Stories from the Track

The first day I had to lay some track went really really slowly. I had my cork put down with 12 year old white glue. Yup, 12 years old, still worked fine. Impressed me too. The cork was a 4' by 2' sheet that I got from Michaels Art store. Its 1mm lower than 'normal' track cork.

I suppose I should take this time to point out what cork is, why I'm using it and alternatives. Cork, not to be confused with the city in Ireland (which coincidentally I've been to) is used in MR to create a sub-road bed. Real railroads are built on beds of gravel to control water drainage, just like car roads. Ok I'm over simplifying the building process, but that's it. Water control. Except a railroad has to deal with massive weight at great speeds. The speed makes things rattle and move, not great from an engineering perspective. Wooden ties are great for keeping vibrations down, though there are new cement ones now that work and are better. wow do I get off topic.

The cork for model railroads is used for two main reasons - 1) to give the bevel effect so that it appears that its real and 2) to dampen the noise of the trains running on bare wood - again realism.

There are options - not use anything, use foam board instead of traditional lumber as the base for everything or use a foam subroad replacement.

I went with cork. So I bought two types, one for the 'yard' layout, that's the big sheet since there's a lot of track in the space and the stuff that goes under the track when it leaves the yard.

Here's a picture of the second type, the one specifically made for N scale track.

From Trains 2010

I've since discovered that I bought way too much of the one and not enough of the other. Naturally.

I spent a couple hours aligning my first track bits, re-doing it, checking, measuring over and over again. Then glued it down. Then I realized that I didn't think about my under the table servo that would operate the switches automatically. Drat. and my servo's were still being shipped from Hong Kong (2.49 each thank you very much!) so I didn't know what or how much clearance they'd need. So I dithered a bit for the next week, got another three or four feet of track down while I waited.

All in all felt super unproductive.

Track work!

I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated thinking about all the track work that I have to do. Something I haven't touched in ... oh 12 years ! There's been all sorts of progress in the MR world. There's new track that looks really realistic now. After much research and reading it seemed that I should buy something called Code 55 flex track. The stuff that I was used to is now (or probably always was, I was just completely unaware) called Code 80. What the hell does that mean you ask. Its the height of the track... 55 is more realistic and is much lower. Here's a pic. 55 is on the left, 80 is on the right. If you look enough you'll notice it. It's more in your face if you actually see the two. Maybe I'll take my own picture, but until then here's one that kind of shows what the heck I'm going on about.


Hard to tell from the picture but 55 is all that to MR's in N scale. The stuff pictured above is KATO uni track that has a grey plastic base. Its all the rage too. Naturally, I choose differently. I'm a trend setter not a follower! Anyway, I decided to go with Atlas track - at least I did until I discovered that there isn't any to be found and they experienced a manufacturing problem in their Chinese plant. Its been about 8 months since anyone has been able to purchase it. Sucky. Its the cheapest and apparently decent. So I looked at PECO, an English brand that is based on English tie widths (ties are the thingies between the rails keeping them apart), so they don't look quite right. Then I found a lot of references to Micro Engineering and their quality product. They also made it 'weathered', meaning it looked realistic and beat up. The cost wasn't too much higher, so I got it. The switches/turnouts are from Atlas though, as they were still available and fit the ol' budget.

Anyway it really was exciting when everything showed up in the mail, totally felt like a kid at Christmas again!! Sure my visa bill was scary but heck ! that's another month away. Anyway here's a shot of me getting some track down.






You can see that I used a printout of my layout plan. I used a free (of course) program called Xtrackcad that has the ability to print 1:1, so the track was life sized. This really makes the transfer of my ideas to the actual table really easy.

Foundation Continued

and now for the Benchwork

There are various types of benchwork involved in MR (that's the lingo for Model Railroading). You've got the open gridwork bench, the shelf layout, the table top style, and some hybrid. I've gone hybrid, though its mostly table top built on top of gridwork. Why? I wish I had a great reason but reality is... 'cause that's the way it turned out. Most of the layout is flat, so an open grid isn't necessary. But the raised and rising bits need, or are better suited for the grid so I've got it where I need it.

