Atlas HO-28/Granite Gorge & Northern File

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I’m looking to modify the Atlas HO-28 layout and am looking for a file of the Granite Gorge for the RTS program. Does anyone have any ideas where I can find one?

Thanks, Bill

2

No help on the file but be careful putting those old Atlas plans into practice. I found with several that they don’t quite fit as shown. For example, there might be combination of sectional pieces that form a closed loop. By geometry, if you add up all the curves, switch, and crossing angles, the total had better be 360.00 degrees (180 if a triangle). In some of the plans the constituent pieces total up to something odd like 357.5 or 182 degrees, which is a giveaway that things ain’t gonna fit right. Usually substituting flextrack for plain sectional pieces helps, but I found you needed to do some general manipulation of the whole plan: “Tweaking” to put it kindly. . .

Kurt Laughlin

KL

KL

3

You might just go ahead and reconstruct it yourself in RTS. I built this as my first layout, and that’s what I did. It only took about 30 minutes to draw it in RTS. What I found out was that the loops wouldn’t close perfectly on the computer, because in reality, there’s a little bit of “wiggle room” with the sectional track and you’ll have to shift some things a bit to make it look right.

I will caution you, though… I finished building this space-eating monster and decided I didn’t like it, so I dismantled it and am now building an around-the-walls shelf layout.

One big problem I had was the clearance between the overpasses and the tracks underneath. Another was the approaches to the double-bridge - I just couldn’t get the inclined approaces to transition very well to the bridge decks. I always ended up with a vertical “kink” where the plywood ended and the bridge began. I tried to shim the plywood approach enough to make a smoother transition, but that led to a nearly unclimbable approach grade.

4

My dad built the Granite Gorge & Northern years and years and years ago. Remember having quite a bit of fun with it.

5

Thanks for the information. One of my first modifications was to be changing it to flex track. I thought that if I couold pick up a file of it, I could start modifying it, but I think I’ll go with Dan’s approach and build it myself.

Thanks,

Bill

6

I know this is an old post but did you ever complete the RTS layout with flex track. How did you make out building the layout? I am considering this plan.

Thanks,

Chris