The Raspberry Branch ISL (MEC in Quebec)

[sailormatlac]

A few picture of the basement.

Two overall shot of the area to be reclaimed. Don't underestimate 22' long! That's very, very, very long for a single rural town! Trains litterally look lost in scenery... Maybe I'm little megalomaniac on this one. Anyway, I need the shelves for storage too, so the layout final length will be decided later (easily, 6 feet could be cut). One thing is sure, I MUST resist the temptation to fill everything in tracks and industries. I already suspect switching a 12 cars train with those lengthy sidings at real speed will take over a hour.



End of layout should be located just before the right window:


This place to be the staging area / benchwork. Lots of PVC pipes, some that will probably be used to make grain silos.



As you can see, walls are made of a very irregural stone masonry, I decided to fix 2 x 6 on the floor beams. Here's a mock up of the shelf:



Now I'm facing THE question. The best height for a layout. I'm only 5'-5" tall. I have two options: at 54", I have a realistic level eye look. But it makes switching a real pain. Option two is armpit level, less realistic, but much more pratical. Also, I have a very long bench that I could use as a step when switching. We used it when we built the first iteration of Hedley-Junction. It was a practical compromise. I'll see...

The shelf above the layout will extend a few inches to locate lighting and a pole for a curtain to protect the layout when not in use.

Operation wise: Since there's 4 destinations (2 MEC, 2 CPR), it means there's at least 4 trains running on this layout. Alternating each of them at each session would bring a lot of variety. Also, it's possible for two people to operate two trains at the same time. In fact, the layout plan is nothing more than two overlapped basic ISL.

Matt