Canadian Rocky Mountains

[Wiredup]

Hey guys, time to start an nscale layout thread showcasing my latest n-scale layout and it's construction. This layout will essentially replace the previous "Pacific Great Eastern" layout thread I started on this site and bring us too a new endevour.

My first post will be a detail rundown of the layout with the plan. So far there are holes that need to be filled, and any assistance in filling said holes would be greatly appreciated.

The era is the mid 1950's in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. A medium sized railway town based off of Jasper, AB is bustling with activity and is primarily serving CN rail traffic. The city is undergoing a boom receiving an average of four commuter trains a day, multiple freights, and servicing the locomotives from logging industries nearby.

Canadian Pacific is also renting use of the terminal and facilities here as their Canmore facilities are being updated.

Steam is still a present force in this area, with limited numbers of early diesels starting to show off their shiny new paint just arriving.


The track plan:


As it currently resides in the layout room, there have been some small preliminary modifications. But the tech specs remain true in any situation: 11" radius curve minimum in the small town to the East. But 13" radius curves are the minimum on the mainline, with 15" radius curves consisting of the bulk of the track work. There is also a max grade of 2% everywhere but in the North East approach to the town which is a 3% grade.

Added to the layout is a passing siding in the North West. The lead track for the roundhouse also attaches itself to the mainline, allowing freight to move directly into the yard, and also allowing for a reversing section.

[Wiredup]

The current roster:

CNR 6060 - 4-8-2 U1f Mountain - Bachmann Heavy Mountain
CNR 6064 - 4-8-2 U1f Mountain - Bachmann Heavy Mountain
CNR 2801 - 2-8-2 Mikado - Kato
CNR 3079 - RS10 - Trueline Trains/Atlas
CNR - F7A - Intermoountain
CNR - F7A - Intermountain
CNR - F7B - Intermountain
CNR 4609 - 4-8-4 U4b - Bachmann J-Class
CPR 2842 - 2-8-2 Mikado - Kato
CPR 3240 - 2-8-4 Berkshire - Walthers
CPR 8301 - E8A - Precision Craft
UP 3977 - 4-6-6-4 Challenger - Athearn
SP 4999 - 4-8-4 Northern - Kato

[Wiredup]

Some construction photos:



Here we can see the mainline down for the terminal area of the layout. I also have marked out with my file where the river will be on this side of the layout.



Just a second angle of the above




Once the track and bridge were in position, it was time to try and run a train!



After test running numerous trains around the layout and becoming happy with how the major land forms are placed, it was time to start digging that river!



In the South central part of the layout we have this interchange with four different tracks intersecting with each other. This is how it turned out so far. I need to replace the center beam with a support for the viaduct piece.









the above four are all different perspectives of the three bridges that were installed on the Eastern side of the layout. The plate girders that showed up were a lil shorter than I expected, and since I already had the landforms glued in place it didn't exactly work out as planned. the two plate girders were supposed to be in the foreground with the truss being the farthest back. But this still works and I'm happy with it.

[RobertInOntario]

Looks very impressive!

Rob

[Wiredup]

Thanks!

A pair of videos for this update.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R7R-xvJ9go">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R7R-xvJ9go</a><!-- m --> (main line tour)


<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw2lQI8daaI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw2lQI8daaI</a><!-- m -->

just something fun I put together...

[Wiredup]

I havent' done a lot of work on the layout so far this fall/winter because the budget has gotten a whole lot tighter all of a sudden... so this week I started looking at ways to work on the layout without going out and grabbing more stuff I can't afford.

The first area I worked on is what will become the main yard. I have a few new ideas for this section and have started to apply them.

The first is that, against my better judgement, I'll be taking the inner track of the double tracked truss and running it around the loop and into the yard. This is an absurd idea that may become a bit of a headache when a passenger train may use this inner track as it's going to be a 11" radius curve. But it will add to operations.

I also have successfully joined the yard to the northern approach to the terminal. This does create a wye that should become useful... yet I still have to figure out how to turn whole trains on this trackplan... i have one reversing section, but it's only accessible from one direction... which sucks...minor design flaw eh?

Anyways, heres some photos of the yard in planning:



This is taken from the walk in, and also before my plan to attach the inner track of the truss to the yard. I plan to put a carshop where the dayton machine co. is located right now. 3 bays, but only 2 will be tracked, the other one will be vehicle access. I've been inspired to add this building thanks to Mike Fifer. An interesting idea, but something I have to research to see if it sexists anywhere, would be to have one of the bays pass through to the track that leads to the truss....



