Has It Really Been Over A Year?
Wow! It has been over a year since I last updated you on the progress of the layout. That is mainly because I haven’t made much progress until recently. So here is a short post to let you know what I have done.
I got some money for my birthday in February, so I bought some turnouts and curves (I’ll update the costs in an upcoming post). Unfortunately, I didn’t take any picture of the layout at that time. Due to my hectic schedule, I ended up ordering from Brooklyn Locomotive Works. It was a good experience overall. When you consider shipping in the total cost, I am not sure that it was any cheaper than going to my local train store. But my “local” shop is over an hour away and it is challenging to load up the kids and get over there.
Recently, the oldest and I got to spend the weekend together while his mom and younger siblings went on a trip. When I asked what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to play with the trains when there wouldn’t be little hands to knock things over and mess it up. How could I say “no” to that? So we went down to Discount Model Trains in Addison, TX and had a great time.
We decided that instead of getting more track, we would get some things to liven up the layout. We found Woodland Scenic ReadyGrass Sheets an easy way to add greenery to the layout. A little glue and some scissors and the grass was planted.
We also built a temporary divider down the middle of the layout using some file folders taped together. This really helps to make the layout seem bigger, since the trains disappear for a while instead of just going in circles. Plus I get 2 distinct scenes to model! We are thinking that one side will be an urban scene and the other will be a small town. I really like the Realistic Backgrounds from Duquesne Litho Specifically, we were thinking the City B and Small Town (look in the online store for very small samples).
Now we are working on getting the last of the Unitrack track pieces. Hopefully we can get all the trackwork finished and start working on the scenery. The oldest really wants to add a pond somewhere, so we’ll have to see what we can do.
See all the photos here
Good to see you got back in. Do you have the XTrkCad plan still? Maybe you can post it on you site.
What made you stop the door sized old layout? Too much to do with your kids occupying your time?
I stopped work on the door-sized layout when we moved from Denver to Dallas. Our smaller house and growing family meant that there was no space for "big boy trains". I left the layout in the garage for many years before coming to the realization that I would not get to put it back together. I finally disassembled it and made room in the garage for sports equipment and ride-on toys.
I will look at posting the XtrkCad file for this smaller layout this week. I am in the process of updating it. When I actually put the backdrop on it, I realized that some of the space might be a little cramped. So I am removing one of the sidings and simplifying things a bit.
An alternative to downsizing and removing any of the track would be to remove the divider and just model one big industry. My current thinking is to build the original layout with the inglenook and timesaver.
The interchange spur is where a local freight drops off and picks up the cars to feed the industry.
The inglenook is the small yard for the industry where cars are sorted etc.
The timesaver is where the industry is located and cars are repositioned for each of the stages in the manufacturing of whatever the industry is.
An example of an industry made for a timesaver is the paper manufacturer here:
http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/Timesaver/timesaver-layouts.html
It even incorporates the inglenook yard. And because the layout is a circle, you can let trains run if you just want to watch things go round and round.
I considered leaving the timesaver as part of the trackplan, but I considered who would ultimately be playing with the trains, and right now the kids don't have the patience to work a timesaver.
I like the backdrop instead of one industry because it gives me another scene to play with. And from the looks of it, I will to model two very different scenes.