GandG_North
Member
Thanks for the ideas, otiscnj.
Yes, one drawback to this layout is the 18" radius curves, but I'll just learn to live with it. I constructed this layout way back when I was in my 20's. I didn't know anything (and still have lots to learn) about railroading or model railroading at the time, I just liked the way this layout looked. And it fit in the room I had available at the time. And now, it's about as big as I'm willing to go at the moment, when considering cost and having to maintain larger layouts.
I think today, if I knew what I know now, I would lean towards using a foam base. But I've got what I've got, and it's a little retro feeling to use old-school methods. I'll just try to avoid putting asbestos fiber in any of my plaster (which my old scenery booklet mentions as a method of strengthening modelling compound).
Jerry Hensler has some videos on YouTube of his layout. He started out with a 5'x9' GG&N layout but scratched that and went with a 6'x11', with a yard added on a small additional area. I'm not sure what radius he ended up using.
I've given the scenery a lot (too much) of thought and ended up following the herd with the mountain locations. Although all I've worked on are tunnels, I've got a lot of time invested in them and don't want to redo. I'll admit I've probably gone a little overboard with them, with the plaster and all, but they look like blasted holes. But they've taken a lot of time. One thing I'm trying to do is have a valley in one corner, so you'll get a glimpse of the trains leaving one portal and entering another. Which also means more tunnel portals. But these won't be as visible from the front of the layout, so I'm going to try a different construction process on these corner ones. I just didn't want the trains to be covered under a tunnel for 1/4 of the time.
I really struggle when it comes to the creative side of things. I've also come to realize that grand, tall mountains come with another issue, that of accessibility. If I were to make them as tall as I would like, I won't be able to reach them easily for any kind of landscape work, so I'm going to have to cut back on my visions of grandeur. I've tried to come up with a way to make sections removeable in order to make them accessible but can't wrap my head around that...still researching. Also thought about cutting a hole in the middle of the right-side section, but there's not enough room to make a hole that I can fit up through.
I can't really make too much headway on the scenery anyways just yet. I need to weather and ballast the track first. I ordered ballast from Arizona Rock and Mineral about 2 weeks ago, haven't heard anything about my order, which I understand is not unusual. I've just been trying to do some mock-ups so I can see how bad my mountains will look. I'm thinking about putting in a road to nowhere at the top of whatever hill/mountain I end up. I don't know how well that would look. In my mind the road is mostly hidden behind trees, but still obvious there is a road there. Then I thought it would be cool to make it look like cars were driving on the road, especially at night, so all you would see would be headlights or taillights flashing through the trees. I'm curious if that could be done with just very closely spaced LEDs that are sequenced to look like moving vehicle headlights (or taillights) (rather than having to physically make model cars move), controlled by an arduino. That's way on down the road.
The road may also present a place to model a bridge over the valley area. But all on a 5' wide area, so not sure how it would look.
Enough ramblin' for today.
Yes, one drawback to this layout is the 18" radius curves, but I'll just learn to live with it. I constructed this layout way back when I was in my 20's. I didn't know anything (and still have lots to learn) about railroading or model railroading at the time, I just liked the way this layout looked. And it fit in the room I had available at the time. And now, it's about as big as I'm willing to go at the moment, when considering cost and having to maintain larger layouts.
I think today, if I knew what I know now, I would lean towards using a foam base. But I've got what I've got, and it's a little retro feeling to use old-school methods. I'll just try to avoid putting asbestos fiber in any of my plaster (which my old scenery booklet mentions as a method of strengthening modelling compound).
Jerry Hensler has some videos on YouTube of his layout. He started out with a 5'x9' GG&N layout but scratched that and went with a 6'x11', with a yard added on a small additional area. I'm not sure what radius he ended up using.
I've given the scenery a lot (too much) of thought and ended up following the herd with the mountain locations. Although all I've worked on are tunnels, I've got a lot of time invested in them and don't want to redo. I'll admit I've probably gone a little overboard with them, with the plaster and all, but they look like blasted holes. But they've taken a lot of time. One thing I'm trying to do is have a valley in one corner, so you'll get a glimpse of the trains leaving one portal and entering another. Which also means more tunnel portals. But these won't be as visible from the front of the layout, so I'm going to try a different construction process on these corner ones. I just didn't want the trains to be covered under a tunnel for 1/4 of the time.
I really struggle when it comes to the creative side of things. I've also come to realize that grand, tall mountains come with another issue, that of accessibility. If I were to make them as tall as I would like, I won't be able to reach them easily for any kind of landscape work, so I'm going to have to cut back on my visions of grandeur. I've tried to come up with a way to make sections removeable in order to make them accessible but can't wrap my head around that...still researching. Also thought about cutting a hole in the middle of the right-side section, but there's not enough room to make a hole that I can fit up through.
I can't really make too much headway on the scenery anyways just yet. I need to weather and ballast the track first. I ordered ballast from Arizona Rock and Mineral about 2 weeks ago, haven't heard anything about my order, which I understand is not unusual. I've just been trying to do some mock-ups so I can see how bad my mountains will look. I'm thinking about putting in a road to nowhere at the top of whatever hill/mountain I end up. I don't know how well that would look. In my mind the road is mostly hidden behind trees, but still obvious there is a road there. Then I thought it would be cool to make it look like cars were driving on the road, especially at night, so all you would see would be headlights or taillights flashing through the trees. I'm curious if that could be done with just very closely spaced LEDs that are sequenced to look like moving vehicle headlights (or taillights) (rather than having to physically make model cars move), controlled by an arduino. That's way on down the road.
The road may also present a place to model a bridge over the valley area. But all on a 5' wide area, so not sure how it would look.
Enough ramblin' for today.