Outdoor layout


G

Greg Elems

Member
Just outside Reno Nevada, a 550' outdoor layout has been built. It has been running since June of this year with temperatures over 100 degrees and subjected to rain and snow already. It was on an open house layout tour this weekend and it ran great. A 25 car freight, 21' Daylight Passenger train and a V&T freight seem small out running on this layout.
 
Here are some more views of this layout. The clouds blew in this afternoon so my pictures aren't the best. This layout is really impressive and the owner said I could share the pictures so here they are.

Greg
 
Fantastic Greg, would that be "O" scale or larger? I really like the photos ODL-6 and ODL-7, thanks for sharing.

Cheers Willis
 
Yes Willis these were O scale trains. They are MTH 3-Rail running on the MTH DCS control system. Other than the wheels and couplers, these trains are full scale. He was running them, all three trains at once, at a scale 40 mph. The cruise control system MTH uses works very well at keeping them at one speed, regardless of up or down hill running. Seems to me he said it was taking about 8 minutes to make a complete loop.

Greg
 
I've seen this idea once before, on some garden railway video I think. It's rare here in the US, but in the UK I think it's more common. Typically the lines are on a shelfed or raised bed.

Keeping the track clean can be tough, but with DCC, doesn't it always have a constant voltage of something like 12 or 18 volts? If so, that would help.

I do know one thing, those big radius curves make those trains look great! Really good way to show off stuff like the Daylight and that Challenger or Big Boy (can't recall which one that is, and can't tell from the thumbnail.)
 
The gentleman who built this layout went against most conventions in building it. I do know from watching it, the power level was 16 volts for the whole layout and as high as 18 volts for some portions. He has a volt car that has volt meter that you can read and at the furthest point from his transformers it held at 16 volts. His DCS signal was 7-10 for 98% of the layout and when it was down to 2 at one point, it was enough for the cruise control to continue to work. On still evenings, when there is no wind, he likes to get his Daylight train out and cruise at 100 scale miles an hour. His discription of the smoke trailing and then laying behind the train with the lighted cars sound fantastic. He also told me the Big Boy weighs 25 lbs! "I've put every car I've got behind that huge loco, including the ten Daylight heavywieghts, 80 in all, and its pulled them up my 2.5% grade at 60 MPH,and hardly broke a sweat!!, in his words. He has used Malibu lighting wire set up, which means no soldering. He drops a set of track jumpers about every 12 feet to his main power bus. To clean the track he gets a leaf blower and or broom to clean the debre off. Then takes a broom stick with a Brillo pad and a rag soaked in laquer thinner to wipe off the rabbit pee in some places. The nickel-silver track is pretty indestructable. Even the little oxidation that it does produce is electricly conductive.

Hope this helps answer some questions. :)

Greg
 
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