The yard will be sitting on Woodland Scenics n scale roadbed. Instead of buying a pad, I just used left overs from my last flextrack layout attempt and alternated between having them upside down and right side up, butting the beveled edges against each other, for the base of the yard. It levels out nicely with the unitrack allowing a steady transition. Right now nothing is glued down, it's all tacked down instead... I should have glued it down when laying it all out, but didn't want to in case of a mistake... what I'm planning to do is just layout and tack down all the track and the foam and then ballast the whole area and use the ballast to keep it all down.



Now this is where I became overjoyed that I decided to use sectional/flex for my yard again. the main yard lead...which at this point is a bunch of turnouts with a 2ft length of flex track will run through the coaling tower as seen in the above photo, and then will continue on to the wye or to the mainline shown in the first photo. The trick was that I used a combination of peco #6, #4, and curved turnouts to make this area work. I even put in a small 45 degree junction. This will make it easy for a switcher to spot coal cars for the tower.


It was then time to start work on the other town.



I partially built a few of the DPM kits included with the big box of buildings in the woodland scenics town kit. But only a few... I really hate these kits... i do... their tedious to build, and I don't like how I gotta cut my own roofs and glazings... it's fine, really, it's just a royal pain.



Anyways, I put a few together so I could start planning out the town. As you can see in the above photo there is a siding that runs between the buildings on main-street and the passenger station. The large building on the end is a factory of some kind. The track will continue on and into the dayton machine co. which will be relocated to this side of the layout.

I also played around with placing some of my old starter set rolling stock as makeshift gas and storage structures... will have to do some incredibly heavy weathering to these.



And this is the view from the front of the street so far... it's only structure placement to get an idea, but so far I'm liking how this concept is working out! The two buildings on the right are Walthers structures.

So thats all for now... I'm in need of some more unitrack, some peco turnouts, and some more roadbed before I can really get any further in these areas... the next step is to start carving some scenery using leftover pink foam!

[TrainNut]

Wow Luke! Your really making some progress now! Things are looking good and it looks like your running some trains to boot!

[Wiredup]

it's been a while, and fundings been a bit shorter than usual... but I got some decent progress in... photos to come later.

I've laid down a good amount of land forms.

First step was one I was told not to do because it would cause cracks ad it dried, but I did it anyways because I had a plan. I picked up a big pail of drywall plaster and went to town using it like clay to build up banks for my river and of course cover those seems. After drying for a week, sure enough it cracked and shrunk, but I was able to go over it with a cover of plaster of paris to smooth things out and get rid of those nasty cracks.

The next step was the hills and mountains, which were done the wood-land scenics way of newspaper and plaster cloth. While in a local craft store to pickup the tub of plaster of paris I saw that they also had plaster cloth, and while more expensive (read 40% more expensive) they were having a 50% off sale which made it a bit cheaper, so I picked a few rolls up. I like it better than the woodland scenics stuff as it has a tighter weave and is a bit thicker. Instead of puttng the cloth in water first and then draping it over the newspaper and foam, I did it the other way and put it over the layout and then took my trusty spray bottle to wet it. I was then able to move it around a bit to cure.

I've decided my river is a lot larger than I anticipated, but until I can seal it off and get some resin I'm going to have to proceed with other things....


then news...big news given to me today.

I was about to start doing the yard when my wife looks at me and goes "I think I gotta pickup a pregnancy test today". So right now construction has been halted as we only got two bedrooms in our condo, and the train room is bedroom #2... so before I get too far ahead... I have to wait for the answer.

Now we only plan on being in this house for another 2.5 years anyways (mortgage renewal time! lol) which means if we are moving onto that next step in our life the child will be coming on two by the time we move.

What would the recommendation being to still use 2 walls of the room for a smaller layout (I'm thinking just a small terminal scene with a hidden staging loop... just to give me operations and hone my skills) along with raising a child in the same room for a year? I would be using a 2.5ft reach along the two walls. in a 10x10 foot room. it would really be two 7ft sections because of the doors to the closet and the hall, but should give me enough for basic operations. Believe it or not, this is the wifes recommendation.

The other plan of attack is just to packup the track and focus on acquiring more rolling stock, building structures, and kitbashing/painting the locos until we have space for the layout. There is a lot of wicked n-scale stuff coming out in the near future that I don't wanna pass up, and not having to spend money on landforms and track would ease the pocket book up slightly....

