I struggled for a long time between creating a prototype railway and a completely fictional one and have reached an interesting compromise.
My HO railway will be based on the fictional town of Derry, Maine - a very familiar place to any Stephen King fan. For those who are not fans, King grew up and lives in Bangor Maine and Derry, while fictional is in reality based on Bangor.
It is the town that the Novel ‘IT’ is based in, and for fans, my layout will have scenes and things that fans of ‘IT’ will recognize right away.
My track layout remains exactly as it has been finalized and I am happy with it. The changes to transform the layout into Derry involve the building of the Kenduskeag Canal and river through Derry, and the streets and buildings.
Rail will be predominantly Maine Central now, although my CN cars can still be used as CN freight cars often travel through Maine.
A tourist passenger train will consist of old New Haven and CN Budd RDC cars.
The Derry Train Yard was a crossover between several railways so many cars from the eastern U.S. and Canada can be found here.
Here are a few shots of the beginning of building Derry:
cool idea, i saw “IT” a long time ago it was a good movie but i don’t remember much of the scenes so next time i will pay attention. Langliers was one of my favorites mr. tewey for president! when i was a kid i thought of doing the samething based on hazzard county and the Dukes of hazzard, and later on walnut grove from little house on the praire, did’nt some company produce kits for walnut grove?
keep up the good work
mark in Pennsylvania transplanted from new hampshire, railfanning Rigby yard was fun
In reading the book, some time ago, I remember a reference to the railroad that went through town when they were children. Not sure if I remember correctly but I thought it was the Boston and Maine. It seems to me this was when the kid with the breathing illness took a bunch of lobsters home after a railroad employee tossed them off of a train and made a comment about the railroad being on hard times and it’s last run.
1958: "The great long freights still came through Derry. They headed south loaded down with pulpwood, paper and potatoes, and north with manufactured goods for those towns of what Maine people sometimes called The Big Northern - Bangor, Millinocket, Machias, Presque Isle, Houlton. Eddie particularly liked to watch the northbound car-carriers with their loads of gleaming Fords and Chevies.
There were six tracks in all, swooping into the station like strands of cobweb tending toward the center:Bangor and Great Northern Lines from the north, the Great Southern and Western Maine from the west, the Boston and Maine from the south and Southern Seacoast from the east."
Southern Seacoast was the one that Eddie got the lobsters from.
I’m pretty sure a lot of those (other than Boston and Maine) are fictional.
Very nice work, looks like your layout is coming along nicely, if i may suggest something to you which i have unfortunately learned the hard way.Before you get to far ahead of where your at right now I would work on putting in your backdrops cloud painting photo backdrops etc. so your not working over an almost finished layout. I made the BIG BIG mistake of not doing this before my bench work was installed and am now paying the price for it. As Howard Zane would call it extreme model railroading. bending and stretching way out over stuff to set photo backdrops and paint clouds etc.and trust me it ain’t a pretty sight.Nice railroad look forward to following your progress.
Yesterday as I was leaning over to do some work, I was thinking about putting my backdrop up. I just need to finalize the level of the land in a couple of places - but good advice! It’s already a bit late for me too…
Updates on work to date - temporarily put up some backdrops, planning my scenery elevation, got a new Guilford MEC U23B Loco off eBay - discovered that the backdrops glow under blacklight which can create a cool eerie moonlit night effect - perfect for Derry, Maine. Also got my ‘Christine’ - Woodland Scenics Autoscenes - Picnic minus the picnic!
In my previous reply I forgot to add that your progress to date is impressive. Based on what I see you are going to have a very nice layout with a very unique theme.
I have added a staging track, since I ended up using the track I WAS going to use for staging (far left) as a long runaround for freight. The hidden loop track that runs through the Tracker Bros building is not much good for staging either, since it is used as a passing track. It can be used as short-term staging for the Budd RDC tourist train on it’s point-to-point run out of Derry Yard.
Benchwork was extended about 10" to accommodate both sides of Center Street.
Very nice progress Aralai. I liked the slideshow on your website also!
I remember a number of us throwing in thoughts when you were designing your trackplan, and I don’t recall locating the staging track behind the furnace being an option then. Its always good to find some extra room.
The photos you shared looks like you’re going to have a nice layout.
As it turns out, the staging track behind the furnace is NOT going to work. It’s too cluttered with pipes, etc back there. I’ll have to either live without it or maybe consider staging elsewhere (under the bench maybe). In any event, it’s not a show stopper for me. Most of my trains will be live staged on various parts of the layout.
There is a pretty sharp curve in the lower right part of your layout- Its radius appears to be much less than 18". If that´s correct, it´ll be a source of constant problems.
Do you intend to paint & Weather your track? It´ll look a lot more realistic, if you do!
I assume you mean on the plan, not from pictures of the layout? The actual curve is at least 22" - same as the top right one - I think it is a leftover from when I was even worse at using Atlas RTS.
Yes - I will be weathering the track. I was planning to do it right before ballasting. Does that make sense?
Right now working on finishing the backdrop, then scenery - ie: putting the hills and valleys where they need to be.
