to the corner of the layout separating Cimarron and Rock Springs. Structures were added to Valley Tower Junction as well as backdrop structures and then a full background and fore-ground structures were added behind the Cimarron engine facility.

St. Charles Downtown: The roads in the downtown area of St. Charles were reworked creating more space for structures. Several large buildings were added to the area and interior details were added to some.

Lone Pine: A short run-around track was added in the Lone Pine area for operating the branch line without blocking other train access to the area.

Red Mesa: The Red Mesa area of the layout underwent a major rework. A short logging branch line was added and the whole mountain reworked (still in process). Some tracks were dedicated to the logging operation with a rough cut saw mill being made from scratch. The mining track was changed and the mine has been totally reworked into the terrain.

Tangleweed: A spur track was added for westbound switching in Tangleweed. The small freight and passenger facility were relocated in the process.

General Electrical: Wiring was added around the layout for detection and signaling as were support structure mounting blocks for the future signal system.

2006 Update

During 2006 the layout underwent several construction changes:

Downtown Cimarron: The back corner of the “downtown” Cimarron area was built up with a backdrop which was painted and clouds added. Jim Howard took on the task and kitbashed several structures and added scenery to the area.

Cimarron Engine Facility: Jim Howard has added the diesel engine house with detailed interior and scenery around the round house and reworked the Cimarron engine facility with added work platforms and a steel water tower and stand pipes along with diesel and steam sanding towers and a sand house. The remaining track was ballasted. The partially finished coaling tower was replaced with a two-track wood coaling tower built by Dale Schmidtbleicher.

Red Mesa: Chuck Templin and Cecil Lasiter have been working on putting a logging spur going from Red Mesa to the top of the mesa. Chuck also kitbashed a saw mill and lumber handling area as well as worked up the town site. Cecil and with Tom Hayden built up the mountain top scenery in the area.

Greedy: The Greedy is being reworked by Dale Schmidtbleicher who is creating the Schoenberg Finished Lumber Company with will use all three of the freight tracks in the area.

Tangleweed: A gantry crane with team loading/unloading dock was added to the freight spur by Dale Schmidtbleicher.

General Work: Dale Schmidtbleicher has added many new trees to the layout, both pine trees which the guys constructed and also tree clumps in the Greedy area, Dead River area, and in Post Oak Gap.

Cimarron Refinery: Bob Bray has finished up the refinery and added lighting and scenery.

General Electrical: Roger McFadin has been setting up the wiring block for detection and signaling from Lone Pine to Post Oak Gap. Both Roger and Cecil Lasiter have started mounting the new signal stands around the layout.

10-24-06