More Progress on the Iowa St. Railroad Club


C

clyde

Member
More pictures for everybody to see. The used flex track worked great for the elevator and run around tracks. It has a bit of a wiggle to it like real sidings would. I hope everybody enjoys.
Joel
 
This is a club layout? Cool. Do you have a track plan you can post? I like what i see so far... Nowadays with the prices on flextrack, i try and reuse what i can on my layout as well, nothing wrong with that:D

please post more pictures/progress
 
Here's a bit of a rough sketch of the track plan. It will at least give you an idea. Sadly I'm the only one in the club right now but next semester two guys will be back from engineering co-ops they had this semester. The two mainlines are going to be new flex track, the branch line is a mixture of code 83 snap track and some will be flex track. The sidings are just a mixture of snap track and whatever flex track is usable.
 
Here we are more pictures! Almost all of the town area track is laid which means I'll have to make a trip to the hobby shop for more track. So bitter sweet.

1. The whole town area
2. Wobbly elevator siding and run around track
3. Elevator and depot.
4. Oil tanks

Some of the plan has changed based off of track supply and other factors.
 
1. I want to bring the track out of town and elevate the branch line over the mainline and bring it back down to connect along the back wall. Not quite sure if it will work or how I'm going to go about it but we're going with it :D
2.Need to purchase a right handed switch before this small section will get done.
3. A crossing will go here eventually...
4. and here will be a small rock and sand dealer with a conveyor to unload railcars.
 
You mentioned you had recently acquired a room.........I assume this is on campus someplace? That's pretty cool.....especially for a club of one. Not a bad little track plan either. I attended ISU for a year way back when......then changed majors and transfered. I don't remember a train club back then .
 
It's in Spangler Geotechnical Lab. It's not used for anything but some storage, the layout, and the Civil Engineering concrete conoe team. The club was started in 2001. I should have posted this earlier but there is a website with our trips and such on there. There's also pictures of the first layout and a link to a youtube video of a session. http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/railroad/

Joel
 
So since I'm a beginner I have a few questions. I'm starting to run out of usable track and won't be able to buy large quantities at a time so I was going to start a few feeder wires so I'd be able to start with some of the scenery. I know nothing about wiring or soldering. Can I get a good connection through rail joiners without soldering the rail? and do I need feeders every three feet or so, or can I go further? Thanks.

Joel
 
I have soldered feeders to rail joiners (prior to installation) and it can save a lot of wear and tear on track if you aren't the best at soldering. I've never been able to detect any problems with the method (use NEW joiners), but it would be very easy to go back and solder the joiners at a later date after you get a little more experience. Many people solder all the joints anyway. The more feeders, the more reliable your track will be, but there's obviously a point of diminishing returns. I do every 5 feet (every other section of flex track in N scale) and have no problems. Our NTRAK club does one feeder on each module (modules are 4 foot long) . Obviously sectional track will have more joints than flex track and will benifit from extra feeders.
 
Thank you Dave, I'll practice some soldering on some junk track before I do anything to try to get a hang of it. The branch line that goes through the town area is snap track just because we had a new bag of 9 in. pieces. I'll probably go ever 3ft or less to be safe there. The sidings are a mix of snap track and flex track it's just what would fit and what was usable. So I'll go with two on the run around track and the siding in from of the depot and one on the elevator track since it won't really need power all the way through. Do you think that sounds alright? My focus is on the town area just because I want to use all new flex track on the mainlines but like I said earlier I can't buy large quantities at a time so I'm just going to do what I can until it can all come together.
 
Well after today all of the track is laid in the town area (I need to give the town a name someday). The curves where the branch connects with the main are pretty tight there won't be any 6 axle locomotives going through there but that's fine by me. I rolled a dummy gp50 with a few grain hoppers and it should work fine unless somebody decides to set a new land speed record. On the otherside of the walkway I moved the elevator and reversed the sidings from the original plan. So now I think I'll run a river through where the elevator was.
 
I also couldn't help myself and had to do a little scenery work away from the tracks. This is the first time I've messed with any turf so it's a little rough but I still think it turned out half way descent.

"The Forgotten Siding"
 
Yea you better get to catching up Iron Man lol No I just had to play around a little bit. Laying track gets a little boring after a while.
 
Dont you worry, i will get there. I know what you mean about doing the samething for so long and it get boring.
I will be starting to lay track very soon, i am just finishing up my rolling mill. I learnt a very good lesson years ago about having such large buildings.
A friend of mine bought alot of the steel mill buildings when they first came out, they were all built and then when it came to place them, none of them whould fit anywhere on his layout.
Some of his track and turnouts were hand laid, so all the buildings were sold off.

cheers Ewan
 
It is good that you're planning your buildings then. That would be terrible to have everythiong planned out then not have room. I can't wait to see your layout when you get some track down though.
 
The scenery looks good to me what you have. What did you use for the dirt? Is that real dirt?
 
It is actually the woodland scenics mixed turf and a little bit of fine yellow grass. When I do more it needs a little fine green mixed in so it has a little life to it. But thank you I thought it turn out pretty good.
 
I have a couple more pictures to add today. I'm starting to plan the approach for the branch line to cross over the mainline. I need some help with this. It shouldn't be too much of a grade. I don't know if I should make it with foam, plaster or a mixture, and it will be tough since it will have to be curved a little bit. Open to suggestions. :) The last picture is the plan for the main street crossing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top