A&D Railroad (Our new layout)

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TRAINFAN9510

TRAINFAN9510

Member
Now that we are getting settled into our new house, its time to start construction of our new layout! Below is a quick AutoCad sketch of our idea. It will be a 18'x16'x16' layout with about a 96' mainline run. The green represents proposed track, the red is benchwork, and the purple is proposed roads. We just bought the wood to start benchwork so we will keep you guys up to date on our progress. Feel free to share thoughts/ideas/concerns!

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WOW! Looks like a great project to get started on!! Cant wait to see some progress pics...
 
Before ya start putting up benchwork, ya might want to start with painting the walls for a sky horizon. Build your scenery on that and you will be pleased with the results.
 


CbarM said:
WOW! Looks like a great project to get started on!! Cant wait to see some progress pics...
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Thank ya! We are pretty excited. Working on getting the garage cleaned out right now so we can have a nice place to cut wood, but we should be rolling soon.

D&J RailRoad said:
Before ya start putting up benchwork, ya might want to start with painting the walls for a sky horizon. Build your scenery on that and you will be pleased with the results.
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We cant paint the walls since we are renting the house for now, but we are going to put the backdrop on some kind of board. But I agree, the background scenery if done right can really add realism.
 
I am renting the house I am in right now too and I have my 12'x18' layout in half the loft and I am almost drooling to have a 12'x33' layout running around the whole loft, but it would mean cutting tunnels in 3 walls... :-(
Hoping to buy this place in late spring and that will be the first thing that gets done before the ink is dry on the transfer papers :-)
 
CbarM said:
I am renting the house I am in right now too and I have my 12'x18' layout in half the loft and I am almost drooling to have a 12'x33' layout running around the whole loft, but it would mean cutting tunnels in 3 walls... :-(
Hoping to buy this place in late spring and that will be the first thing that gets done before the ink is dry on the transfer papers :-)
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A 12x33 would be awesome, but I dont think your landlord would appreciate 3 new "additions" to the house lol. At first we were going to just put our old 4x8 in the basement, but we realized it wouldnt fit. So we decided to start fresh. We originally had it just in one corner, but then decided to go big and do it in 3/4 of the basement (had to have sooome space for the weights lol). IT is designed in sections so it can be easily taken apart and moved. We were just lucky enough to get a house that has a big open basement instead of one that is sectioned off into rooms. Hopefully the house works out for ya and you can build what you really want! The first thing we did when we looked at this place was run to the basement and see what it looked like. The landlord immediately gave us this worried look like, "what are your intentions with this, growing weed?" LOL
 
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HAHA!! The Weed Railroad Co.!! I hear ya about runnin to the basement right away. It was kinda like years ago when I was railfanning and taking slides...we were out of town staying in a motel overnight and the 4 of us all brought our most recent slides and one guy brought his projector. When we checked into the motel we asked if we could have a room with white walls...the guy at the counter had probably the same kinda WTF look on his face HAHA!!
 
LOL!! That is to funny. Im glad we arent the only ones that freak people out with our railroad hobbies. After we explained to him we were planning on putting a model train layout down there the relieved look on his face was priceless haha
 
Alright we finally got the benchwork completed (minus touchup and painting) From left to right is: an overall shot of the layout (Yes it is a bit cut off because I couldnt stand back far enough to get the whole layout in the shot lol), what will be the trainyard, what will be the town (the green 4x8 was the foam from our old 4x8, which will now be made into a mountain/scenery), and another overall shot.
 
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Here are some more pics. From left to right is: what will be the future airport, my scratchbuilt bridge that connects the airport to the rest of the layout, our adjustable feet, and our workbench.
 


Thanks man, and the frame is made out of 1x4 "topchoice" whitewood with 7/16 OSB sheeting for the top. The legs are 2x4's and the feet are 5/8"x2" bolts with 5/8" nuts.
 
Thanks for the info, I looked at the photos and said "that's perfect" for the switching layout I'll be building over the next 4-5 months.


-Jeff
 
HOLA!! Pics finally!! Looks like a hell of a good start!! You will have fun building that one im very sure!! Keep us updated!! Good idea on the adjustable feet...something I didnt do and am really wishing I did...
 
nwdrummer379 said:
Thanks for the info, I looked at the photos and said "that's perfect" for the switching layout I'll be building over the next 4-5 months.


-Jeff
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Glad I could help. Our yard is a 3x8' section, with another 4x8' section with a notch cut out. This was so we could keep the 3' width, but have a 22" radius for the train to go around at the end of the yard. Good luck on your yard and post some pics when you get some progress!

CbarM said:
HOLA!! Pics finally!! Looks like a hell of a good start!! You will have fun building that one im very sure!! Keep us updated!! Good idea on the adjustable feet...something I didnt do and am really wishing I did...
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Haha yeah yeah I know lol. I would have had some pic yesterday but we went to fostoria to watch trains all day so I didnt have time. But yeah we cant wait to get things going. And yeah the adjustable feet were a life saver. It is a joke how uneven the basement floor is, and there was no way I was measuring and leveling out the exact measurements on what to cut the legs, and I didnt really like the shim idea. And this way if we move it can easily be re-leveled. Im sure if you really wanted to you could take off each of your legs individually and add them, but from what I saw your layout is doing just fine :D lol
 
Trainfan9519;

Looks like a great start. I am certain it will only get better as it progresses.

One thing though, your workbench is ENTIRELY TOO CLEAN!!!! LOL

Thanks for sharing the progress so far. Looking to see more 'installments' in the near future.

Happy railroading,

Dan Harriman
modeling the GTW circa 1976ish in
Orange Texas
 
fotoflojoe said:
Nice work!
I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the airport island concept!
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Haha thanks. It will have LED's lighting the runway and a glide slope indicator as well. It will have the same runway numbers as the airport where I learned to fly at. (7 and 25 via KEDJ). Ill probably add a helipad as well, and I already have the control tower and fuel tanks, so Ill probably end up scratch building a hangar at some point.

kc5gxl said:
Trainfan9519;

Looks like a great start. I am certain it will only get better as it progresses.

One thing though, your workbench is ENTIRELY TOO CLEAN!!!! LOL

Thanks for sharing the progress so far. Looking to see more 'installments' in the near future.

Happy railroading,

Dan Harriman
modeling the GTW circa 1976ish in
Orange Texas
Click to expand...

Thanks, and yeah I admit I cleaned up the workbench before taking that pic lol. I assure you it doesnt look like that now haha
 
Wow your benchwork looks great. It about the same exact stuff I used.

I also really like that bridge, very cool looking.

Like the others, I can't wait to see your airport. Just like the wonderland layout in Germany.
 


Motley said:
Wow your benchwork looks great. It about the same exact stuff I used.

I also really like that bridge, very cool looking.

Like the others, I can't wait to see your airport. Just like the wonderland layout in Germany.
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Thanks for the comments. Sorry to disapoint, but the airport wont be as fancy as the one in Germany lol there wont be any planes taking off by themselves (I wish I had the money and space to do that though!). Its going to be a smaller airport, with the biggest plane being about a leer jet (The airport is semi modeled after the one I learned to fly at in Bellefontaine). I am going to get the LED's for it once my supplier gets their ebay page back up, and ill post some pics after we make some worthy progress lol
 
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