Southern Utah T-Trak

[Russ Bellinis]

Time to move this over here:

Hello all!
As our club does not have a permanent location to meet, we don't have a place to build a layout at. When we have our regular meetings, we can't run trains (a big problem for a train club ) For the past year or so, I have been trying to come up with some way to build a layout that we could carry easily and put together quickly and take down quickly. We have the bend track modules, but at 4x3 for each of the two balloons, they aren't transportable in my little car. We came up with several ideas, but all were starting from scratch with measurements and building. Finally, I heard about T-Trak (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ttrak.org/">http://ttrak.org/</a><!-- m -->). The modules are REALLY small and they are light and they setup VERY quickly. I was watching a Youtube video of an Australian T-Trak club and they put together a large yard in seconds, that was good enough for me. Plus all the measurements were already done so no reinventing the wheel!

Minimum you need four corners, and also some straights to add some length. We glued the modules together one night:

Straight Module:


Corner Module:


You set these up on a table, so you put bolts and T-Washers on so that you can level them. Here are the undersides of the modules:

Straight:


Corner:


A few of our members do not like the 3-tracks on N-Track, so they were happy so see it is only dual track. Here is what the modules look like with track on:

Straight:


Corner:


Will start painting these soon and decorating them. I am hopeful that with their small size, I can get lots of people around here interested in building their own little piece and the layout will grow and grow. For now I am building 4 corners and 4 straights and Mooreway is building six straights, will show more pictures as we update them.

The modular club that I belong to only operates trains at show set ups. At our monthly business meetings we discuss the last show or in some cases two or three that we have participated in and critique what has worked well and what has needed improvement. We also plan the set ups for the next few shows on the schedule. We have a "good & welfare" section at the end where members can report on anything that might be of interest to the other members, and finally after the meting closes we will have a workshop presented by one of the members. The workshops are planned in advance based on what members want to learn about. It may be anything from how to install decoders in various locomotives, how to convert passenger cars from talgo truck mounted couplers to body mounts, how to layout an easement on a curve, or it may be a slide show of prototype equipment showing weathering patterns on the prototype, etc. 2 or 3 times a year we close with a modeling contest. The models are assigned a # to try to keep anyone from knowing which member built which model, and the winners are chosen by popular vote. The club buys three gift certificates to a local hobby shop that are awarded to the first, second, and third place winners. We rent the conference room of a local library for our meetings and generally we would not have time to set up any sort of layout for operation before we would need to take it down for the library to close, so operation at a club meeting is not an option.

[tetters]

HAH! I love the camp site! That is neato!

[mooreway]

Pictures from our last club meeting, The first time we showed the layout to the whole group.




It was alot of fun to see trains running at a meeting. Something I have looked forward to since I organized the club 9 years ago.

[Herc Driver]

That is GREAT! Nice job so far.

(Please send a set of those great looking clouds to everyone listed on the-gauge so we can have them on our layouts too...they look great.)

[Sumpter250]

Good to see some "T track" modules here. I saw them for the first time at the last "highwheeler's" trainshow (Fox Valley division, NMRA). very interesting concept, and far more portable than most others.

[Jesso]

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

Here is one of the corner modules that I just finished up.


Here is a closeup of the road and billboard.

[Jesso]

Here is my new pride and joy module. My wife painted the plaster to make it look like sandstone as everything here is sandstone. I wanted to make it look a little like Dixie Rock and the airport on top of the bluff. Lots of selective compression, but I like it.



Here is the bluff, The bluffs here have a lava layer on the top and it is broken all over the sides of the hill, other than it being a lot shorter than the real thing, I think it turned out well.



Here is a closeup of the sandstone:

[Jesso]

Here are the two modules together with their skyboard.

[TrainNut]

Fantastic job on the sandstone. I originally thought that those cars on the hiway were not abiding by the two second rule. Then in the next picture, I could see how they were arriving and departing from the airport and so were either just accelerating away or decelerating. Case solved.

[Jesso]

In St. George, the two second rule is defined differently, here it means that there will be an accident in less than 2 seconds. The drivers here are crazy. You have people on the freeway going 40 and people going 90.

[Steamtrains]

Pray tell.....What is the "two second" rule..?? :oops:

[Jesso]

On the freeway, you are supposed to stay 2 seconds behind the next car so that you have time to react to something happening with the car in front of you, but usually what happens if you stay 2 seconds back, someone will cut in front of you.

[Sumpter250]

but usually what happens if you stay 2 seconds back, someone will cut in front of you.

That still infuriates me, but I do try to remember that, "He who makes you angry, controls you", and mutter some "appropriate obscenity", while putting the two seconds between me and the other driver.
Traffic around here is much heavier than on your module...........and in most cases, there's less traffic lanes Don't be surprised though, this is Illinois, the Land of Linco........uhhh Corruption.
*_)*&#$%(_)&$^%#

[Steamtrains]

Back in the days....I was taught to leave a car length for every 10 mph's of speed....Thus 60 mph=6 car lenghts. As you say...nowadays 2 or 3 guys will squeeze in front of you in that kind of space...

[LiveSteamer]

Looks Great.