I had the opportunity to go to a Model Railroad show in LaCrosse, WI this past weekend. It was held at the LaCrosse Center. I am still pretty much a rookie when it comes to model railroading and I always am afriad to ask questions as i don’t want to look dumb. I have a question about several N-scale layouts. I noticed they had three tracks laying parallel to each other and they ended like 2 inches or an inch and a half from the end of the board. One reason for this is becasue of the layouts and they are moveable and not permenent. One of the exhibitors comments that because of thes tracks being layed like that he could connect his layout to another exhibitors if they had the same three tracks layout at the end of their board. He also said that sometimes exhibitors will get together and hook their layout together as long as they have that three track configuration near the edge. I noticed that there were re-railing sections connecting sections together. My question that I am wondering about is if the track layout is a layout from a layout book or is it a made up of some custom type layout? If the layout to do this is in a book of some kind where can I find it? I hope someone understands my question I am talking about. I just found this a very good way to hook section or modules of track which are portable together. Thanks.
It sounds like sections that are built to N-trak standards. In general, N-track is a standard specifying height, location of mainline tracks at the joints, etc. I’ve never worked with it, but it is quite popular and there was a show in Chantilly, VA a year or two ago that had a huge layout comprised of a series of these modules.
Check out http://www.ntrak.org/ for more information.
yep, www.ntrak.org. its a layout system that has standards on how your build different “modules”. I belong to an Ntrak club in the Harrisburg, Pa area. I have been involved for about 5 months. I am currently building my first module. Its a lot of fun. Its good for someone like myself that lives in an apartment and doesnt have the space to build a home layout. We do shows where we set up with 10-12 modules. And by following the standards for each module, in theory I could take mine when finished and insert it in any Ntrak layout anywhere. Check out the Ntrak site and our club’s site is listed in my signature. We are a small club, but there are clubs out there that have the capability to put together 50-75 or more modules at a time.
Mike
So are there N scale track layout books that give you the plans to build these modules or are these modules just all made form scratch and imagination. I am a school teacher that has an n scale train in the back of my classroom. It sits on a counter in which i have a piece of the section which measures 3 foot by 6 foot. Then I have another 3 foot by 3 foot piece connected on to that. I want to revap my layout and make the connecting pieces better by doing this module way that I think I saw at the train show in LaCrosse. Thanks.
CurtV,
The link that Mark gave you has some plans and standards. It also offers more information at a small cost. I’d suggest you check that site out thoroughly for more information.
For your purposes, are you wanting to connect your layout / modules with other peoples work, or are you just liking the module idea for your own stuff and never needing to connect on to anybody elses modules? The reason I ask is because if you want to connect to other peoples modules then you’l need to stick to the rules pretty tightly. If you just like the idea of modules,say, for storage reasons, then you can build it any way you want, as long as the modules fit together.
A third option is a combination of the two. Build it any way you want through some parts and to standards in other parts. For example, you could build one module to standards, build two modules, each with one end to standard so the two are used as a pair, or any other combination.
Just some thoughts…
For your purposes, I would suggest you either go with the NTrak standard, or with the similar but somewhat more flexible BendTrack standard. Note that you can actually mix “standard” modules with non-standard. For instance, build a pair of 2’ x 4’ NTrak modules (8’ total length). Then using a much tighter radius, build two 2’x2’ modules that loop the track back behind the Ntrak modules to a slim (<1’) 8’ long “module”. The end result will be a complete loop that you can run, then when you want to use your NTrak modules in Ntrak setups, you’re all set to go.
Enjoy, NTrak running can be a lot of fun because you can run loooongggg trains.