Hello everyone, does anyone have any idea when the Kato track pack for MR's Salt Lake Route will be availiable? I called my local hobby shop today and they said it wasnt yet out, but the new MR magazine has it listed as item 20-2010. I'm really looking forward to building this layout. Thanks!
steve
geepersHello everyone, does anyone have any idea when the Kato track pack for MR's Salt Lake Route will be availiable? I called my local hobby shop today and they said it wasnt yet out, but the new MR magazine has it listed as item 20-2010. I'm really looking forward to building this layout. Thanks! steve
According to this site: http://www.pwrs.ca/announcements/view.php?ID=3118
It'll be out in April and can be yours for only $760.00! :)
hi,
and for 760 dollars you will be building a layout that's great for shows, but definitely not the best roommate
Have funPaul
According to this, the track pack will be available mid of this month.
I still find the advertised price of $ 600 quite high. The layout can also be built using other track systems, i.e Peco Code 55 or Atlas Code 55. Flex track will also avoid this "boxy" appearance. I calculated the price on the basis of Atlas track to be about half of what Kato is asking!
I do like the layout a lot, but it has some shortcomings. It definitively lacks staging facilities, enabling you to "change" trains on your layout.
The price is ABSURDly high, even at the discounted rate. But Kato knows there are plenty of people out there who are scared to death to work with flex track, or use a soldering iron, or spread their own ballast. And MR caters to those people by failing to teach them how to do anything other than swipe a credit card.
Give me $600 and I'll build a layout the same size with better looking track, twice as many scratch built structures, DCC AND a train. Hey, I've been doing so much with so little for so long, I can now do just about anything with NOTHING!
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
wm3798 The price is ABSURDly high, even at the discounted rate. But Kato knows there are plenty of people out there who are scared to death to work with flex track, or use a soldering iron, or spread their own ballast. And MR caters to those people by failing to teach them how to do anything other than swipe a credit card.
I've been saying this for several years.
That price is out of control. I am building my version of the Carolina Central, a design that's been duplicated dozens of times, based on what I read. The two-part series on building it showed people how to build it, not how to buy stuff. That means, for the price of the "Track pack" being discussed, you could build the whole CC layout.
That's what we need.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that I converted MR´s kato-based track plan to Atlas code 55 # 5 and # 7 switches and flex track.
This is what it looks like:
I am still pondering how to integrate staging into this plan - just for the fun of it, not to build this layout.
I will go out of my way to tell everyone how terrible Kato track is. I wasted about $1000 on it in n-scale. Does anyone here even realize that even if everything is fine that at the very least it will turn yellow in a few years due to light exposure? Does anyone know that? It does! I threw about half of what I had out in the garbage. Yes literally threw it away! Those pieces were all ballasted and detailed which was a severe pain. I modified many #4 turnouts because trains always derailed on them. It was the same ones each time and it wasn't a wheel gauge issue. What bits I have left that can be reused are in a box ready to be sold. If you have any intention of really detailing a layout, build this plan with something better than Kato track. That article is nice but the track still looks like plastic roadbed Kato to me. I have no idea why anyone pushes that stuff. It's is over rated and expensive.
Hi Ulrich,
this small N-scale layout allready needs a 11 x 9 space. The big question is: may staging be added, or not, on an extra shelf?
Paul
Hi Paul,
you are right! Either you integrate staging into the plan to keep its footprint (which I don´t see how this could be achieved) or you make better use of the actual space requirement of 11 x 9 feet in form of an around-the-wall layout like the one you have designed on the basis of the La & SL Route idea. Just adding staging on an extra shelf is of no use!
Still, the dang thing is a highly attractive display layout - due to the breathtaking scenic features Dick Christianson has built.
If the right side of the drawing is located against the wall, and the other three sides are "walkable", then I would eliminate the little yard that's on there, and build a wye track from the main toward the corner, and run a branch to a shelf module with a 5 or 6 track yard. This would give you maximum flexibility, and allow you to run a train out of the yard in either direction on the layout.
In the yard, include a longish a/d track with a run around to get the engines back around, and you can amuse yourself for hours.
