Installing diorama in existing layout


D&J RailRoad

D&J RailRoad

Professor of HO
I was given a 4' X 4' HO scale diorama of a turntable with roundhouse. I decided on a place to put it and tie it in with existing track work.
I had to do some cutting of the diorama along with the existing benchwork to make it fit. Trimmed it down a bit from the original 4' X 4' dimensions.

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The area it will fit into has been an unreachable void on the layout.

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The turntable is controlled with a cabled control box. I don't plan to do a lot of rail movement in there. More at an abandoned facility.
Quite a bit of work still needs to be done; leveling it, aligning road bed and track, lighting and ground contour and foliage.

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Nice! I excised my own TT and roundhouse from my second layout in 2012, and kept it under wraps until a year ago when I mounted it in a space left for it on my current build. I haven't run the device yet to see if it still works, but it is quite seamless.
 
Did some more cutting to nestle the round house down into the benchwork.
Pretty much ready to tie the track into the existing lead.

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I also cut in the power distribution station that was on the diorama. Just chopped a hole in the bench near the Barstow power plant then slathered drywall plaster over the seam. Will dress it up with the next layer and get some foliage in there.

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Turn it into some sort of railroad museum, as a place to park whatever old engines you like, or people 'give you since you're into trains.' Maybe a place where locos are scrapped, like Silvis, IL, or Napporano Bros., in Newark, NJ?

It might have been a good location for a town sight, with a downtown, and houses, etc.......... but no sidings that you can't reach......
 
been tryin to program the turntable. It's the Walther's 90 foot table. I get as far as number 4 track then get messed up after that. The control box keeps showing a number up in the 30s instead of #4 like I want. Can't figure that out.
The turn table is very sensitive to dirt in the pit gearing. I had to disassemble the motor gear box to clean it up so it would run smoothly. Just one little grain of ballast would lock it up.
 
The hard part is over. Wiring the individual tracks for power then linking them to the switches on the control panel.
Crawl under the layout, solder a connection. Toss the end of the wire to the switch panel. Crawl out from under the layout and solder the connection. Solder the next wire a switch. Crawl under the layout and solder the wire to the track feed, etc.

It's amazing how many tools end up being needed for this project.
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D&J RailRoad said:
The area it will fit into has been an unreachable void on the layout.
Click to expand...
KEN -- Masterful work on making everything fit and operable - a very nice addition to the "Empire"!
You lost me on the statement above; if it's unreachable, how do you plan to retrieve any derailments, ect?
Matter of fact, how were you able to even work on it?
 
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