His two posts show in spades it’s all about making a start, and I really like how he’s created this scene:
“Hello Al:
As promised, here’s an update since my conversion from Lionel O gauge to Bachmann HO. I hope this email finds you and all the other HO enthusiasts safe and well.
I’m close to completing my “Hill Valley” area now that I populated it with some trees and shrubbery. Now I need to add the lamp posts, phone poles, mail boxes, and things to fully detail the location. That’s my next project.
Meanwhile, as I suggested previously, I built a street scene from an old movie location I remember visiting years ago called “Old Tucson” out in Arizona.
A return visit in 2001 lead to the discovery that my favorite landmarks (most of the site) had burned down in 1995.
It left me so depressed that I wrote a book about it. Anyway, the site survives in many films and with photos pulled from “Rio Bravo” and several other Westerns, I was able to reconstruct the Main Street for my layout.
I found it helpful to first visualize the buildings by blocking them out in wood. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to light them from inside. I will strive to improve.
I can’t describe how much fun this is, and it’s a great diversion from the outside state and world events.
Also can’t thank you and your web site followers enough for the encouragement and inspiration provided by their postings and ideas.
I know I still have a lot of detail work to do, but I’m looking forward to it.
Cheers.
Mike
Michigan U.S.A.”
A big thanks to Mike – can’t wait to see the next update on his wild west model train.
His scene reminded me of the old wild west saloon in the print out scenery range too:
“Well I am happy to see the positive response from my project, so let’s keep going:
First of all, I ended up using XtrkCad for a number of reasons. It is very hard for me to understand the underlying principles of CAD. Somehow, I was able to understand XtrkCad. (I tried SCARM, Anytrack, 3rdPlanit, CadRail. Ugh. I almost gave up!)
XtrkCad let me do two things that the others could not.
Create curves with 7” radius in HO scale.
Remember, some of these tracks are running in urban streets and this is common for street running.
Secondly, it allowed me to create a custom turnout, to match the Richard Orr single point turnouts. This was the biggest issue for me.
Downside is that there is no 3D. But I will address that later.
So I started:
The right side is the Howard Street area and the elevation is 0”
The dark line in the middle is a two sided backdrop and the left side is the run to Waukegan and is at elevation 4”. So the backdrop will have tall flats on the Chicago side and shorter flats on the Waukegan side.
The High Speed line to Milwaukee will disappear under a viaduct and remain hidden.
On the Chicago side, the topmost track will disappear behind some industrial low relief buildings. (Actually, I have some from Al that should work out just fine.) I didn’t put any industrial switching in just yet.
Then reality started to rear its ugly head. On the right side, I have 10 tracks running parallel and only 4 feet to fit them in.
The easiest one to get rid of was the center track running through the station. So I removed that and put a double crossover on the Waukegan side. The siding behind the buildings at the top had to go too. They were the least useful in this plan.
All of those tight turns and switches in an inaccessible area under Waukegan had to go too. That would never be a reliable situation.
So I made it a simple loop that would run along the edges of the railroad. It gave me pretty much access to those tracks (and overhead wire).
This is the loop that the Electroliner would run on. I have a brass model from Nickle Plate.
There are a few others available, but none of them are real reliable runners. So simplicity wins out. And if I want to run in the other direction, I just have to
switch the trolley poles.
They were articulated trains (one truck supported the ends of two cars). They had a top speed of 110mph, but the highway crossing gates could not come down fast enough, so they were restricted to 90 mph.
The North Shore also had freight operations. So the Steeple cab locomotive will pick up cars from the Railroad interchange (right next to the 2 sided backdrop) and drop them off at the Merchandise
Dispatch warehouse (double track spur on the Chicago side) and to various industries north of the city.
I put in a few spurs, just to reserve the space. This will be refined later on.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Electroliners, here are some pictures.
They were articulated trains (one truck supported the ends of two cars). They had a top speed of 110 mph, but the highway crossing gates could not come down fast enough, so they were restricted to 90 mph.
The North Shore also had freight operations. So the Steeple cab locomotive will pick up cars from the Railroad interchange (right next to the 2 sided backdrop) and drop them off at the Merchandise Dispatch warehouse (double track spur on the Chicago side) and to various industries north of the city.
I put in a few spurs, just to reserve the space. This will be refined later on.
The interchange tracks curve a bit at the far end. I anticipate that they will go under a bridge or something and butt up against a mirror.
This should create the image that they continue to go on, past the edge of the table. The mirror has to be set at an angle, so the viewer won’t see himself/herself when looking at it.
That’s it for today. There are still a lot of adjustments to be made.
Gregory”
And now on to Mike, who has also made a start:
“Hi Al….Started this year…Hollow core door and will have a 4ft extension off the back left…
Mike”
Mike’s made a great start. And it doesn’t matter how small your start is – just make one. That’s how the fun begins.
A big thanks to Mike and to Gregory for sharing his XtrkCad track layout. I think he’s enjoying the planning just as much as the doing.
Please do leave a comment below if think there’s anything that may help Gregory.
That’s all for this time folks.
Please do keep ’em coming.
And if today is the day you stop dreaming, and start doing, don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide is here.
Next, Pap’s been touch with a novel solution for his back drop:
“I recently started my first layout. I tried to paint a mountain backdrop but I am definitely no artist.
I asked on a local website if there was a high school or college student who would be interested in making a few bucks and help me out. I received several responses.
Here is the finished product.
Pap”
Now on to Bob. Like many of us, he doesn’t have much space to play with:
“Dear Alastair,
Greetings from Venice Florida,
I enjoy seeing all the huge layouts that you bring to us.
I have built several layouts that were impossible to move.
My present layout was designed to fit into a closet so we could have a guest bedroom.
This is the wireless bottom view for the folded-up layout. All wires are on top and hidden under bushes.
I cut a foot and a half from one end of a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood. to be the removable siding.
The siding has no wires just the rail joiners from the main layout.
By removing seven screws the siding can be removed.
The layout has its own room now. I am 86 years old (Young).
Thus, the layout will not be a nightmare for someone to remove when I am gone, and my wife really appreciates that.
Bob”
Next, on to Steve.
He has a question that pops up quite often – is DCC conversion worth it?
So I thought I’d put it to you clever lot:
“Hi Al
I have 2 Con-cor Locos (New in box) … probably 25 years old. I want to DCC them. Do you have a recommendation?
Right now, I have them on Ebay for $45 starting price. There was pricetags on them is $75. Looking on Ebay, I see very similar ones for all of $75 and more.
Should I just sell them and buy DCC or should I buy the conversion kit… (which one.. there are so many)
just uploaded my first run on the layout since Christmas, been a bit too cold for venturing in to the loft, but had to give them a run get the wheels turning.
