Overview of Granite Mountain Railway
Doug GeigerDescription
When observing a layout that is in operation, onlookers are always looking down on it from their own perspective as a spectator. But, what if they could be inside the layout, and see it from the perspective of a passenger inside the trains? They would see the layout in a new way. That is Doug Geiger’s goal while operating his railroad – to make it the most realistic and prototypical as possible.
In this video, take a brief tour of Doug Geiger’s Granite Mountain Railway through the perspective of a tiny passenger. Then, listen as Allen Keller discusses Geiger’s favorite aspect of model railroading, and as he gives a short overview of the Granite Mountain Railway.
The Granite Mountain Railroad is a huge layout that must be able to fit into the small space that Geiger is able to provide. The room in which the railroad resides is a meer 43 by 23 feet. To deal with this lack of space, Geiger made the tracks of his model run in three tiers or levels. The operation and production of such a massive layout also creates its own set of difficulties. Luckily, Geiger has two groups of friends who help him with both operation and building.
The first or lowest tier of the layout features two hidden staging yards, alpha on the left, and zeta on the right. They share a helix in the center. From this helix, the trains pass through an unfinished area, to make its appearance in Stillaquamish.
The Granite Mountain Railway of Doug and Barbara Geiger has as its reason for existence one overriding purpose, operation. One of the features that makes operations so realistic on this layout is the six interchanges with other roads. Because Doug likes to operate, he wanted a big railroad. Even though the room is 43x23 feet, Doug double-decked most of the layout, and even triple-decked it in two places with hidden staging yards. An HO layout this large could be nearly impossible to build and operate. Fortunately, two separate groups of friends help out. There's a building crew and an operating crew. All work under Doug's direction. The Granite Mountain is a freelance bridge route that runs east and west from the Colorado Rockies to Washington state. That kind of terrain requires helpers on the 3% grades. Welcome, I'm Allen Keller. This is Doug Geiger, the man behind the Granite Mountain Railway. Doug, what's the most fun thing for you about model railroading? Well, for me, Allen, it's gotta be operation, making my railroad run as realistically and as prototypically as possible. It's just lots of, lots of fun for me. The Granite Mountain has three levels of track. The lowest level with two hidden staging yards is only 15 inches off the floor. Alpha yard is on the left and Zeda on the right. Both share one helix in the center. From the helix, our train, the Mountaineer, passes through some unfinished areas before appearing at Stillaquamish.
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