# Ventura County Railway (VCY) serving the Oxnard Plains.



## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Hello all,

Think it is time to officially bring the Ventura County Railway to life and start my own "My Layout" thread.

I will be modeling the VCY in 1947ish, serving the Oxnard Plains in Ventura County, California in HO scale.

The layout is going into my garage and has a foot print of 12'x18'. It will have two operating decks, and a small staging area under the first deck.

This will not be the fastest build, but I hope to receive help from the forum to make it the best that I can.

So, don't me a stranger and give me some feedback and advice. I have a couple of issues that I am working through that I need some input on, and is why I have started this thread kind of early. I am still very much in the research and planning stage, hope to start cutting up some wood soon.

Train pulling a beet train at the Oxnard sugar factory.





Port Hueneme during World War II.









Oxnard Beet Factory.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

I remember that area very well, my folks had some beach property in Oxnard.
Spent many great days there. 

Good luck on the build, sounds really cool.

Magic


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

I spent so time a Pt Mugu working on F14 software in the 1970's. Learned about Japanese food over in Camarillo, changed my eating forever!. In general it was a great place to visit.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

I currently live in Camarillo, use to live at Oxnard Shores but it was too cold and overcast that close to the ocean. Overall I like living here, beautiful area and mild climate. I work at both Point Mugu and Port Hueneme.

It has been really interesting doing research of the area, I hope to blend some of that into this thread as time goes by.


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## Gramps (Feb 28, 2016)

It looks like you're going to have to fit some big industries in a 12"x18" area, even using 2 levels. Did you mean 12'x18'? It will be interesting to watch, good luck.:thumbsup:


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Yep 12'x18'. Just fixed it, thanks. Still too small lol.


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## Gramps (Feb 28, 2016)

FzCruzer said:


> Yep 12'x18'. Just fixed it, thanks. Still too small lol.


I just realized that you had the layout plan on another thread which I didn't see when I commented.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

I have posted a major issue about the bench work height in my "layout design" thread if you are interested. Did not think it would be right posting the same thing in two threads.

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showpost.php?p=1730921&postcount=54


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

*Update*

Hello all,

It has been a while since I have updated this thread but hope to be more active as I am now making real progress.

Here is the 95% final track plan. I am sure it will go through some more changes but this is what I am going with for now. 

Level 1 and 2.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Here is how the bench work should end up. The People in the sketch are pretty close to scale height for the wife and I. I did have to make some changes to the overall height of the bench work since this was made.

Will get into that in a minute.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

The next couple of pictures are showing the train elevator that I am building. It has 11 tracks that are 8' long so I can move large trains and also use it for staging. I decided to try this as a helix was not practical in the size that I have available. The elevator only takes up about 6" of layout space. It will be powered by a linear actuator and controlled via Arduino.

First picture shows the elevator in its lowest position.

Second picture shows it in the normal position where all three track (staging, first level and second level" are supported.

Third picture shows the evaluator in it highest position.

The Yellow block represent the track height at each level.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Here is a link to a short time laps and a couple pictures of my progress this past weekend. 

Well, the link worked. Need to go figure out how to resize the photos so I can post, will get them up soon.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Hope the video link look okay on your screen, it is all doubled up on mine and have tried to fix it. I am still learning the video and picture uploading on this site.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

After doing a lot of planning I still missed a very important item that bit me. I knew that the garage floor had a slope as they all do, but I did not measure it or make accommodations for it.

After I built the sections of bench work it became obvious that I had a height problem at the garage door side of the garage. I ended up taking it all down and lowering the overall height to accommodate for the slope. I ended up measuring the main level height from the celling joists instead of the floor to and adjusted the leg lengths from there.

There is a 6" difference in leg height from front of the garage to the back. so now the bench work height varies but the track stays level.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Here are the pictures (maybe).


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Working that fast you should have this thing done in a couple of weeks.

Looking good should be an interesting layout.
Keep us posted.

Magic


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## Mark VerMurlen (Aug 15, 2015)

Very cool build! Love the time lapse photography. Looking forward to your progress. Never have seen your elevator idea, so looking forward to seeing it in action.

Mark


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