Rico's wee adventure


Rico

Rico

BN Modeller
So I’m going to blame this one on Tony, owner of the Frog and Diamond hobby shop in Winnipeg, for putting the N scale stuff up front in the store. This means you have to walk right past it to get to the HO stuff... I'm sure you can see where this is leading.
I've always liked the Norfolk Southern locomotives and the scenery they traverse so when I spotted a couple of Atlas DCC GP38-2s on the N scale consignment table I had to stop and check them out. What’s the worse that can happen?
Well fast forward an hour later and I’m walking out the door with a slightly thinner wallet and two wee boxes in hand.
Yikes!

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Little did I know at the time these would act as somewhat of a gateway drug leaving me with a hunger for more.
Two weeks later a trip back to the city and same store (aka scene of the crime) and I found myself with a couple boxes of Kato unitrak and a few freight cars in hand.
Again, yikes!

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Stay tuned for the damage report, let’s see where this goes! 😆
 
Rico said:
So I’m going to blame this one on Tony, owner of the Frog and Diamond hobby shop in Winnipeg, for putting the N scale stuff up front in the store. This means you have to walk right past it to get to the HO stuff... I'm sure you can see where this is leading.
I've always liked the Norfolk Southern locomotives and the scenery they traverse so when I spotted a couple of Atlas DCC GP38-2s on the N scale consignment table I had to stop and check them out. What’s the worse that can happen?
Well fast forward an hour later and I’m walking out the door with a slightly thinner wallet and two wee boxes in hand.
Yikes!

View attachment 176345

Little did I know at the time these would act as somewhat of a gateway drug leaving me with a hunger for more.
Two weeks later a trip back to the city and same store (aka scene of the crime) and I found myself with a couple boxes of Kato unitrak and a few freight cars in hand.
Again, yikes!

View attachment 176347

Stay tuned for the damage report, let’s see where this goes! 😆
Click to expand...
Oh, I'm tuned in alright!

This is going to be fun to watch!
 
Ok I hate to admit this but I’m one of those guys, and you know who you are, that comes out of the dump with as much as he went in with. In this case a nice (?) 30” hollow core door, perfect for a layout!
I tinkered a bit with a few different track plans using what came with the two kits above, this was one of the results.
Lately I was given, among other things, a couple CPR locos and six articulated auto racks seen in the picture. The two bay hoppers are consignment items and the omnipresent Medusa Cement kit I picked up to compliment them. More on that later.

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I realized that I could use even broader curves in the given space which led to yet another trip to the Frog and Diamond hobby shop. Of course once again pausing at the N scale table to admire five Athearn tank cars that somehow mysteriously followed me home. Funny how that works!

Now I don’t have a picture of the next track arrangement I tried but it was more or less a double track loop in which I intended to include a crossover and cement spur.
I was surprised to find that two Kato #6 turnouts when placed together do not conform to the 33mm spacing used by pretty much all Kato's track and accessories! My answer was to whip out the trusty Dremel and cut the diverging rail and roadbed until I acquired the needed spacing. HO code 83 joiners worked great to keep rails aligned.
The photos below show the result before final trimming and filling but you’ll get the idea.

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Not sure where this will lead but I’m enjoying the ride so far!
Now to get a bridge or two worked in somehow…
 
We’ll okay, I guess it’s time for an update!
I quite enjoyed sitting back with a bevy and just watching the trains pass by on the loop.
It got me thinking about one of my N scale layouts I did up way back in the day, here’s a picture I dug up.

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The three tracks lower left extended about a foot further, the other side had a curved trestle over a canyon then a switch into the siding that comes around upper left. It was a great little layout to operate on!
About thirty inches by sixty inches I believe.
 
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That got me thinking about my next (and last) N scale layout.
Basically just a folded dog-bone design which is now referred to as the scenic ridge. The big difference was the junction where the double tracks went thru a diamond, around the loop, and back onto itself. It looks like a reverse loop but wasn’t. It was a great layout to run on and could handle three trains if you were on the ball with the switches. This one was about thirty six inches by seventy two inches.
Heres a picture of that one.

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Well as much fun as the hollow core door thing was I just had to take it up a notch.
I built a simple 30” by 72” frame with some 1x4’s I had and glued down some 3/8” plywood.
Thats right about when I looked over at the helix bits from the previous HO layout sitting in the corner.
Hmm.
When I regained consciousness I found myself spinning the nuts down onto the ready rods and test fitting the curved track sections. Well of course I’m going to need more track now so off to the hobby shop I went!
Oh, and I’m going to need that bridge now. (grin)
Heres the start of it with some 1” styrofoam in place.

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It worked out pretty good I think, more or less a 2.5ish grade.
The green double track bridge in the photo eventually had to be moved an inch or two from the curve to keep larger locos from clipping the edge of it. Lesson learned.
Of course now I’ll need to build a second section to get the track back down to ground zero…
 
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