father son layout starts

[jessejames]

hi guys new here dont know if i'm posting in the right spot, this last christmas i built a small holiday layout for the kids and wound up giving the train bug to my father... who came to my house and watched an old mantua pacific go around my simple double oval under my christmas tree, for hours... about a week or so after new years i get phone call "i bought all the lumber, but i need some help" Wood for what dad? "my layout!" needless to say i was there the next weekend. my father and i made short work of the frame work and decking for the berkshire valley route from the king size plan book... then we went up to the loft and started going through all stuff we had gotten over years of trainshows... wow didnt remember half the stuff.... heres an early picture, alot has been changed since... the slot car track is old us-1 trucking to run coal back and forth from the trains... the track is tru-scale and just layed out too see what we had... and new decking has been cut to provide for larger radius curves the layout now measures 5'x12' instead of 4'x12' thanks for looking!

 

[enjineerbill]

Hi JesseJames,

What a neat story. Glad to see you and your dad giving it a go. Looks to me like you started smart and didn't try to build a monster that would get out of control, but rather a great starter that could easily be intergrated into a larger layout if you wish. Looks good and thanks for sharing.

Johnny

 

[stationmaster]

The "rabbit hole" in the attic is something I can relate to. I just found a bunch of boxes, not talking about Athearn Blue Boxes, I'm talking boxes large enough for moving day. I remembered buying each item. I had put them away to either be repaired or built. Signs of my membership in the GPC(Great Procrastinators Club).

I was raised with trains, went away, came back, went away, came back....here now. I'm sure that Dad will enjoy the hobby once again. He will surely be surprised at the advances in the just past 10 years alone.

Kudos to Dad, and welcome back.

Bob

 

[jessejames]

thanks for the encouragment,here is some updates future expansion is already in the planning stages, for a 4x8 triangle yard module with 6+ stall heljan roundhouse, 15" wilson turntable we have started laying trackwork & working out bugs in the trackwork and switches. on the berkshire valley route, the truscale track is tuff to work with, some of the radius track is out of gauge...i'm talking my father into rerouting the slot car track to be a little more hidden and only pop up were needed, no matter how much weathering and detailing is done to it its still ugly and out of scale, but still useful to make operating more enjoyable... we started out, and the only thing that would run is an 0-6-0 american flyer switcher but we've gotten up to mikado size engines, thats about the largest engine this layout will support without looking funny... still needs some tweaking, i would like to run some of our larger engines like a challenger,bigboy,allegehny,and mallet, even though they would look out of place, it would be nice to see them run. but we're having fun doing it and dont care if its ever finished, its kinda on hold for a little while my father wont work on it without me, and i'm not able to get out to my parents house, my wife and i are expecting a future model railroader to arrive in the next couple of weeks, gonna have to get a pink engineer hat! i have also started my own small layout, i improved one of my fathers designs, and since named it the "bershire valley spur line" on a 4'x6'8" cookie cutter, out of flex track/cork roadbed it has a 22" radius main line oval and 18" radius over/under figure 8 with snap switches to get back and forth... tight curves and big grades. nice for logging... hopefully i have better luck with operation than my father did with it... but his was on a 3'x6' with 18" mainline and 15" figure 8 updated pics soon thanks for reading!