Toy train operating and collecting

This is the yard

This is my new MTH trolley heading out of the station on the upper loop.

This is an MTH A-A with Lionel passengers cars (5) that I am repainting into Pennsy colors. The Train is on the ramp to the upper loop.

Here is a alco switching the transfer shed on the reverse loop.

Here is the same loco switching the lumber yard on the main line.

This is what remains of an industrial rail streetcar I had that caught fire. I never would have guess it was true until I saw that others of you have had the same exprience.

MORE TO COME!~

I want to take many pics of this layout and maybe a video before it goes away. This has been a wonderful layout. My reasons for wanting to redo it come from wanting better curves (054 and 042 rather then 042 and 027), a finished room (shoulda,woulda,coulda), and a better switching run (ie:longer industries,better yards, more space in between towns and industries.

asch wrote:

My wife and I adopted a baby and and with all that goes with it I decided that it would be better to tear down the layout, finish the garage, and rebuilt it the way I am now planning rather then do the other thing I was gonna do (a 20x40x room on the lot next to my house). I may still do that in the years to come but right now I am going with the garage idea.

Congratulations!  Good luck with the baby.  I hope you have time/energy to work on the layout.

Regards,

John

Very nice layout. That looks like exactly what I'd like to accomplish. You are using 0-27 track, right? Where did you get the ties that go in between? Finally, how did you do the roadbed? In the first set of pictures, the road bed has a hint of brown. I like that. Could you email me one or two full size pictures?

The ties are hand cut popsicle sticks that are painted and put in place. I used over 5000 on this layout. There is no roadbed, a big mistake! I will use homosote on the new layout. I used catliter and woodland scenics ballest for the ballest, again a mistake that will be corrected on the new version. The cat liter looks great but does not hold the glue well enough. I will use ballest over painted homosote on the new layout.

lionel2986 wrote:

Very nice layout. That looks like exactly what I'd like to accomplish. You are using 0-27 track, right? Where did you get the ties that go in between? Finally, how did you do the roadbed? In the first set of pictures, the road bed has a hint of brown. I like that. Could you email me one or two full size pictures?

get me your email address and I will do my best! I am new this whole picture on computer stuff!

Your pictures bring up a question.  On two parallel straight tracks, is there a certain track spacing apart where railroads do not fill the void with gravel?  I noticed that some of your tracks have grass in between, and some just have gravel.  Is it all personal preference?

Wes

Personal perferance mainly with a little bit of (gasp) logic (!?!?) on my part. The main line tracks are ballested together as are the yard tracks. the industries are meant to be "off" the main lines so there is vegitation growing between them. The notable exceptions would be at the enterance to the lumber yard. I have 2 042 switches (one on each mainline) going to 2 differant industries on an "s" curve (the lumber yard as shown and a coal yard on the other track). To space everything in with the 027 type track I use there was a large gap betwwen the differant mainlines so I placed some vegitation and stuff in between to try to make it look better. The other noteable place is in the photo with the trooley on the flatcar, the track to the left is the grade up to the second level, the middle track is a team track off the high loop and the other two tracks are the mainlines.

I hope this helps

Andy

Hey asch,
I noticed that your tunnel portals don't appear to be purchased portals. Did you craft them yourself, if so what did you use? Dimensional Lumber?  I have some areas that need portals, but due to the topography I don't think I can use standard portals, so I'm going to have to build them myself...

The portals were handmade with demensional lumber(1x12). I had to do this to span areas that were on curves and needed the extra clearance.

I used a 4" circle as the starting point. I would figure out how wide the base needed to be and went about 1.5" over on each side. I would draw a straight line up the sides and a line parallel to that about 2" from the top. With the circle, I would coonet the two lines forming the arch. I cut it out using a jig saw. I would then spray paint it with either flat grey or flecstone paint. I would add a patch of flet black over the tracks as weathering.

Hope this helps.

asch,
Thanks! The dimensions is what I was looking for!