Well guys. I understand that my previous layout thread was the M-J RailConnect setup, but I was sitting here thinking a few days after I posted that track plan up and said to myself, "Now that I'm using a smaller scale, I can fit what I had wanted to do before in HO into my available space now, since it would be N."
So I have developed a track plan. It needs a little tweaking. I need a loco escape in the yard, it's probably going to be a little drop leaf section I can pop up when I'm using the layout.
I also need to put a turning facility over near the mines, but I'll figure that out once I figure out what I'm using for cars, so I know how long the trains would be. I also need a runaround setup near the mines, so I'll probably use the siding over in that little town, as it doubles as both a passing siding and a station track.
The line itself is called the Apple Peak Railroad & Coal Co. There is a track in the town halfway between Apple Peak and the mines, and I'm still trying to come up with an industry to put there.
The interchange track is marked as B&M or D&RGW(I don't remember which, because I was planning on putting it in one of those two places), but the actual interchange will be with the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain RR. I may have to backdate the line a little bit to allow that, as I don't remember when the H&BT folded, but the general current idea for era is between 1939-1942. I was thinking it would be a line that barely escaped the depression, but couldn't make enough money to stay on top like the EBT, so it sold it's bigger engines and started using second-hand steamers. Most of them will probably be 0-6-0s and maybe a mogul or two, but they would soon be sold in favor of more 0-6-0s.
I'm considering the use of gas-electric equipment with a couple of 0-6-0s as well, as gas-electric and gas-mechanical would be cheaper to run and to maintain than steam.
Please note:
>The intersection with the Maine 2-footer has been removed. There will be track layed there later, but it will not connect with the APRR&CCo. It will have been partially torn up to facilitate the laying of the APRR&CCo., so there will be ties and some rail around, but no actual intersection between the two.
>The curves are sharper than I had wanted them to be, so I will say that the line was originally narrow gauge and was standard gauged, but the curves were never re-graded for the larger equipment that the line had prior to it's beginning to tank.
The Apple Peak Railroad & Coal Co. would like to announce that we have just reveived the first of three charters granting the land from Apple Peak, PA to a couple of small Broad Top Mountain coal deposits.
We should receive the official document within the next couple months and we will display it on The Gauge when we receive it.
Please bear with us for a little longer.
Okay, so here's the "non-storyized"(new word there ) version of the above information. I have recently gotten most of the wood for the benchwork, and the first section, a 1x4 will begin to be constructed once I have the legs and tabletop for it. I have to wait to save up enough money to get the tabletop, a 1/8" thick sheet of 4x8' luan plywood.
I am working on a charter to display on the wall for the line, and I will show it to you guys when each part is finished, as I will make 3 charter documents for each piece of the layout.
I would suggest that 1/8th inch luan plywood is asking for and virtually guaranteeing problems down the road.
When I was about your age, I built an HO layout using brass rail code 100 flex track on split cork roadbed, all on top of a 4'x8' sheet of 3/8" A-C interior plywood. [There is a very good reason that 1/2" plywood is the typical thickness, and some people even use 3/4" plywood.]
I paid for that error in judgement every day for the rest of the time I had that railroad ... all through high school, one year of college and until I was in the Army and my parents moved to a new town, discarding all but the locomotive and rolling stock.
During the time I had it, I spent way too much money that could have been spent on scenery or a better power supply or rolling stock kits or a second locomotive (the first one was a Varney F3 dummy from a Kix cereal box top offer that I saved for and purchased a single-truck power conversion kit.)
The sagging of that under-sized plywood doomed my first HO scale model railroad to mostly headaches rather than mostly fun.
Do as you wish ... I only offer a suggestion.
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Thanks for the advice P5se Camelback. I was told by a member down at the local model train club that I should use 1/8" luan plywood as my top because the benchwork was only supposed to be 1 foot from the back of the layout to the front, and that the way I was going to build it would support the plywood and N scale trains perfectly fine.
I have learned that when getting advice from anybody, you should always take it with a grain of salt, use what you need, and save the rest in case you need it later
Joe, I hope you enjoy. I know that I am resisting the urge to go build benchwork now, so I know it'll be fun for me
RRManiac,
I am interested to see where this goes. I would like to mention that many coal operations did not have turning facilities at the mines. In such operations, there was a passing track, and the locomotive operated tender first either to, or returning from, the mines. Even large locomotives, like 2-6-6-2 Malleys, were operated in this manner. This type of operation may add some interest to your operation, and save some space.
Of course, in the diesel era this was no longer a problem.
Puddlejumper: that is a really neat piece of information. The EBT, who I am using as one of a handful of RR's for inspiration, had a wye ear a few mines because of the excessive length of the line. The newer revised track plan has a wye in the middle of three legs to allow turning trains.
P5se Camelback Wrote:There is a very good reason that 1/2" plywood is the typical thickness, and some people even use 3/4" plywood.
Agreed.
I used 3/8 ply on my first layout and noticed sagging in some spots even with 2x3 dimensional lumber framework I had built up underneath it. This time I used 3/4 ply on top of my frame work. I also rebuilt one section of the frame work with 3/4 plywood ripped into 3" widths. I only wished I had used 3/4 plywood throughout the framework the first time around. Ah...live an learn.
My benchwork in the past has been "L"-Girders (1x4 w/1x2 screwed and glued on top with the screws backed out after a couple days drying time -- make two at a time ...) and my roadbed was 1/2" homosote yellow glued to 1/2" ply which sat on 1x2 risers (w/1x1 cleats) which were screwed to 1x3 joists, spaced about 24" apart. I never had any sagging and this next (final attempt) iteration of the LS&W will rise from the floor in the same fashion.
The construction method, developed years ago by Linn Westcott, is incredibly strong! Two sections that I built in my basement in Lansdale, PA in 1989, wrapped in bubble wrap to protect hours of laying track and building turnouts by hand, was moved to Maryland, then to Florida and three more times here in Florida before being unwrapped recently and no damage was observed! It is as strong and straight as the day it was screwed together!
A building stands because of a strong foundation! It will fall if the foundation is weak.
Don't pinch pennies when it comes to the foundation on which your model railroad empire will sit, hopefully for many years!
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
It appears that the Apple Peak RR & Coal Co.'s charter has run out, and it has succumbed to the mighty challenge of the Broad Top, like many pikes before it. In actuality, I found it difficult to find good models of some steamers, and the others were too expensive for my current budget. I will continue to build a few buildings for the APRR, but my focus is switching to all-out prototype modeling. No freelance involved here at all now.
I intend to model the Mt. Union Connecting RR Co., running from its connection with the NS on the original PRR 1907 re-alignment near Mt. Union, down to the Riverview Business Center in Allenport, approximately 1 mile away. Much of the line will be selectively compressed.
I will post up a new layout thread here soon. Right now I need to ship off to bed.
With the discussion on benchwork, it is my 2 cents that you should consider 2" extruded foam. I built rectangular frames with cross bracing out of 3/4" plywood ripped into long pieces, then put 1/4" plywood on that. Then the 2" foam is contact cemented to that. The thing i love about the foam is that it is so easy to cut ditches and make slopes and all that railroady kind of stuff. Without the foam, cutting a ditch into a 3/4" plywood top is rather difficult and if one is not careful, it leads to the "plywood pacific" look. Foam rocks!
) version of the above information. I have recently gotten most of the wood for the benchwork, and the first section, a 1x4 will begin to be constructed once I have the legs and tabletop for it. I have to wait to save up enough money to get the tabletop, a 1/8" thick sheet of 4x8' luan plywood.
Interesting, I'll stay tuned.
