Bill’s been in touch with his narrow gauge model railroad.

He’s more than made a start – he made a purchase. Still counts! It’s all about having fun:

Some people like the scenery side. Some people like just like running trains. Some like both.

The point is, it’s your layout and your rules…

“Al,

I am just back from attending the excellent Narrow Gauge Model Railroad Meet held at Harrisburg, PA. This is the second one I have attended and both were instructional and inspirational.

I have been a long time subscriber and reader of your daily blog and have found them to be both entertaining and informative.

Your mantra has always been “Take the first step and get started”. Well, I took my first step albeit a bit larger one than you may have intended, I bought a completed On30 modular railroad at the Meet.

At 75, I have neither the manual dexterity, the eyesight or the ambition to learn the skills necessary to build a layout for myself. This purchase allowed me to have a layout which I can, sooner or later, adapt to my purposes but that I can enjoy and operate in the now.

In the vein of showing pictures, I am enclosing some of mine.

Having this layout has enabled me to take my accumulated On30 equipment off the mantle-piece and put it back onto the track where it belongs.

There are still a couple minor things remaining yet to be completed on the layout like completion of the electric service to the track sections and getting the buildings on the layout to be sceniced into their surroundings but, that will come.

Here are a couple pix taken after I brought my new “baby” home from Harrisburg.

Thanks for being the “Still, Small Voice” that inspires us all every morning.

Bill McCourt
Dover, DE”

And now on to George (who always puts a smile on my face with his post comments)

“Big Al

This is the start of the big guy in the garage and I thought I’d offer a few nuggets for the gallery of train fans to ponder.

I am creating (2) spiral helixes on the left half of an approx. 10 x14 donut shaped layout that will have S scale on the bottom & ON30 on the 2 mountains with the helixes. I am constructing the helixes first on the left half of the donut and see how they run.

The space in the middle is access/operational space and the top of the baseboard will 4 ft off the floor. This is a CAD drawing that is tough to read but I know what’s in it.

While creating the helix, I experimented with a roadbed for HO and S scale that I like and it is Armaflex, 2” wide, 1/8” thick, black, insulating tape at approx. $.60/ ft instead of $1.00/ ft cork.

It has an adhesive back, you stretch it to make the curve, and you’re done. I don’t like cork for some reason. The yellow roll is the tape and is available at Home Depot in the States. If you look carefully the helix track is on it with no thought of how it looks since most of it will be in the mountain.

I made a spiral helix in order to keep the distance between levels the smallest and be able to have a high smokestack loco.

Starting with a 4 ft dia helix and 4” height between tracks you get 2.65 % slope which is more than I like but I cant change the parameters.

You make a spiral by using a spool of thread nailed to the center, a loop at the end of the tread to hold your pencil, and that’s your unwinding compass.

The sketch below- not to scale- exaggerates why I did it that way.

The ON30 theme will be lumber, freight, and ore cars so there will be short and light consists.

We start at elevation 0” and the first crossing must be more than 4” clear for the stack then we keep a steady helix height of 4” between levels to the upper level of 7” elevation.

This old coot with a bum back is taking forever but God willing I’ll send updates.

George”

A big thanks to George and Bill with their narrow gauge model railroads.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing George’s layout unfold over the months (years?), he’s got off to a fab start with a well researched track plan.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.