HO scale, Peco code 83. Electrofrog points, #6 and #8 on mainline, #5’s in yard and spur’s.
Max grade 3%, min curve 24".
L girder with 3/4 ply roadbed, WS track bed.
NCE power pro 5 amp system.
These 3 pics show my 2 estremley kit bashed Atlas bridges. I basicly had to construct my own bridge decks to fit the 2 locations and ‘skew’ them both at the same time. I fitted a machine screw with captive nuts at each corner to get perfect levelling.
The abutments and wing walls are home made efforts, using embosed plasticard stuck to 1/2 inch ply and weathered using enamel. I did try using Walthers wall units and abutments but found them to be unsuitable for the sittuation and ended up binning them after much filling and chopping around! Good job i only bought 1 set!
Looking down towards the yard lead (after the x-over). The terminated switch will eventualy be a small spur.
The pic below is looking towards the 2 tunnels that take the main line right around the layout and re-apeer from under the big Walthers truss bridge you’l see in a moment. The single line tunnel exits and crosses over the single Atlas bridge’s. The small spur on the far right will serve 2 industries/ warehousing. Im going to use 2 half relief buildings to go along the back ply facia.
Below is the Walthers double track bridge.
This took about 2 weeks to rebuild and fit, again its on the ‘skew’ to fit the sittuation. If it was paralell sided, it was to short and would also foul the singl
Wow! Very nice work! Do you have a track plan that you could post? How easy was it to form those mountains out of cardboard and tape? I might have to try that instead of using foam board. Very nice job on the bridges and bridge abutments. Thanks for posting, this gives me some motivation go and work on my layout!
That is a lot of good progress. Thanks for sharing. I like the extensive scenery. I hope you will continue to share your progress, for many of us are learning as we go. I also like kit bashed bridges, so we share an interest there as well.
This looks very good indeed! Nice track work…great curves, and the arrangements with the bridges and diverging routes looks very appealing. The scenery should be superb when you are done…well, you know what I mean.
Thankyou for the comments guys, its very encouraging. Im finaly believing im getting something right, espescialy after my first effort. This time ive addopted a thing called ‘planning’[:D] which i picked up from this forum and also the tactic that if i come up against a problem, i deal with it before moving on. Whilethis may seem obvious to some, its only human nature to leave fixing things, when layouts are involved, i find things get alot worse!
I love to watch my dvd’s, Cajon pass etc and get huge insperation from watching long freights wind their way through the North American countryside. I hope to eventually recreate a tiny piece of it here.
The layout is only 11’6 by 9’6 so ive had to make compromises (dont we all eh) It is by no means perfect, the long retaining wall is longer than i would have liked and ive had to hide some more than nessesary single line as it was so close to some of the double track.
CSX fan, the cardboard strips and masking tape is a doddle to do and goes prety quick. But it must be said that i would have prefered to use foam but its out the question as theres track under it! I just think its easier to form and carve the terain to how you want it from the foam than my method, well Joe Fugate’s method actually[:D] It tends to look abit flat at the moment. Il comment further when ive plastered it and stuck rocks to it. It may look less flat then with any luck.
Thanks Space mouse, your site was a great help!
Yes, you do get through alot of tape, im on my sixth roll!
Wow Gary, it’s looking good. I’ve read about the masking tape method of making scenery base but hadn’t yet seen it put into action. I’ll be following this thread when you update it, and I hope you will. That’s the first time I’ve seen the copper ‘tape’ buss under the layout. It looks like a great way of keeping the underside nice and neat with no feeder wires hanging down. I like the weathering you’ve done on the bridge abuttments, could you tell me how you go about it?
Thanks mate. The abuttments were first painted in a Humbrol ‘tan’ base coat at full strength and allowed to dry and fuly cure atleast 2 days. I find the normal color they call concrete looks to gray in color for a weathered look. If you look at pictures of weathered concrete, its not very gray atall!
