Exploring the World of Model Railroading
I spent the day contemplating whether all 3 decks need to be built on the peninsula all at once or not, but more on that another time…A more immediate snag came up where some of the fixtures are in the way, while other accessory items need to be redone altogether. That’s what happens when you are building a railroad in a finished basement…
Everyone should be aware by now that laying track directly on top of Extruded (XPS) Foam creates a “drum effect”. Over at the Model Railroad Hobbyist forum there had been some great threads (Foam Drum, Foam Drum II) about this issue, some good science behind it, and possible solutions to minimizing the effect.
It has been a bit on a slow side past week as the shipment of track and turnouts for the Staging level is still somewhere in the cross-country Post Office pre-Holiday mess. Should’ve ordered these items much sooner, but a local hobby shop kept spinning me in circles for two weeks telling me how they would be able to get these items at a fair price, just to backtrack afterwards both on the price and delivery times.
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.
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).
Note: This is a living document. It will change as often as this railroad is tweaked and tuned.
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The following is the most recent design for the Staging level. For posterity, the previous entries will be kept below.
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 :)
