I'm still toying with the trackplan after the suggestions by Trevor Marshall, but my mind has been wandering to more esoteric things. Namely, the name. Westhaven was the district I lived in as I was growing up in Montreal. I remember the 4x6 layout my dad had made for us that slid under his bed. We named that Westhaven RR and I had some idea that it was like the New Haven railroad.

In resurrecting this blog, I hope to get some good feedback, suggestions and dare I say an "atta boy"? 

Below is a track plan that I have blatantly stolen from Trevor Marshall's achievable layouts section of his website. I have redrawn it to my room dimensions and rearranged a few things to allow for the use of two bridges I have. Operation will be inspired by Lance Mindheim. It has taken many hours of research and consideration before I decided I could be happy with this track plan. If you see anything that needs changing, please suggest away.

I haven't made any progress on my foam core inglenook. But I did have some foam core left over. 3 pieces 20x40. I recently got my new air compressor fired up and since my spraybooth was lost in a the move several years ago I needed something. I am spraying acrylics exclusively (or at least plan to) but wanted somewhere to spray into that was a little better than a cardboard box. What's better than cardboard? FOAMCORE!

Laying Track on foamcore

I set Saturday aside to lay the track for my inglenook switcher. I had read with interest the discussion on roadbed vs. no roadbed (http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/19333) and decided that I would use the 3/16 foamcore as roadbed. I could have used cork but the foamcore is slightly thinner and I wanted to give it a try.

Building Ward’s Salvage

Many years ago I bought a craftsman kit for a junkyard. It was a John Rendall model. The wood was rough but it turned into a decent looking diorama. My late teen’s skills shone through in several areas but I was proud of the scale 2x4 walls that I built. A real box o’ sticks build. I eventually sold the entire diorama on eBay for some unremembered amount.

I finally found some time to cut and glue some foamcore. Here are a few low resolution pictures of my progress. The result is rigid and light. Now to decide on some track and turnout options.

Here is the frame and top. I doubled the thickness for the sides and ends by laminating with Weldbond glue. Total length is 6' and width is 1'. The frame was assembled with hot glue. 

Walthers Sperry Rail Service Car
DCC Install

I began by testing the car on a friends DC layout. It is a smooth running unit. I have the newer model where the drive is improved to a geared power truck.

Just because you’ve switched to DCC doesn’t mean you should toss or sell your old DC power pack. Well, if you are like me you have 5 or more in the tickle trunk so I guess you could sell some of them. I need to know the free running and stall current of an old Athearn GP9 to ensure the decoder I have is suitable. Out comes my meter, power pack and a few clip leads to hook things up.

Tonight I completed my first DCC decoder install. I am planning a small inglenook switching layout and wanted to go DCC with it. I bought an NCE PowerCab system but I don't own any DCC locomotives. I have a couple of Digitrax decoders that I bought a while ago but the locomotive I wanted to use for my switching layout is my old Atlas/Roco S2 switcher. I discovered that NCE makes a board replacement decoder for it so I ordered it up.

I have been catching up on back issues of MRH and came across one of the $500 layout ideas. I was struck by several things. 

1. You don't have to spend a fortune to build a layout
2. Making use of non-conventional materials for layout construction
3. There is no excuse for not having a layout
4. Inglenooks are much simpler yet just as challenging as a John Allen Timesaver

I have a John Allen Timesaver that is almost complete but suffers from several problems.