January 1, 2005. A historical day in my household. The day I officially began construction on my Model Railroad. A modest beginning, just 8’ x 4’. This first aventure in Model Railroading is far from complete, but has arrived at a point where the major work is all done. So in November of 2005 my thoughts, as with all model railroaders, turned to expansion. Which brings us to January 2, 2006.
Expansion plans had been drawn up and a materials list for the expansion bench work had been compiled the week before Christmas…but I had to wait for funding, ie. Christmas money!
On January 2, 2006, I made that exciting trip to the local home improvement big box store and purchased those wonderful materials. This past weekend, with my 7 year old daughters assistance, I began construction on the benchwork for the 2006 Expansion. Last night I installed the levellers in the bench legs, set bench into its final location, and attached it to the 8’ x 4’ (naturally I had built track that ran off the table on my 8’ x 4’ just for this eventuality. These will be the points where the old meets the new).
The Expansion itself is 10’ x 4’ but is shaped like one end of a dog bone, so not truly 40 square feet. I guestimate it to be about 32 square feet. My track plan for this expansion is modest as well, as I was looking for mainly a nice long run to increase the travel distance from my 8’x 4’ layout. When All is said and done I will have almost 50 feet of continuous track, and almost 20 feet of sidings and spurs.
The plan for the coming weekend it to drop by my LHS to see ole Bob and pick up the cork and possibly the flex track I’m going to need. I’ll take a few pics of the bench and post updates as I go along.
For those of you just starting out, and even those of you long in the tooth in this hobby…you know how exciting this time is…New Construction…I can’t wait.
Trevor [:D]