[:)] Hello, I just signed up as a member on this site. I’m in Woodstock, GA and have been away from having a layout since about 1977. I started my scale model railroad life with a 027 Lionel set I got for Christmas in I’m guessing 1961 or '62. Still have it here but it’s been boxed up for decades. That last layout in 1977 was an HO Tyco Bicentennial set to which I added 2 road and rail crossings. That setup was a blast. Running the cars around then stopping for the train to pass was a lot of fun I remember. [:D] Sometimes I didn’t get the car stopped in time too. [#oops] [:-,]
Now, I’m getting the urge to build something like the train layouts I’ve been reading about for years but with a twist. With the advent of DCC and computer CTC along with detectors, photocells and whatnot I think the possibility of building a layout that can incorporate both HO rail and street cars interacting is a thing that can be accomplished. I knew someday individual control of multiple locomotives could be done. I remember reading articles about complicated layouts with what seemed to me outrageous locomotive powering procedures to get more than one running at the same time. The people who built those systems back then have my utmost respect and admiration for taking on the complexity of designing, modeling and then running those layouts that in some cases have become legend. [bow] But what got me thinking years ago something like DCC would come along was when cable TV started putting control signals through their cable at different frequencies to turn on and off the features they were selling. Now DCC individual locomotive, turnout, signal, etc, etc control is here and getting developed with new features every day it seems.
So, I hope there is a site, book or personal experience someone can direct me to that would help me design a layout that includes live rail crossings with HO cars. I plan the normal running of the cars that will be in opposite directions like real cars on the street. With detectors and comput
Here is a link to the first train I ever had. A Triang Minic road and track system. You could drive the car up a ramp onto the back of the train. It didn’t work very well I might add.
http://www.tri-ang.co.uk/OO/minicraillay1.html
http://www.tri-ang.co.uk/OO/minicrail2.html
I am not aware of anything like this any more.
Thank you for those links. I spent the better part of Friday and all day and evening yesterday snooping around all over the net and came up with zip. [:(]
In that Mobil 1 oil commercial I don’t believe they bought commercially available track to do that setup. Therefore it must be all scratch built and so I too must go that road (ha ha) if I’m going to build what I’m thinking of. But then there the article in Jan 06 MRR about the German built layout that has guide wires imbedded in roads for battery powered trucks. That’s nice and visual but I want the visual movement of rail and road but also control of both too. So… I got some engineering and development work to do I guess. [:D]
I thought one time I saw a layout which incorporated running trains and autos. I don’t remember the name of the system, though I do remember it being pretty expensive. Depending on what path you want your autos to take, what about a magnetic drive mounted under your road with magnets attached to the bottoms of your autos? I’ve seen this method used to power boats/ships through a channel on a few layouts. In fact, I plan on using this method to power a few boats on my layout. Good Luck!
Hi,
I’m currently building exactly this ‘style’ (?) of layout.
It all started with an “HO scale” (more on this later!) AFX slot car set up on a 4x8 sheet sitting on top of my ‘foosball’ table. It’s amazing how much track you can fit onto a 4x8 when you can use 6" radius turns…
Then I decided it would be cool to landscape the sucker “like those railroaders!” - But, what to use as a prototype? The answer jumped at me a while (a long while now) back when I was participating in an annual hillclimb (1:1) up to Virginia City, NV.
While driving back to the start of the hill I crossed a railroad track that’s a tourist shortline (ie, it runs, and uses steam sometimes!) and thought “it would be way cool to add a simple rail loop to the slot car track! - Maybe even incorporate a live grade crossing.”
This is where it all started to go downhill! 
I discovered DCC (“Not like runnin train(s-yeah!) when I was a kid!”)
Suffice to say I went from Atlas → Peco → Tortoise; Bachmann EasyDCC → Digitrax; Model Power → Tomar etc etc. I’ve also become a John Allen disciple along the way…
Status wise, I’m still on the 4x8 and the outer loop is installed & running - There’s a double xover from that to an inner loop in which one of the main “layout design elements” (LDE’s - Tony Koesters term!) is the grade xing. That sub assembly has just (yesterday!) come alive - The tortoise drives the gates at a pretty good (slow) speed and the LEDS (8 of 'em!) flash as expected - Way cool IMHO
The tortoi controlling the xover are in and controlled from the computer with Panelpro (part of the JMRI project - Awesome software btw.) The inner loop starts with a turnout which then either:
- reconnects to the outer loop via a curved turnout (hence creating a pretty long layover track)
- Goes to the inner loop itself, in which the grade xing sits - Nicely ‘front and center’.
The
Look for Faller Car System (google it and you’ll find a British site that explains it) It’s made in germany so another alternative might be look at marklin dealers at your LHS. Also try the german ebay site www.ebay.de for faller car system. They have battery powered cars and trucks that follow buried wires in the roadbed.