Progress...
A condition that has been all to rare recently on my model railway.
Slightly over a month ago, I finally came to a workable layout plan and posted about it. After that, I made some small progress towards constructing benchwork for that layout, and then stopped working on almost anything model railway related. Now, though, with the start of summer break from school, I have a great deal more time to work on the layout, and should start getting things accomplished (or so I like to tell myself, though I'm not sure how true that is...).
There is, in fact, a fair amount to show in terms of progress from the last week. I managed to finish benchwork for the two main sections of layout, as well as attaching foam board layout surface. Additionally, I assembled a kit for a Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo railway 40 foot hopper, which I plan to use for gravel service to supply the Canada Builders Material plant. While the facility itself is not modeled on the layout, I think that it is a fairly safe assumption that cars would have been stored at the team tracks for future use by Canada Builders Material, or, perhaps the company would have used the team tracks as well as its own private sidings during busy times.
As regards benchwork construction, there is nothing new or novel about my approach to it, so I won't bore you with descriptions of how I assembled modules from various lengths of 1x3 inch pine boards. I did, however, find one pleasant surprise during this process, as it turns out that the main two modules of my layout can reside semi-permanently down the center of the storage room, so I wont have to regularly store the layout in a collapsed state. The layout is still portable, and to operate it is necessary to attach a temporary staging module, but it will make layout construction a fair amount easier and more appealing to have the main sections assembled all the time.
At this point, the layout is almost ready to for track construction, as the inch-thick foam board layout surface has been attached to the wood layout frames with wood glue. This afternoon, I marked out the rough locations of the track center lines with a permanent marker, before painting the areas that will eventually be covered in track brown with a coat of cheap craft paint. This way, any gaps in the ballast (when I eventually get to that stage of construction) should be less noticeable, as light brown will show through rather than bright pink.
Track construction will hopefully begin soon.
Slightly over a month ago, I finally came to a workable layout plan and posted about it. After that, I made some small progress towards constructing benchwork for that layout, and then stopped working on almost anything model railway related. Now, though, with the start of summer break from school, I have a great deal more time to work on the layout, and should start getting things accomplished (or so I like to tell myself, though I'm not sure how true that is...).
It turns out that the two main layout sections fit nicely in the center of the storage room between two closet doors.
A side view of the model railway, showing the two main scenic sections.
As regards benchwork construction, there is nothing new or novel about my approach to it, so I won't bore you with descriptions of how I assembled modules from various lengths of 1x3 inch pine boards. I did, however, find one pleasant surprise during this process, as it turns out that the main two modules of my layout can reside semi-permanently down the center of the storage room, so I wont have to regularly store the layout in a collapsed state. The layout is still portable, and to operate it is necessary to attach a temporary staging module, but it will make layout construction a fair amount easier and more appealing to have the main sections assembled all the time.
Cheap brown craft paint was painted on where track is eventually to be located.
Same thing, though from the other end of the layout. Each of the painted straight sections will hold two parallel tracks.
At this point, the layout is almost ready to for track construction, as the inch-thick foam board layout surface has been attached to the wood layout frames with wood glue. This afternoon, I marked out the rough locations of the track center lines with a permanent marker, before painting the areas that will eventually be covered in track brown with a coat of cheap craft paint. This way, any gaps in the ballast (when I eventually get to that stage of construction) should be less noticeable, as light brown will show through rather than bright pink.
Track construction will hopefully begin soon.
Hi Sam,
ReplyDeleteLooking great! Your storage room looks like it has excellent lighting too. The semi-permanent set-up must be a relief as it will save much time in setup. And, as usual, a great post. Please keep us up to date as best you can. You've got something special going on there!
Take Care
Rick
Hi Rick,
DeleteThanks! The storage room has good lighting in part because it was meant to be a finished bedroom rather than for storage. It should be much more convenient (and probably better for the layout) to have it assembled semi-permanently. Also, I think I might end up using a version of your cassette staging design for the staging section of this layout.
- Sam
Thanks for looking in on my ramblings re: staging cassette....if I remember correctly, your new layout is 14" wide with a 10-degree dog-leg. How is the stability? What is your rail height from the floor? I've had a desire to build MR2G - I really ought to finish Fillmore or get more completed first :)
DeleteThe layout is fairly stable, though I added 1x3 connectors to tie the bottoms of the legs together, which helps stabilize the layout, though it makes it a bit less portable. Before I added the connectors, though, it was a bit unstable.
DeleteRail height is nominally 45 inches from the ground - though that is only because I had legs pre-cut to that length from a previous project, and I can't think of the reasoning behind that. It works fairly well, however, as the legs would fit within one of the layout sections when collapsed.
For the tray assembly that you designed to hold the cassettes, how long would you make the mounting plate? I've been trying to come up with a way to attach staging to the layout and that seems a more secure way to do so than anything I've thought up.
Thanks for the info, 45" is what I designed MR2G to. Glad your benchwork is stable, adding the braces is good and necessary.
DeleteThe mounting plate for the cassette tray is about 4" long (high). The design shown for Cassettes Mk1 & 2 is 24" long. That might be the max or too much for the cantilever nature of the design. You could always add a leg with a leveling foot like in my MR2G concept if you feel it is unstable. Hope I understood your question correctly.
Cheers
Thanks - those were the dimensions I needed.
DeleteThe brace helps prevent wobble - a diagonal brace, making the legs look a bit like a capital N, would help even more. The dog leg should help the overall stability of the structure. (If there is no triangulation, i.e. the diagonal braces, then you run the risk of it not being a structure, but a machine, technically speaking.)
ReplyDeleteA diagonal brace would make it more stable, but it would come at the cost of making the layout harder to disassemble and reassemble, and hence, make it less portable. At this point, I have not had any problems with stability with only the lower cross brace, but diagonal braces would be a good solution if or when I do have more problems with layout stability.
Delete