Russian's layout


Old 97 said:
You should have tried.
All those legos on top would have given you some traction on the rails! :D
Good idea. Haven't thought of that. Still don't think it would of helped, as the unit was lifting off the rails!:eek:

I want to thank you guys for taking interest in helping me and looking at the way the layout is going. As you requested, here are the progress photos from today. Haven't been able to get down there for two days before do to the university and how much I do on the weekend depends on how much homework I get tommorrow. Better not be too bad on the first day and a Friday!:D

#1 Measuring with Legos the rough height, looks like 7pieces tall.
#2 Bringing out the Legos in old cookie jars. You can see how big Lego track is compared to HO!
#3 Putting up the first building, the station parkade. I know that an actual station is probably needed, but in our moden world parking seems to be everything.:D In the forefront are the diesel shop tracks, followed by the museum monument track and the yard tracks.
#4 Moving it around I think this spot works best. The track that goes through should work great as a platofmr for short 3-5car passenger trains. On the other side of the "square", a more conventional long platform will still be available.
 
#5 Laying out the roads for the second level megaHWY's
#6 After planning I start to slowly raise the road to second level with Lego's
#7 And here's what I hope the rest of the layout to look like once I raise the rest of the road surface. There will also be road surface on the third level as well as the subway system.
In case you're wondering the caboose and the taxi are used as text cars to see how they fit, etc. The taxi is 1:89 I think.

#8 This is going to be the town statue. Perhaps representing the first citizen who was a barbarian? That toy has a lot of history to me. When I was young I didn't ask my parents to buy me stuff do to shyness (or so I'm told), so when I asked them to buy me 4 first nations people they were suprised and bought the set (I think I was 3 at the time). I haven't seen the other 3 guys since the early 90s, but this one has stayed with me throughout, mostly in storage along with other junk, so I think he deserves to be recognized. Although it was bought in the USSR, I think it was made in Eastern Europe somewhere, maybe Checzoslovakia, Yugoslavia or East Germany. Oddly none of those countries exist anymore.:confused:
 
I like the fan you got going there, might have to incorperate that into my dad's layout... All kidding aside, looks like you're moving along smoothly now! Erm, or would that be studly?
 
jbaakko said:
I like the fan you got going there, might have to incorperate that into my dad's layout...
It's seasonal, as the bacement is too cool to need a fan!:D

A little update. After thinking about it for a few days (had no time to work on the layout) I think the Lego supports had to go in favor of water bottles (I'll use the Lego's for buildings and complex, multi-level supports). I know that sounds strange, but as you can see in the demonstartion piece, it really does work!:D And looks good too in my opinion.

Once I got my trackage clear, I decided to rebuild some of it and thus am back to square 1 now.:eek: However, do to recolationing switches, etc., my depo is now twice as big, with 3 logical tracks (not one turnaround track like before), connecting directly to the yard. As for the yard, I decidee to take the long curved spur out of it and use it on the second deck. From the yard to the second deck now leads a long spur over a RR bridge that intself goes above another RR line! Still have to complete that though, so no pictures of it for now. In case you're woindering where the bridge came from, it's from a mid 90s Matchbox set, most parts say (c)1979 however. It was preserved well and looks like a RR bridge, so I'll use it as such.

Thanks for looking.
 
Updates...

I've posted lots of updates and photos in this thread:
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2250

Today I took a break from HO and worked on the Lego loop.
1. I raised it above ground, cheking that it works. In the future most of it will be on the train station's roof, not in the middle of nowhere, as it is now. It will also be moved a little.
2. And I started assembling the subway trainset
3. Finished car. There will be 3 such cars and an engine. I know it looks odd, but it makes more sence as part of a trainset.
 
uspscsx said:
Not bad! (Gives thumbs-up)
Thanks. Since I ussually post in the WPF, a lot of progres is not mentioned here.

I don't know if anyone else has done this, but my layout is HO powered by Lego, meaning with a strong Lego presence. I'm doing this primarily for two reasons.
1. I have lots of Legos and don't feel like working on them separately
2. I like to build things on my own, Lego allows me to do that greatly.

So far the plan is to have 3 major buildings built:
- engine house
- Union Station
- major industry
and than add to them with whatever is leftover.
Now that I've completed the engine house, this strategy seems realistic.

