My wife (with the help of my good friend Rick) has talked me into building a German H0 layout again. I’m not entirely sure this is such a good idea but it looks like I don’t have much of a choice …
So today I will start the 3rd version of the Breitenbach - Rosenheim Railroad. The plan I came up with uses the existing bench work, only I have to widen it here and there. I have no idea where this journey will lead me but I have promised my wife to stick to this layout until I retire. Nobody knows what will happen at that point.
The first thing I did today was widen the bench work along the west wall of the layout room. This area will become the small town of Bad Adomeit, named after a good old friend.
I’m a little slow right now. I’ve had cataract surgery on my right eye a good week ago, the left eye will be done on the 21st. I now have the interesting condition of a very nearsighted left eye with a cataract disturbing the view and a farsighted right eye. It makes for interesting headaches and bad vision close up. Can’t wait for the second eye to get fixed and new glasses!
Still I’ve somehow managed to do a little bit of work on the layout. I couldn’t lay track with this condition but benchwork stuff is possible:
Today I have sorted through my H0 track, most of it left over from the last attempt, some of it from a layout I built in Germany in 2006.
On the left is the ROCO track from the old layout and some Atlas track that I bought a few years ago. This track will be used in tunnels where it doesn’t matter how it looks.
In the center I have all my PIKO track that I will use for the staging yards. PIKO track is reliable and relatively inexpensive but as it’s only available in code 100 it can’t be used in the visible parts of the layout.
Finally, on the right is my supply of TILLIG Elite code 83 track that will be used for the visible parts of the layout. I like the looks of this track very much and it’s easy to work with as well.