[Herc Driver]

First off...let me offer congrats if the test ends up "+". That's exciting news for sure.


Secondly...maybe you could start planning a narrow shelf layout, one that wouldn't take up too much room? I am building a shelf layout that runs 16 feet along the top of five shelving units affixed to the wall. At each end, I expanded the layout plywood base to about 24 inches to accommodate 11 inch radius curves, but along most of the entire layout, the total width is only about 14 inches. I trimmed out the sides of the plywood with extra crown molding pieces I had laying about to match the general design of the shelving units. Then I added a shelving support at each end to hold the extra plywood width that overhangs the shelving units. Using 11 inch Atlas snap track curves, I was able to build a dog-bone layout with the a yard in the middle, and siding tracks paralleling the mains. I know space is tight, and the 11 inch curves and passenger cars don't look remotely prototypical, but my goal was to make a continuously running mainline layout where the boys and I could start a train and watch it run for a while, or run multiple trains in both directions, all while switching operations go on in the yard that divides the two dog bone ends. So, a shelf layout could be possible, given the narrow constraints you have.

But in the grander scale...is this (possibly) your first child? Because if it is, don't underestimate the amount of space one baby takes up. Oh, and all the time a new born takes. You won't have a lot of time for building a layout...so maybe something smaller and more easily finished is possible?

And of course, if you've been down this road before, I'll forever stop offering any "new dad" advice and stick to layout ideas.

[Wiredup]

lol, nope first child for us. thanks for the pre-congrats tho.

yea, I'm pretty overwhelmed with how much things will have to change for a newborn to come into our home. Especially since the only place to "logically" put the cat box has been in the closet of the train room. So we are both going to have to make major sacrafices, but thats what being a family is all about!

[Herc Driver]

Well if that test is "positive"...then that's the best news in the world. As a father of 5, there is nothing more amazing than having a child. Then again, there's nothing in this world that's more challenging.

A shelf layout is certainly possible - and might be the best idea for the space you have to work with. Maybe a starting point might be (and I know this sounds crazy) to look at baby furniture first, then figure out how much wall space you'll have to work with.

[Wiredup]

It's been a long time boys...

I made some progress since we last talked. I ripped up all the track and structures and started on plaster and paint. In fact I got all my plaster cloth work done!

But, the test did come out positive and I started getting excited. Then the car broke down for the fourth time in three months... and with warranty coming up in a month it was time to get rid of her and get into something new. So the '07 Ford Focus was traded in on an '08 Volkswagen Jetta GLI. A lot of stuff came outa the focus (stereo stuff) and was put in the train room until it was sold off.

It was around this time that our second month of pregnancy started, so I haven't touched the layout at all...

a month later we miscarried. I haven't been in the room since.

I'll be going in this weekend to dust off the cobwebs and see where I left off. Moneys tight right now since I just had to buy a new furnace too. So I'm not sure what I can do in the mean time... but I think its time to start looking at this again.

I'm also thinking of doing a much simpler HO route with the land forms/benchwork already constructed. Would need very little alterations to work out.

[P5se Camelback]

As someone who started "playing with trains" back in the late '50's and progressed through the different stages of benchwork [4x8 sheet of plywood on saw horses, 1x4 grid w/plywood top and "cookie-cutter" grades, and now L-girders w/plywood/Homosote roadbed/sub-roadbed. Scenery started out using grass mat, then paper mache and chicken wire, plaster and paper towels over window screen or later, over a cardboard lattice grid and now, plaster impregnated wrap over crumpled newspaper held in place with masking tape.

I am just amazed at all the modelers using foam insulation these days! I'm temped to give it a shot in one small area of my new layout as a test ... maybe the "end of the branch" terminal town, which will have one (relatively) large area that is train terminal and small yard, and town, which will slope towards the terminal station, the way so many towns in Northeast Pennsylyvania are built going up the hillside from the railroad tracks, which of course are built along the local river.

I will be watching this thread (and others) for pointers and "inside" tips on technique!

[TrainNut]

Luke,
My deepest condolences in regards to the miscarriage. I'm very sorry to hear of this but I hope you and your bride have been able to overcome it.
Thanks for the update... let's see some modelling progress!

[Wiredup]

Thanks for the kind words. Yes we have both recovered from the issue.

I should have some updated photos after the weekend cleanup.