I’m in N, but really like the HO plan/layout in the recent issue, just seeing some of the buildings is inspiring, and I like the creek, bridges, tunnel. Much better than last years Rock Ridge. I could not fit a 8x4 in a room due to short arms, lack of access. But the “feel” of that layout suits me well. I can see my layout taking shape with foam board, 5/8" plywood on 1x3 framing with foam board, rivers cut from foam.
I liked the door N scale layout with the staging tracks, removeable, I’m liking that idea too, I have more trains than will fit my layout, have been fighting with how to do staging, even giving up part of my run along the 3rd wall in the future just to have parking space for a few trains.
Can other modelers see inspiration and how to from the Turtle Creek layout? What do you like?
I like the 60 degree crossover siding.
Ending up gluing-fast ballast to critical moving parts of a turnout can indeed be a problem. Two easy solutions I’ve seen used are 1) simply don’t ballast the areas immediately surrounding the moving parts of the turnout, or 2) attach a strip of tape sticky-side-up to the bottom of the full length of the turnout, then sprinkle your ballast on. You probably won’t end up with ballast quite as deep as on the surrounding track but this latter method keeps the turnout completely glue free and allows excess ballast removal with just a toothpick or fine tweezers.
the turtle creek is nice if you are starting out it would make a good layout for the begining modeler it’s helpful to those that’s building a layout and need tips on this & that(track laying,roadbed,scenery)I don’t have the Jan.Issue so I would have to check it out.
I like the way the spurs are arranged on the Turtle Creek Central. It takes advantage of the space better than the typical plan where every spur is parallel to the layout edge. I’ve noticed that this layout and the contest layout from earlier this year use a 4X8 layout as basically a single scene, rather than placing a scenic divider down the center of the layout to make two different scenes as many of MR’s previous project layouts have done.
I also model in N scale and am considering a similar approach (single scene and similar arrangement of spurs) for my next layout. We do have an advantage in N-scale in that we only need a 24-30" wide table to make a complete loop. As you pointed out, 4 feet is pretty tought to reach across!
All I have to say about that layout it is a lionel mentality poorly designed layout and lacks any true meaning other then a fancy train set…That gosh awfull looking mountain,should not be even be on such a small layout…
Guess it depends on where you live and what railroad tracks run there… not what I would see in the west, but I’ve learned a lot about railroading in the midwest, along rivers and creeks. I didn’t understand before, but along the Illinois rivers, I do! From LA, Tucson, etc. I never saw stuff like that, but now I do.
Larry; don’t hold back like that…tell us how you REALLY feel !
(Just kidding…)I have to agree with you on that " mountain ", it kind of reminds me of a large Chia Pet growing in the corner, with a gaping mouth, (tunnel portal).
However, Jim Kelly has a user-friendly writing style, and no doubt there are beginners who can be helped by the Turtle Creek project, and the methods outlined in it.I think the layout would be much better with no mountain, just maybe a textured removable section of backdrop along 1 or 2 edges.
Best regards for 2003 / Mike
I think it does a fine job of what it is supposed to do. Help beginners get into the hobby. It is not a how to on building museum quality layout. When figure it takes approx. 60 ft, in HO to equal a mile, I wonder how realistic many model train layouts really are.
coggins,I don’t think you would like to know how realistic our layouts really are.Can you say a very short line railroad? We would not need any more then 1-3 engines at the most,no passenger trains-well ok,maybe we could run a mixed train by using a combine…
That project layout would not need anything more then a 44 or 70 tonner for motive power.Infact it would be abandon years ago or be like some short lines that haul 70-100 cars a year and operates on a as needed bases.That coal dealer would have no need for rail service as it could be trucked in from the mines since there is a extention that reads to the mines…
More industries on this layout would make it a believable railroad and keep the interest of the new modeler up.
Larry, I think maybe you should try chilling out a little. Possibly you are taking this a little more seriously than someone just entering the hobby. I’m sorry,but, I certainly thought that the Turtle Creek did a fine job of getting someone started. As for the Mountain, I’m sure that a real railroad would not tunnel through it,but, likewise it probably wouldn’t include a loop to allow trains to go round and round. I think with a layout like this, one would probably need to use a little imagination. And that is not a bad thing.
Jeff Coggins
Valparaiso Indiana
Here, here, regardless of how detailed a layout can became it still needs a little imagination to be believabe. From the plywood central to the master modeler’s masterpiece.
Sometimes railroads do choose to tunnel through a “mountain” that hardly seems worthwhile. Tunnel City in Wisconsin is a good example. The hill seems to come out of nowhere and the railroads decided to tunnel rather than circle around it -
Any oval layout where you can take in the entire track plan at a glance is going to look a little Lionel-like. The point is, I suspect, to get the beginner to actually start and complete a layout and then move on. It isn’t like we are being told this is the end result we should all be aspiring too!
One thing about the track plan – I have always liked sidings that involve crossings.
Dave Nelson
If you could expand on your points a bit, it might be instructive to those of us new to the hobby… I’m in the process of building this layout and it seems that it is teaching me a lot of things I will need to know somewhere down the road.
What is “Lionel Mentality”?
Is any model railroad anything other than a glorified train set? What reason for being should any model railroad have other than to give us something fun to do in our spare time?
