I started my layout one year ago on my birthday, Aug. 17th. It’s now a year later and I just turned 60. My daughter and son-in-law and their two children, ages 10 and 6 spent five days with us and we had a ball (however I just now am beginning to recover).
If you have been following my posts over the last year, you know that I chose to model in HO scale, but have an extremely small area to work with. My entire layout is only 29 sq. ft. Some of the curves have a radius as tight as 15".
Here is a overview picture of my layout in an early stage of construction.
Since then I became concerned that some of my curves may not be laid carefully enough, and since I spent my money to buy plywood, track and foam, I did not even have a locomotive to test the track. Thanks to my friend Ken (Cudaken), he loaned me a BL2 locomotive and some cars so I could test my track. I did have to re-lay one curve, and I disconnected the track that will eventually be a reversing loop, and connected the main line all the way around the layout to make one large oval.
Here is a video my daughter shot last week with my grandson “helping” me run my train. Notice Ken the BL2 handles the 15" curves just fine.
http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w184/woodlandtoots/?action=view¤t=Travisrunningtrain.flv
However, my goal is that this layout will be set in the 1890’s and will use steam locomotion, so for my birthday, I was able to get my own steam locomotive. It is a 2-8-0 “Old Timer” labeled “Denver and Rio Grande Western”. Very appropriate as my layout setting (very fictional) will be in the mountains and valley’s around Denver.
Here is a video of my new locomotive. (Eventually I’ll have appropriate era cars
A true family project. Fun to watch kids create their own world. Nice job.
Kevin
Wonderful post, thanks for sharing. I hope to be able to show my new project soon too.
Looks like your railroad is coming along nicely… I or we actually, wife and kids (three girls) included are building our Penneburgh, Briarwood, and Jameson, though not nearly as far along as you are.
I only have 4x8 to work with, so I can appreciate the idea of space as a premium.
I am a writer by nature and I had the idea of doing the railroad as a centerpiece for a family project book, so we are taking lots of photos and our old vhs camcorder runs almost constantly, may be time for an upgrade there, but the children like to use the VHS so I let them…
At some point I will share some progress photos, but its time to go to work…
GOOD JOB! Especially getting your grandson involved. You two look like you’re having a great time together. The layout will result in lots of bonding time with ‘papaw’ and leave him with many memories of you and trains. “Me and my grandpa built a model railroad layout together…” And he’s well on his way to building his own someday, too! Congrats!
Toots, this is what it is all about. The photos and the video of the kids getting involved are priceless and IMO what makes this such a special hobby. You have made a fantastic amount of progress during this past year. You should be very proud of what you have achieved. I can’t say that I have come close to you in progress over the summer. It just seems to have vanished into a haze of kids baseball and soccer practices. Now I am getting back into the fall modelling spirit, we should plan our previously talked about get together with Cuda.
Happy birthday as well[bday]
Great, GREAT GGRREEAATT!! I got started at age 70 so you have a 10 year head start. I agree that my grandkids are part of the joy. Thanks for sharing. Good luck on all the new things that emerge.
Very nice layout, if I may say so, my 15 yo thinks its a joke, but my 4 yo, now he CAN’T wait to start playing with Daddy’s trains! LOL…enjoy the time with the kids playing, as we all know, they don’t stay YOUNG for long! LOL