As you may (or may not!) recall, my son was given a Thomas starter set for Christmas last year by his Grandparents. He was interested, but I was hooked!! By March I decided to build my first permanent layout. It is small (6 x 8) but I had some very specific requirements: it needed to have multiple levels connected by grades (<4%), have a mainline with reversing loops, have at least 4 sidings, and be able to run two trains simultainiously contontrolled by two different opperators in conventional mode. Not an easy undertaking in such a limited space!!! Here’s my progress so far:
This is a shot of the layout plan (not the original, but what evolved from the original as building continued):
Here we are in March - just begining: The benchwork is designed to be modular and light. I wont be living here forever! It’s also on wheels so that I can move it away from the wall. (Lesson learned - the smallest cheepest casters at HD are not good!)
April - Here’s the first layed track: The track is laying on 1" foam board. (Lesson learned - foam board laid over open framed benchwork is LOUDER than 3/4 inch particle board. The foam resonated like a drum skin.Something would need to be done!)
HooperSJ -
Really a nice layout especially in such a confined area. Looks to me like you satisfied all your design goals. And yes I did even see Thomas. I have a feeling in 1 or 2 years, this line of Sodor, will have expanded some. How old is your son?
I think you have made a lot of progress and everything looks really cool. I am not an expert but did notice a good job on your wiring, well layed out and organized. My wife too, finds hot glue is the universal tool.
Keep the pictures and progress coming its great to watch the development, will really be interesting on how your son and his grandparents react to the new layout. Grandpa my end up involved as well, can always add more engines, Percy, Edward, maybe even a helicopter.
Try laying strips of foam under the track, you know the really flexible squishy stuff. I use it all the freakin time with tubular and it works wonders to kill the noise of running trains.
Thank’s for the feedback! What’s cool is that while I have done a lot of the work on my own, my wife has helped with the laying of the felt and my kids (10 & 7) have helped with the wiring and foam work. I just hope they enjoy the trains as much as I do…
That’s a very good way to make a layout. Well built, thought about and solid. You know that the track also needs to be glued (not nailed or screwed) if you want the noise to stay away? (nails or screws tend to guide the vibrations through the felt, so the felt has no use anymore if you do so.)
It’s a very good thing to make preconnections for the electricity before building the tabletop! What I do miss though is a buswire which additionally keeps power up across your layout. When using felt or other sound deadening insulation the track is not laid solid. It can move a bit up and down when a train passes. In time, connections between tracks will loosen up a bit and built up resistance. The result is that the point which is the opposite of your transformer hookup will have less voltage on it, so the train looses speed.
On my layout built of old Märklin tubular track (we don’t have a hobby shop selling 0 gauge 3 rail in Holland) the power drops about 10 volts in 8 feet length of track, so I need to run a secondary power wiring underneath the layout to keep them running with a connection to the track about every 3 feet. I know that this is a dramatic drop in power and it would take a long time before it will show this dramaticly on your layout, but since you’re still building it could be useful. (not only on old track; on a friends temporary layout the new MTH realtrax had so much power drop that trains won’t even run thanks to those tiny connection strips)
A big compliment though for your thorough and well thought way of working; really professional!!
daan - I’ve been pondering the whole “screw down” thing with the track. I had a good two months where I just had the track laying on the foam risers before I started to lay the felt. The Fastract didn’t move at all and was real stable, so I am considering not permanently attaching it to the foam (except perhaps for a few key places like around the draw bridge?). I have heard of people saying that screws will bring the vibrations right down through the sound deadening material to the baseboard underneath. You think it would do the same with the foam and eliminate the usefullness of the felt? As I said, I may just let the fastrack open without permanently attaching it. It has really solid connections. Anyone have experience with this and realized later that screwing it down was a big mistake?
Technically seen the noise can only go through the screws into the base of the layout if the screws can pick up the vibrations. That means you have to tighten them. I guess that if you don’t tighten the screws but leave them a few millimetres above your trackbed that the vibrations can’t be picked up by them. You could also use some filt to make a rim where your track is in between. Also that only on some places to keep the whole layout there where it should be. You don’t have to use screws, track can easily be taken away, but when it’s on it’s place it can’t slide away.
O/ I I I\O (The flat left and right is the filt on your tabletop, the O is the filt rim, the slashes and I’s represent the track, seen from the front)