I’m not sure why this layout shouldn’t be built on a 4x8. I thought it looked pretty interesting when I looked at it. I’ve been reading MRR for a year and I haven’t seen anthing else they’ve suggested that I wouldn’t have to take out a 2nd mortgage to build.
I’m sure your objections are based on your experience, but it would be more instructive to the rest of us if you could elaborate on good vs. bad layouts.
So is anyone out there actually building this? I have the roadbed down and am starting to lay track but had to make a few modifications. The 90deg. crossing closest to the center of the layout doesn’t appear to be an actual 90 either on the published track plan (when I check it with a compass) or after I laid it out on the table. To get it to match up with the curve heading toward the loop, I had to move it (and the other crossing as well toward the right about 4 inches, which of course changed a lot of the other turnouts. In addition, getting it to match with the other 90-deg crossing created a somewhat awkward curve, but since it is near the edge of the layout, it doesn’t appear to be a problem. I’ve fit everything in, but I basically had to wing it on fitting in the five turnouts on the near side of the layout.
Also, does anyone have any good advice on keeping the ballast from damaging the turnouts? The information in the article seems a bit sketchy and I’m a bit concerned about the chance of damaging a $14 turnout (or more than 1!).
If you still access this forum, just which supperior layouts do you refer to that are suitable for a biginner to tackle. Please identify Month and Year if your choice appeared in MRR.
While I don’t entirely agree with Brakie on this one (It’s not the most gratuitous example of Lionel-type thinking I’ve seen in MR, but that mountain is horrendous), he does have a point. I’m not as opposed to the traditional 4x8 as some, but unless a lot of attention is paid to design, it’s not a format that’s conducive to staying in the hobby, as all that you can do with most 4x8 plans is run laps and a wee bit of switching, and that gets boring quick. A railroad needs to ‘DO’ something. It needs a reason for being, a reason for its traffic. Lionel thinking is the run-laps design.
If you want a nice example of a 4x8 design that’s got more life, check out the Midland,Ill plan in Tony Koester’s Realistic Operations book, it breaks the 4x8 down into 1 scene and staging, so you can use the back half like a fiddle yard, and run realistic timetable operations on the other half. It’s also a great Layout Design Element that could be incorporated into a larger layout by chopping off the back half and re-laying a bit of track. There’s some good stuff in the latest MR Planning, and if you really want a basic 4x8 loop, look at the Berkshire Division, in the December 92 MR, it’s head-and-shoulders above this years project, or even the Pittsburg Plate Glass 4x8 switching layout in the Jan 03 MR.
It always makes me smile a little to hear posters express how a layout, regardless of size, “must” be built around operations to be of any real enjoyment and that round-n-round/doing laps layouts, with little switching potential, are somehow inherently wrong and will not maintain the builder’s interested in the hobby.
While MR has pushed the idea of operations for at least five decades this concept is not now, nor ever has been, the ultimate goal of most layout-building hobbyists. By example, an MR on-line readers’ poll less than a year ago indicated that significantly less than half of all who responded do any seriously “operating” on their layouts. In fact, I seem to recall the figure was not more than one-third. This has also been somewhat grudgingly pointed out in the pages of MR from time to time over the years.
Many of us indeed enjoy operations (including the undersigned!) but we must all recognize that just “running trains” is still the leading purpose of the great majority of layouts out there.
I was primarily referring to 4x8’s, which don’t provide very intersting ‘laps’, I can well imagine that just running trains on a larger layout could be quite fun (And in fact have enjoyed doing such), but with the small size and simple track plans of your average 4x8, ‘just running laps’ is going to pale faily quickly unless you have something else to interest you (not that you’re going to stop running the occasional set of laps). Be it operations, model-building, detailing scenes, whatever, you need something to keep up your interest, and operation is probably the most viable long-term interest-keeper for a 4x8 (Eventually you’re going to run out of scenes to detail). And even simple operations can be a lot of fun (I don’t mean even waybills, but just ‘even’s east’ car number based operations).
What is “Lionel Mentality”?
Lionel mentality is a catch word use by some of the advanced layout planers meaning the layout has no real design or has any real thought been put into it…In others words the track was thrown in place like a kid would with a lionel train set with 2 or 3 switches…
Is any model railroad anything other than a glorified train set? What reason for being should any model railroad have other than to give us something fun to do in our spare time?
Well first you have the glorified train set layout then you have a layout that looks like a TRANSPORTATION system hauling goods…You see a layout that is a miniature transportation system compliments our locomotives and cars far more then the glorified train set type of layout that has no real meaning except to run train in endless loops.
I’m not sure why this layout shouldn’t be built on a 4x8. I thought it looked pretty interesting when I looked at it. I’ve been reading MRR for a year and I haven’t seen anything else they’ve suggested that I wouldn’t have to take out a 2nd mortgage to build.
Well, you being fairly new to the hobby (?)let me enlighten you…Watching train run endless loops with very little switching…I don’t count most of those industries on that layout due to the fact there is no rails by their docks…So that tells me those industries are being served by trucks and not rail.
I’m sure your objections are based on your experience, but it would be more instructive to the rest of us if you could elaborate on good vs. bad layouts.
My objections come from two things…I worked on the PRR then PC after the merger and later the C&O under the Chessie banner then later under the CSX banner this gave me more experience then any books or magazines would have in a life time…
Secondly I had those types of layouts and found them to be boring after the newness of the layout wore off and I have seen new modelers turn off to the hobby by