GEC's Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Something to be said for the guys who standardize all their track, wheelsets and such. I wonder about the quality of that flextrack though. I'm still using my old american made atlas flex that i collected a pile of years ago that works fine. Who knows what kind of crap goes into that chi-com stuff they sell now. Whatever brand, If it's kinking and carrying on as bad as you say, I'd take it back. This hobby isn't nearly as simple as some suspect. The last loop setup I did for the kids seemed to work fine at first. Then as I started throwing on different consists, it turned into derailing mess! Plus it was under an open beam ceiling in my garage. You can't believe the amount of invisible engine-jamming crud that rains down when you walk over it. Stapling up some fairly thick plastic (4 mil holds staples pretty well) can make a huge difference.
The 5x9 sounds like a good step. A 24" radius loop would really make a nice flow for your electric units.

I wouldn't be so quick to trash china as i would be to seriously question my ability to lay flex track.

Oh sure, it seems simple enough, but we are talking tight radius. there is quite a bit of fight in the rails, which want to straighten out to some degree. Whats more, i may have imperfectly cut the the rails. I was trying to get the rails to fit in as close together as possible, and so perhaps there is an 1/16" of excess rail length that is not immediately apparent to me (after all, it is better to cut off to little than to much!). Any track, tangent or curved, is going to kink a little bit if you try to shove it into a space it cannot fit in.

This is yet another reason i wish i had a larger layout. If i were laying curves with a radius in the 30"s or upper 20"s, None of this would be a problem. But when 18" is the ABSOLUTE minimum for most modern HO equipment, there is a far less forgiving margin of error.

The last few days i was again looking at modifying my layout, not just by adding a few inches, but drastically changing the layout. This time however, I have a different plant. I may totally removed the mainlines, but keep the yard and industrial park. I will then let larger radius curves attach to these where convenient. In my mind, i could change my industrial park into a branch, and keep the yard area mostly intact. I'm away from my home computer right now, so it would be difficult for me to make a graphical representation (will probably pump out a quick mspaint sketch to give an idea.

will the plan ever gain traction? probably not. I think i average about 2 or three crazy plans to rebuild this layout every year, and until i rebuilt this yard, i haven't ever carried any of them out. Still, i think when i do find the right plan, I'll know it.

my other crazy plan is to literally cut apart the layout, removing the mainlines and taking a saber saw to the plywood. I could then keep my yard and industrial park, but build new bench-work in between to fit my space and give me superior curves. by separating them, i can put a real back drop behind it all, and so eliminated the need to "shield" the halves of the layout from each other.