Since the track plan is a simple double track oval, you'd have to add another crossover to get from the yard to the inner loop in the correct direction, but other than that, it looks pretty easy to work out.
fredswain I will go out of my way to tell everyone how terrible Kato track is. I wasted about $1000 on it in n-scale. Does anyone here even realize that even if everything is fine that at the very least it will turn yellow in a few years due to light exposure? Does anyone know that? It does! I threw about half of what I had out in the garbage. Yes literally threw it away! Those pieces were all ballasted and detailed which was a severe pain. I modified many #4 turnouts because trains always derailed on them. It was the same ones each time and it wasn't a wheel gauge issue. What bits I have left that can be reused are in a box ready to be sold. If you have any intention of really detailing a layout, build this plan with something better than Kato track. That article is nice but the track still looks like plastic roadbed Kato to me. I have no idea why anyone pushes that stuff. It's is over rated and expensive.
hello, does anyone know if Atlas makes a double cross over in N scale?
And yet last year, MR built the MILW Beer Line which involved some pretty sophisticated carpentry for the benchwork since it could be assembled in no fewer than 3 configurations. Additionally, the track work was flex track. Not only that, the layout offered some pretty involved operations.
Fast forward to this year, and Dick Christianson's fascination with Kato's superelevated curves leads him to build this year's project layout with Kato sectional track. All of a sudden the accusations start flying that MR caters to people who only know how to spend money and any hint that people even vaguely remember last year's project was pretty sophisticated (probably one of the most sophisticated MR's ever done) is totally lost in the outrage that MR would even dare to use Kato track on a layout.
Come on people, get real. Are your memories that short? Especially you N scalers who have had an RTR hobby from the very inception of the scale at least in respect to equipment.
As our British friends would opine: WHAT A LOAD OF CODSWALLOP!
EDIT: Kato's a Japanese company whose primary market is Japan. You want to blame someone, blame the Japanese N scaler for not being into flextrack and soldering. It would be dumb to do so, but if it makes you feel better.
There's Kato USA and then there's Kato: http://www.katomodels.com/distribution/stock_e2.shtml
Andre
andrechapelonFast forward to this year, and Dick Christianson's fascination with Kato's superelevated curves leads him to build this year's project layout with Kato sectional track. All of a sudden the accusations start flying that MR caters to people who only know how to spend money and any hint that people even vaguely remember last year's project was pretty sophisticated (probably one of the most sophisticated MR's ever done) is totally lost in the outrage that MR would even dare to use Kato track on a layout.
The fact that last year's layout was pretty good does not invalidate the opinion that a project layout that calls for $600-$700 in track alone is just silly.
So much for those columns refuting the argument that this is a "rich man's hobby."
MR´s project layout is a fascinating venue. Granted, the track plan may not be the right thing for the operation oriented modeler, and Kato`s Unitrack certainly has its shortcomings, but the intriguing point is, that this good looking layout has been built with materials readily available at nearly every LHS. MR impressively demonstrates, what can be achieved when skills are not as refined as those of some of the posters in here.
No doubt, that this is successfully attracting more people to the hobby - people, who may have shunned back before, and that is something really good for all of us.
Well done, Dick and MR!
Andre wrote:
"Come on people, get real. Are your memories that short? Especially you N scalers who have had an RTR hobby from the very inception of the scale at least in respect to equipment."
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
You HO guys have more off-the-rack RTR EVERYTHING, not to mention every imaginable detail part just in case the manufacturers overlooked putting the engineman's lunch pail under the seat, or you need the one of a kind light kit for an East Keersarge and Timbuktu GP-37 and a half... Thank goodness Walther's keeps HO scalers spoon fed with Hulett machines, sky scrapers and automobile plants the NEVER fit on an HO home layout... Then refuses to make them in N scale because no one buys the HO version... (psst - here's a secret: you can model bigger cities, industries and rail facilities in N scale!)
N scalers have had to improvise, scratch build and kitbash just about EVERYTHING for generations. Only recently have a few smaller manufacturers stepped up to the plate and started to produce some of the missing links.
And as far as engines and rolling stock, only since the late 1980's has N scale had offerings that even barely approached the variety and detail that HO has enjoyed for eons. Dedicated N scalers were delighted with the challenge of detailing their equipment to improve the performance and appearance, at the same time we were frustrated as hell that parts were nearly impossible to find, decals were scarce, and that some models were just plum not available.
Then of course, once completed, some clod with a blinking crossbucks on his hat looks down his nose at it says "how cute."
No Andre, N Scale has NOT been RTR from the inception... It has been a challenge. And a challenge that a few of us have truly relished and thrived on. To smugly declare otherwise shows how little respect you have for modelers who have to be a little more clever and work a little bit harder to get what they want.
In a way, it's great that MR is promoting the scale with the current project layout. I just think they should offer up the option to challenge the modeler to work a little harder, learn a little more, and spend a little less to get, in the end, a much better looking and far more satisfying result.
In my mind it's another clear example of product placement from a major advertiser trumping the discussion of anything truly meaningful.