A little backround on the enginehouse. I didn't want to build a roundhouse, primarily because I've never seen the real RR use it in real life. They always have some kind of a large barnlike building where the locomotives are serviced. So that's what I build, with each stall holidng about 1.5 locos on the inside. The whole depo comes off from the yard and the mainline, and besides the enginehouse, also includes one long track which will serve both as a deadline and a refuelling pad, where trucks come by and refueel the locos. Overall I estimate the depo can hold about 8 locos. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Now for some pictures.
#1 I measured carefully to make my units fit. In real life measurements, I estimate the disctance from the roof of locos to the engine house roof to be a couple feet.
#2 This is how I built... You can see the roof approximations and the little glass windows - those will be used for union station.
#3 I'm always tight for parts. As you can see I had to dissasemble 1/2 of the metro track, as I needed those supports for the depo. When the station is finished, Ill hook the metro up to it with some other supports.
#4 Enginehouse from the inside. The cab is used to test how well cars will fit into the layout. It will also be used to taxi the crews around.
 
And now the finished product. The Legos are loose in some places, they have been tightened up since.

#5 A look from the side, you can see the CP Geep!
#6 The big doors. They come off when the RR is operational
#7 From the back, you can see the BN C-Liner
#8 Although it looks great when you peak through the little window inside, I can't take a good picture of it. Out of 1/2 a dozen shots, this is the best one.

I've also posted a couple shots to WPF.
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1719
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1720

For those wondering what the grey part of the roof is made of, it's a dragster racing track turned upside-down. First time I got to use it somewhere besides its original purpose. It also fits well, allowing me to remove the roof easily without bothering anything else in the building.

More details (such as safety lights) will be added later. This is just the basic structure.

Thanks for looking. Feel free to ask any questions. Always looking for feedback and suggestions.
 
U.S.S.R. said:
And now the finished product. The Legos are loose in some places, they have been tightened up since.

#5 A look from the side, you can see the CP Geep!
#6 The big doors. They come off when the RR is operational
#7 From the back, you can see the BN C-Liner
#8 Although it looks great when you peak through the little window inside, I can't take a good picture of it. Out of 1/2 a dozen shots, this is the best one.

I've also posted a couple shots to WPF.
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1719
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1720

For those wondering what the grey part of the roof is made of, it's a dragster racing track turned upside-down. First time I got to use it somewhere besides its original purpose. It also fits well, allowing me to remove the roof easily without bothering anything else in the building.

More details (such as safety lights) will be added later. This is just the basic structure.

Thanks for looking. Feel free to ask any questions. Always looking for feedback and suggestions.


So, is that LEGO building for the HO trains, or the LEGO trains
 
Empire Builder said:
So, is that LEGO building for the HO trains, or the LEGO trains
Lego buildings for HO trains!:eek:

I have lots of photos of construction progress, but don't know if its worthy posting them, as I'm about to dissasemble my layout AGAIN!

Somehow I figured out that my reverse loop wasn't too usefull, taking up a lot of valuable space when engines could be turned around by hand. So I'm thinking of expanding my layout even further, possibly into two parts with a "sheet" in the middle to block them off from each other. Cunretly am planning it on the computer...

Just trying to get the most fun out of my 8x4.
 
I finally finished my layout. I know I've said that before but it went through about 10 stages since then and now I think its shaped just right.

You can compare the original drawing to what it is now. As you can see there's a lot less pointless long slidings, the yard has expended and the branchline now is a lot longer, not to mention the locomotive depo. Do to smart placement there's also more space for scenry now. Here's the explanation of the maps by color:

Green - Mainline (Duran subdivision)
Yellow - passenger station (Union station)
Grey - city branchline (Brownstone subdivision)
Black - locomotive depo (Elmwood depo)
Orange - industrial park, names still to be decided
Blue - main yard (Mony station)

I know the second drawing doesn't look too acurate but I had to touch up a couple spots with paint as the program didn't want to make what I had assembled into a functioning layout...

PS. Can you guess where the names for the subdivions and other landmarks came from?:p
 
UPDATE

I was thinking about my layout and figured out that by re-arranging things a bit I could lenghten my train station by a couple cars, add a second subdivision and have two semi-parallel loops going!

You need to compare to the original to see what I'm talking about. This time I labelled all the colors on the diagram, the colors are the same for both of them.
View attachment 2192
View attachment 2193
Well, what do you think?
 
speent said:
Roman- just curious. What are the dimensions of your benchwork?
A typical 8x4 table with 4 legs. I forget what height it is, but I could measure if you want.
 



Back
Top