The Eagle Pass & Moose Lake Railroad (hereafter EP&ML) is my third and probably my last layout. I am 72 years old and have been in model railroading for 60 years pretty much continuously. I began with the proverbial Christmas train. It was a Lionel O27 Pennsylvania Turbine number 2020. My brother had, I believe, a Hudson of the same make and gauge. We used to make temporary layouts on the floor of our bedroom and I mean the entire floor of our bedroom pretty much year-round with the exception of the time before and after Christmas when we'd really kick butt and go for that Christmas layout. I remember one Christmas we put both of our trainsets together and used those bags of fake snow, I think it was Styrofoam, that you could buy in the cheapie department stores. We covered the area with the "snow", nobody ever told me what it could do to switches and the gearing in our locomotives. Thankfully Lionel built a very robust engine and motor and gears that could be cleaned out very easily and made to run again. We had quite a mess, our mother was really happy about it. I think we only did it once as when it came time for the snow to "melt "it took forever.
The EP&ML is situated on the typical open girder benchwork and is about 18 x 25'. I really like the steamer to diesel transition. So I have arbitrarily set the timeframe to be late summer of 1957. After leaving the old gauge and beginning to build my "real "layout, I had a hard time deciding what gauge to model in. I really wanted to go with N scale but I thought as I got older The smaller size would be difficult with my big fingers. Also when I got started full-time in the hobby there was not a lot of structure and accessories available for N gauge. I guess I'm trying to say that I ended up in HO. The smaller size of N would be difficult with my big fingers. Also when I got started full-time in the hobby there was not a lot of structures and accessories available for N scale. It is amazing the way the hubby has progressed. Used to be a circle of track, an engine, some cars and a few lights and that was it. Compare that with what is available in the Walthers catalog now. It's absolutely amazing the way this hobby has matured and grown. Sometime down the road I'd like to discuss the local hobby store mail order dilemma. It is a real problem one that I'm not sure as a solution but now is not the time to get into this. I want to share with you the beginning's of the EPML.
Even though this is my third layout I'm still not happy with it but unless I plan on living do 120 I don't really want to start another one so what it is it is what it is and I will make small revisions to bring it up to my standard. An example is my lighting in the buildings signs and other accessories. I love to run my trains at night and have all of the lights lit I suppose it says close as I'll ever come to that God's Eye view feeling. I did not build the EPML to be used for operation. I live in a suburban area around the large metropolitan city, Buffalo New York, but I have very few friends who share the interest that I have him model railroading. I have visited a couple of clubs in the area and find them to be a bunch of old guys that sit around talking about what could've been. No them seem to have a layout that is even close to being modern. So I decided to go it alone and alone it is. I really don't have the motivation other than my own to get down there and work on the layout. That is something that you need to think about before beginning your layout you really need to have a bunch your friends to help you build it as you will also keep your interest and motivation up as you work on the layout. I promise you will hit roadblocks I have and I had to walk away from it for a couple of weeks. Then go back and work on it some more. I am in one of those low. So currently I mentioned before that I like to have a lot of lights on the layout and I do run it in the dark. This layout was began on a very limited budget. I used whatever lights I could get my hands on to light my structures. Power for these lights came from a collection of wall warts that I had saved through the years. All of these little devices were different voltages commonly 3,5,6,9,12,18. I had to take my lights figure out what the voltage of each light was take a look at the voltage of the wall wart and match them together. Many times running to three or four lights in series so as not to max out the voltage of the wall wart. As a note it's a good idea to Run your lighting at a lower voltage than what the bulbs are rated for .... gives you a nice long life on each bulb. I decided that it would be a good idea to upgrade all of my structure and vehicle lighting. I bought a couple of 112volt LEDs. The kind with the resister already wired into the LED. I realize now that what I will need to do is rip out all of the lighting that I have them place and replace it with the LEDs. My plan was to run two 12 gauge copper wires under my bench work . I could then use existing holes drop the wires down solder them to each of the copper wires and I would be lit. I could do this because all of the LEDs are 12 V. I forgot about was how much repetitious time-consuming work that was going to be. I am now at an impasse with myself I need to kick myself in the butt to get down there and begin. Perhaps spelling this out in this blog will get me to do it time will tell. You picture of the layout flavor for where I'm going. I have a group of about 50 at this point and I really don't have give you an overall view. Anyone know how you can select multiple images to add to this blog. I can only see a way of adding the pictures one at a time. Also can you add video blog. And added a small video camera to it. I have a lot of video from the cab I could add and you could follow it around the layout. OK enough for now let's post this and I will add more as the days go by. Feel free to comment when your comments are appropriate.
That stinks none of the pictures that I attached to the blog are showing. Help!!
