Clarke’s been in touch with his N scale figure 8 track plan.
“Finally becoming a reality! Just retired and am starting my first layout.
Rail laid & painted, two train operation going smoothly, all track and wiring for rails complete. Ballasting & scenery next.
Also putting lighting in place (Blue LED plus track lighting, for general illumination) now.
N Scale figure 8, plus double around inner loop, single mainline outer loop, with double crossover for interchange. Two train operation, or single train completes entire route in about a minute. Probably adding a reversing trolley as well.
I have learned so much, both good & bad, building this so far.
I made some rookie mistakes, but have had far more fun building this than a man my age, should!
I’ve used N scale standard code 80 throughout, with the exception of the elevated “trolley run” where I substituted Kato track, for ease of installation, etc.
I’ve weathered and ballasted all the track, painted the Kato rails with burnt sienna to enhance realism, and have had exceptionally great luck with operating the trains! No derailments or major issues.
I did have to dig myself out of a design hole, on one curve that required a tight radius.
I used a tight Kato track, and masked the mistake with mountain scenery. Another place has too steep a grade (3%) but I masked that with tunnels.
For the tunnel portals I purchased rather than scratch built, enough was available to make that an easy decision.
Chooch makes great products for this, and you can see the result in the pictures. All of the stone & brick wall work was carved out of Styrofoam, and I was amazed at how well, and quite frankly, easy that was to create!
I am moving towards developing the town in each of it’s variations and moving forward with scenery (trees & other stuff that’s green, and not gray).
Thanks
Clarke”
Now on to Peter.
He’s been busy scratch building from the print out scenery:
“Hi Al,
Here’s one of my scratch builds.
Peter”
I really do a get a kick out of seeing what you’ve created with the print out scenery. There’s more in the pipeline by the way, the talented (or bonkers) John is having a go with it right now.
I have been following your blog for years with great intentions of adding instead of always just taking.
Anyway, you seem to be begging for stuff so I’ll send you my railroading story.
As a youngster, I had an S gauge American Flyer set that got plenty of use, mostly when I combined it with my best friend neighbor with American Flyer gear.
He had a big basement and we spent hours running trains, never worrying about scenery.
Then when I was 15, we moved away and I left my stuff with him. Basically that ended my railroading days for about 25 years.
Then one year, my wife returned from her yearly trip to visit her sisters and brought me a little N gauge set as a “thank you” for taking care of our two boys while she was gone.
That first oval of my n scale track expanded to this: (photo #1)
Shortly thereafter, when the boys were in the 7-11 year old range and more into balls than model trains, I realized the two were mutually exclusive. So, for the next 20 years it got packed up and trains were again out of my life.
Once again we moved – this time just to a different house where I had a bit of room to re-set up the layout (and no young boys throwing balls).
Actually, the “cookie cutter” layout was built just before it was packed up. So when we moved, here is what I brought with me. I had just semi-retired and had time to work on developing my project.
I have since added background panoramas taken near our home in Boulder, Colorado. I have also added a number of electronics gadgetry such as lighting that comes on as the overhead lights dim. Finally, I added a trolley that runs up and down main street in the town.
I hope this gives you something that will interest your readers. If you look, you can find many things that were submitted in posts to your site over the years. I will try to send a video separately since files don’t always go if they are too big.
Keep up the good work.
Bill”
Looks like Bill is having fun with his N scale track.
“Well we started having so much fun building the printable buildings we forgot about the train layout but I thought we would put them together and send you a picture of your models…now we have to figure out a layout and start that.
Love your blog and the stuff is amazing that gets sent in
Sid and Vicki”
Wow – Sid and Vicki have been busy. I really do love seeing the print out scenery you’ve made.
Now on to Gary:
“Finally have my new design on my new layout. We moved in December to a home in Sellersburg Indiana.
I now have a 24 x 20 detached garage that is going to be my train room.
Just got a chance to start working on it. Got my walls painted blue and started painting some clouds on them.
Also I’ve drawn my track plan. My yard tracks are a hopeful situation probably won’t be able to fit as many tracks in as I drew because of the switches.
But the rest of it is done in 1 inch scale so I believe the curves and everything else will work. With a minimum radius of 26 inch on the main lines.
I’m planning on a ravine on the peninsula that is going to go from 38 inches off floor, down to 6 inches off floor with a tall Trussell and a waterfall behind it.
Next up is the track lighting. Here is the track lights location for on the ceiling.
Still have a little bit of work to do to the clouds. And I wanna use some white paint to fade the blue out at the horizon line.
I will keep you updated on my progress as it goes!
Gary”
A big thanks to Bill and Gary.
Bill’s right, things are very thin on the ground this end at the mo, in fact I’ve never known it to be so quiet. So if you’d like to share anything, please do mail it in.
