Finally running trains again

It's nice to have a layout running again. It feels like it has been a really long time since I have been able to run trains at home.

This is what happens when we get a few straight nights of rain.

A layout pops up, out of nowhere.

This is the start of the right side of the layout, from the track plan that I posted earlier this month. It will have 3 businesses to service, an auto parts distributor, and recycling facility and a warehouse. I'm experimenting with using flex track and camper tape this time around. It goes a little faster than hand laid track. I also tacked up a strip of LEDs, just to try them out, seems to provide enough light for now. I read an article about mixing different temperature LEDs, for a more natural light, I can decide on that once there is more to look at than homasote and flex track.

June 2014 Update

I haven't posted since February, and a lot has changed. We finally settled on using the attic for my layout, rather than the spare room on the first floor. A little more difficult for people to get to, but in the end it can be a much larger space(16'x40'). Right now only 1/2 the attic is usable, and I have lots of other work to do around the house and the farm, before I start finishing the rest of the attic. I accepted that it could be more than a year before I get to finishing the attic, so I started thinking about a smaller layout. After considering micro layouts, Ingelnooks, and module I settled on a switching layout based on the industrial area around Norfolk St., Mansfield, MA. and came up with an initial track plan.

I was influenced by James McNab's Grimes Line, Lance Mindheim's Downtown Spur, and operating on Don Irace's P&W.

Most of the benchwork and back drops are up, I need to work on some lighting, and then I can start laying track again. It really sucks not having a layout, I'm so happy to be building again.

That's it for this month, thanks for stopping by, hopefully I'll have more updates and pictures in a month.
Mike

January Update

I started the month out by tearing down my layout, removing the last cabinet and sink (the room used to be a kitchen) and starting to put up new benchwork.

About that time that space formally occupied by the layout was rezoned residential. I am getting another room, which is actually a little bigger, and in the overall plan requires me to less remodeling around the house. However I don't think I'll be getting that room ready for at least a year.
So I decided to build a small switching layout in my office inspired byWashington Park in Providence, RI. 

I think this will keep me busy until the other room is done.
I'm not sure about the track on the right side of the plan, that might just end up being staging. The bench work for the left side of the layout is pretty much done, then I need to cut some plywood for the subroadbed, and then start laying track.

Time for the chainsaw

After a friend commented on my last post, and sent me a link to the MBTA station in Walpole, MA, I decided that it was time to start working on a new track plan. I am planning on modeling the CSX branch that operates between Milford,MA and Mansfield, MA. I can't wait to get started, I just need to get some work done around the house first.

Thanks Don!

Getting there is half the fun?

I have been thinking a lot lately about my current layout. And I have some doubts about some of the givens that I laid out early on.

• HO Scale
• 2 railroads on the layout
• Need to provide a sense of distance between towns, implies multiple towns
• Must have a yard
• Intermodal terminal
• Corn Syrup
• Car Cards and Waybills
• DCC
• Multiple trains per op session 
• Multi person crew

With the layout in a room that is 20x11 some of these 'requirements' just don't make sense

• HO Scale. It's what I have always modeled in. It's almost too small to see as it is.
• Does having 2 railroads really add much more operational interest? Does it even make sense if I will mostly be a lone operator?
• With crews being light on the regular weekly ops sessions I realize that getting there is only fun for me if there are a bunch of other guys out on the layout. If it's just me, it's not fun.
• Yard? Why? Sure it's fun on a big layout, but again for a one man show, do I really need it?
• I love intermodal trains. But does it make sense on a small HO layout? Sure I can run small intermodal trains, so what. And do they add much interest operationally?
• Corn Syrup. Stays
• Car Card and Waybills. Stay
• DCC. Stays
• One man, one train
• Multi person crew? Doesn't seem likely

While I struggle with these questions I am still working on the layout, but not as enthusiastically as I would like. I really don't want to be one of those people who never gets a layout operational, but I have some serious doubts with my current plan.

I am considering doing something like the Downtown Spur to either Worcester, MA or Washington Park.

I often wonder how people can actually get a layout complete enough to be up and running. Between all the different avenues of interest that are available to explore, and changes in perspective due to experience I don't know how I am every going to get to the point where I can run a train from one end of the layout to the other.

It's been a while

It's been a busy summer, lots of farm work to do, and not much time for working on the railroad. I did make some time to play around with backdrop photos and card stock buildings to use at the yard. I have been using textures from Clever Models, CG Textures and Model Builder to make some building flats.

Some of the buildings are just card stock, other are glued to foam core, but my favorite material is the matte board that is used in picture framing. I need more practice, but I am pretty happy with the result so far. I have had better luck using Modge Podge over spray adhesive to glue the card stock to the background material. With Modge Podge I can get better adhesion across the entire board, and it's easier to apply to multi-sided buildings. Now I just need to get better at making the boxes to glue the card stock to. After reading the article on using actual photos by Lance Mindheim in MRH I want to try that technique as well, and there are a couple industries in Worcester that look like they might be a good subject to model. I smell a rail fanning trip coming up.

I have also been cleaning up my track work in the yard. A bunch of turnouts needed debugging, proving that I can screw up pretty much anything, including turnouts made with Fast Tracks jigs. The good thing is that I have been able to fix all of them.

I even found the problem in this one,

now all I need to do is take it out and fix it!

To test the track in the yard I have been making up switch lists and having mini op sessions just in the yard. There 3 industries, and an interchange track with another railroad, so I find it pretty easy to spend over an hour just running trains in this section of the layout. Of course some of that time is spent trying to  understand why a certain car derails on one turnout, but not the others.