Lateral-G
Chief Test Pilot
Well, after about a 5 year hiatus I'm getting back into model railroading. My previous N-scale layout was a shelf one of about 25' x 6' filling up an entire wall of the basement in my old house. Unfortunately a divorce required me to sell the house and the layout was not portable. I had to abandon it in place. The equipment, locos, rolling stock and everything else went up on ebay.
Now I got the itch to run trains again. This time it'll be in HO and narrow gauge. One of my favorite layouts was the San Juan Central by Malcolm Furlow. I still have the book he wrote on building it. After a bit of head scratching, measuring, playing with photodraw, Train Player (w/Track Layer) and tossing out a lot of junk in the basement I'll be able to build a dedicated 11x14 room for it. Although I wish it could be bigger it's not going to happen. That's the space I've ended up with and that's what I have to work with.
It wasn't without it's challenges, however. Fixed locations of a window, sump pump and circuit breaker panel made planning how to make things fit a bit difficult. I've attached a plan of the room and layout. I've even tried it out in Train Player and have had a few good sessions.
I poured through many, many track plans (in Linn Wescott's book plus back issues of MR as well as the internet) and tried a few of my own designs but I kept coming back to the SJC one. Track planning is not my forte and I'd rather not do a design and then end up hating it several years down the road. The SJC can give me continuous running as well as some switching operations to make things interesting.
I'll be using ME code 55 flex track and making my own turnouts with Fast Tracks turnout building jigs. Curve radii are between 19" and 20". The plan is to use DigiTrax DCC. I've already got a Blackstone K-27.
Let me know what you guys think....
-G-
Now I got the itch to run trains again. This time it'll be in HO and narrow gauge. One of my favorite layouts was the San Juan Central by Malcolm Furlow. I still have the book he wrote on building it. After a bit of head scratching, measuring, playing with photodraw, Train Player (w/Track Layer) and tossing out a lot of junk in the basement I'll be able to build a dedicated 11x14 room for it. Although I wish it could be bigger it's not going to happen. That's the space I've ended up with and that's what I have to work with.
It wasn't without it's challenges, however. Fixed locations of a window, sump pump and circuit breaker panel made planning how to make things fit a bit difficult. I've attached a plan of the room and layout. I've even tried it out in Train Player and have had a few good sessions.
I poured through many, many track plans (in Linn Wescott's book plus back issues of MR as well as the internet) and tried a few of my own designs but I kept coming back to the SJC one. Track planning is not my forte and I'd rather not do a design and then end up hating it several years down the road. The SJC can give me continuous running as well as some switching operations to make things interesting.
I'll be using ME code 55 flex track and making my own turnouts with Fast Tracks turnout building jigs. Curve radii are between 19" and 20". The plan is to use DigiTrax DCC. I've already got a Blackstone K-27.
Let me know what you guys think....
-G-