I then apply random dabs/ blotches of full strength dirty black, roughly the size of a small coin and leave it for 20 mins. Il then dip a flat brush in thinners and blot some of it away on a paper towel, you dont want the brush to wet. You then streak the brush from top to bottom and vice versa, adding more or less thinners depending on how its ‘running’ down the walls. By cappilary action, the ‘dirt’ will also highlight the mortar grooves. If you make it to wet simply mop up abit with paper towel, This is where its important to let the first coat of concrete to cure fully as the thinners will fetch that off aswel! Finaly the rust streaks from the bridge bearers are formed with an air brush using a suitable rust color.
As a foot note, from some research i gather that copper tape is ok to use if you have only a short power bus as anything over 10 metres in length its preferable to twist the power bus leads. Not possible with copper tape for obvious reasons! If you use a ‘T’ shape power bus, you can go 10 metres
Thanks. Sometimes I feel like I over promote it. When I was starting out, a lot of guys here helped me and kept me from making huge and costly mistakes. Even so, I still made a lot. This is my way of giving back, hopefully helping people avoid the bigger, beginner mistakes and jump right into the smaller, higher-level mistakes.
When people compliment it, it spurs me to keep expanding it.
Well, since you’re monitoring this thread… your site and your comments in my layout thread have been a great help too Chip, thanks! Definitely keep expanding.
Well i finaly found the plan, its one of the tatty copies but will give the general idea of what its about and will probebly show the ‘holes’[:I] As ive mentiond, a good deal of compromise had to be met to fit my relatively small space. Nontheless, it uses a full 56 yards of flexi track! It also looks alot bigger than my old layout that was in the same space.
I would have liked a run-round in my yard but there just isnt the space and the the throat is on a curve but i went with what i had available. I figure you cant have everything. At the end of the day i wanted a more scenic/ country element to it rather than town/ city.I will at some stage get an industry in the yard pluss a couple more on the short spurs. I will also be building a removable piece of the terain to get at the crossover on the far left. The handbuilt crossover will be fitted under the double track bridge and so forming the loops in the double track around which cercumnavigate the layout. This new crossover will also allow more operational flexibility as a train will be able to leave the single line tunnel, pass the yard and cross under the double track bridge to the right hand track if the left track is already occupied.
Well i got the basic basket weave/ tape finished today over the twin tunnels
And now comes the crunch!
Please help me decide on what route to take with the part of the layout below.
This did look like the 4th and 5th picture above but i opened it out today with 2 tunnel portals approximately 3 or 4 feet apart. This is actualy the second time ive done this, only to cover it all in again and i still cant make my mind up.
The problem im having is the uniformity of having a tunnel portal roughly by each of the 2 bridges and the fact that this part of the track was designed to be hidden and gives the train a less of a round and round feel.
The advantage is though (in my eyes anyway) is it helps to break the large exspanse of scenery and the fact that near to the far left car in the picture is a cross over now in the open.
Should i go with this or what it was like above[banghead]
I would leave the track/crossover open. I have about 2/3 of the 100’ main line in my mountains hidden and wish that I could have had more in the open. Unless you are modeling vast, wide open, spaces; I like to see some track and train operations.
Very impressive layout. I myself have had to give up my 2 car garage empire and will have my own room in our new house although quite a bit smaller. Its nice to see you can still find smaller layouts that are very promising.
Ive just finished plastering the main scenic section and thought i’d post the progress.
After last weeks dilema and with some help from Chip (thanks Chip!) i decided to go back, yet again, to the first plan of leaving the storage loops/ mains hidden. Although it was desirable to have a small piece of it in the open, i felt that it detracted and spoilt the single line winding round above through the scenery.
Overall im happy with the way it looks now and im glad i went with leaving the above mentiond hidden!
The next step is to get a suitable base coat of water based paint on the plaster/ portland/ vermiculite mix together with a sprinkling of sand for a ‘key’ for the next stage.
Another thing that this plastering has made me realise is the fact that its important to leave ballasting until scenery is completed. This will tie everthing in nicely once scenery is completed.
If i’d have ballasted before, the shoulders would sure look a mess now!
