Groundbreaking.
Without much fanfare and after good portion of the day spent in moving materials around the layout room to clear space in the middle, we have groundbreaking.
Month: November 2017
Benchwork building blocks acquired
I recently had an opportunity to stop at the local HD and browse throu…oh who am I kidding, I planned to do this. I spent almost two hours at Home Depot on my day off.
First had to rent their cargo van, then some time to find a suitable dolly/platform (during weekdays it seems they are hard to find – all the contractors beat me to them), then put all the goods on, pay ($$$), and then quite a bit of time loading it all up into the van (I was on my own, and these are 10 ft. long pieces, meh).
Design for the Staging level
Note: This is a living document. It will change as often as this railroad is tweaked and tuned.
Last modified on
The following is the most recent design for the Staging level. For posterity, the previous entries will be kept below.
PECO “Creating a Model Railway” Instruction DVD video
A two part video from a PECO Instruction DVD circa 2000, with good advice for anyone entering the hobby.
Dated by timeless information covering the whole process from scale selection, layout design, benchwork construction, laying trackwork, wiring, scenery as well as operating.
Design for the Staging level
Continuing on, I have the Staging level designed and believe it workable for my needs…201 ft. of flex track (243 ft. total) though, ouch! I loath the day when I finish the design for the two helices and see 1000 feet of track needed :)
Newbridge & Lockport 1st Deck LDEs v1
Dabbling with LDEs on the 1st Deck
Planning is going ahead and the next thing I thought to tackle would be LDEs (Layout Design Elements) and where could they be located on the layout, focusing on the 1st Deck at this time.
After reading about Mark Lestico’s Cascade Sub on LDSIG Wiki, I found an interesting and new (to me) tidbit in there about determining how many LDEs would fit along the main line.
Finally, a railroad is born and named
After months of contemplating what to build, and how, finally came up with a name for the railroad:
“Newbridge & Lockport RR”
The two names come from the streets close to the area where the layout is physically located.
This fictional (freelance) railroad features a main and a branch line. Newbridge is a site of the main classification yard, while Lockport a branchline town represented through a port/pier scene. There are other towns on the layout, namely Bramshott and Shorncliffe, although still need to come up with their background and industries within.