I still had my benchwork that my father and I built 12 years ago, a collection of 3 tables of open gridwork that have survived 3 house moves. That was my base around which I built the rest of the layout. Armed with a list of material needs and calculations I headed to Lowes with my father inlaw to get the goods. This required me taking the booster seats out of the CRV... never much fun but a necessary evil. Fortunately I, for once, measured properly and everything fit in and an hour later I had all the stuff into the house. That was Friday night.

Saturday and Sunday were build days. I mostly used a cheap-ass mitre saw that can't cut a staight angle to save its life. Fortunately benchwork ain't fine cabinetry, so everything (roughly) worked out.

It was actually pretty cool building it, and considering the crap tools that I had to work with, it turned out pretty damn good. Bit of self back patting there. oh did I mention everything came out level !? true.

Here are the results

From Trains 2010

2 x 4's against two walls as braces, one is lower on purpose... that section is the 'gorge' part of the Elora Gorge. You can see one of the pre-built tables on the left

Foundations

Ok, here's the first post. I'll be jotting down bits about all the fun I'm having with my trains. Naturally I've been busy with the actual doing, not so much with the documentation (that being this blog). So I've got a couple weeks, ok - months, to review.

The Planning

So I'd been tossing around a lot of various track plans and ideas. Then in the middle of my almost completed idea, there was a change of location. The empty basement apartment was re-zoned back to being a basement apartment for my uncle in law until he finds a place. Probably a year more or less. So instead of my new hobby suddenly getting - wait for it !!! -- derailed --(gosh I'm a hoot) my understanding wife said 'use the kids upstairs playroom'. Ok that reads more monstrous then it really is. The kids are 19 months old and play in the living rooms downstairs right now and will for years. Let's be honest, my progeny aren't going to be left alone in a room upstairs at least until they're 6. Even then I'm sure I'll have to install camera's to make sure that no explosives or weapons are being used.

I figure I've got 4 or 5 years before I'll have to move or re-do the layout if I go into the playroom, which is fine. I NEED to have a hobby that doesn't involve my computer (well, I do plan on automating things, but I digress) or a lot of noise after 7pm. That's bedtime for the kids. Which means that although I love pool, and would love to practise, it's unfortunately a bit loud as the billiard room is next to Greyson's room. The pool room is on the second floor of the house - unusual but that was the best spot for it.

Anyway, back to the trains - I've gone through 8 major revisions, with countless minors before deciding on this plan. During the many many hours I've spent perusing the Internet forums on N Scale trains or just model trains in general there seems to be a standard on layout designs. Its broken down into Givens and Druthers. Givens, being, well, must have's, and druthers, the rather nice to have but its ok if they never come about. So with that in mind, here are mine.

Givens

• Era being modelled is post 1970's. I say that because I've aiming for anything modern, specifically after the 1990's but I have two C630's (a type of locomotive) that were discontinued shortly into the 70's in CP Rail's inventory that I rather like.
• Modelling a fictional line of CP Rail that would run around southern Ontario and the Niagara escarpment. So Hamilton, Kitchener, Waterloo, Dundas, Elora / Fergus, and where ever else I happen to like.
• All turnouts or switches on the layout are powered
• 1 mainline and ability to run a couple trains by computer without worrying about collisions (without getting into block detection yet)
• running freight and some passenger (VIA or GO, maybe both.. I know VIA is CN...)
• freight yard interchange with CN Rail, just 'cause CN is so ubiquitous in S. Ontario.
• various heights with a couple bridges and tunnels
• city scape modelling
• countryside modelling
• yard for operational fun
• hookup to the computer for automation
• DCC (digital train control, versus the really old school DC)
• Minimum 15" radius for Mainline
• Minimum 10" on side / industry spurs
  

Druthers

• double mainline
• signals
• train ID'ing in realtime (thinking RFID, but might have to go IR or ???)
• block detection - I haven't decided on the system but it should go hand in hand with ID's
• wireless train/layout controls with Itouch, Ipad or Iphone. Google Android is also a thought
• using JMRI or Rocrail as software controls
• webpage with ability to control layout remotely
• web cam's for 'on the scene' action

The Layout Plan




The notes - blue is the lower or zero elevation, Green is the higher bits representing the escarpment. It will be about 12" up from the blue.
There's a red line near the bottom, that's going to be a scenic backdrop - everything behind it is going to be staging yards representing the rest of the world... so trains can go south and then new trains can come North. Maybe I'll do up a better layout diagram...