Paul, you bet I'm watching. I

Paul, you bet I'm watching. I feel like I just took a trip to your basement! Great video work, now if I could just reach a throttle..... I remember watching your layout go from the early bench work and design phase to a working model railroad. It seems like such a short time ago there were threads on design options being discussed, tremendous progress. Your videos really show off the great track work you have done and the ratio of the hills to the railroad look very good to me. You have captured the look of trains in the mountain state as I remember them. I am quite honored to be mentioned on your railroad.

If you don't mind me asking what type of flex track did you use? It looks very realistic. Where those SD35s the ones you were talking about being poor performers? I thought at one time they were the models made in Austria by ROCO for Atlas. As I recall I thought they shared the chassis that was used in the SD24. I have 4 of those but mine have a substantial weight in the nose. I have not got them ready to go yet. I suspect they are about 20 years old and have not yet been run.

I think when we get the rest of the construction projects done at the club I might be able to get to modeling again. Right now I am beginning to feel like a contractor in my free time.

Paul Great videos and thanks for sharing, I'll bet lots of folks find your work inspiring.

Nice!

Thank you for sharing! That looks like a great layout to operate! 

@ Rob

Rob,

Hearing you reminisce about the days when you first made my acquaintace and gave me all kinds of advice on my track plan stirs fond memories. Though we're miles apart, it's been great to have you on this journey with me from the beginning. Now if I could somehow patch you into a car mounted video cam on one of my trains and download a throttle to your computer we'd have it made! Then you could operate on my layout from Texas! 

I appreciate your comments on the hill to train ratio. Since I've only passed through the Appalachians a couple times myself, I was worried that the proportions might be unrealistic, but you have allayed those fears.

All my track is Atlas code 83 flex track. It's probably not as realistic as Micro Engineering flex, but it's a lot easier to work with, especially when it's being recycled from a previous layout. Painting the track really makes a difference in it's appearance. The paint I use on the track is the same color as I use on my fascia. (Read cheap and convient here.)

The SD35s you see pulling the coal train are indeed the ones I've been talking about in another thread as being poor pullers. The train they were coupled too was only 27 cars long + caboose. I'd like the pair to be able to pull a 35 car train, since that's the maximum capacity of the tracks in my staging yard. 

This might be a little off track here, but when are you going to post some more entries on your thread "Delving into the Past"? I really enjoyed the info you shared there. It was in fact the inspiration behind Robintex Can Company!

@ SD90

Thanks for your kind words.

I've had a few layouts in the past, but this is the first one that I designed with ops at the head of the priority list. Unfortunately I didn't have a real big footprint to work with in the basement for this layout as some do. My layout is basically two switching layouts stacked on one deck above another with hidden supporting track, but so far it has proven to be a lot of fun for me to run as you suggest. My only hope is that someday it will work equally as well with two or three other operators joining in. 

I hope to get back to it as

I hope to get back to it as time permits Paul. Right now I seem to have all my time occupied with something, you know how that goes. I have been able to keep the club blog going and with any luck we will get the page and 1/4 worth of construction projects done so the only hobby I have is model railroading.

However I did get my taxes done this weekend so maybe I'll have a bit more time in the future.

Looking Good

The Pokey is coming along nicely. The hills seem in proportion to me also (but they need some green). Keep up the good work. 

Don

@ Don

Thanks Don! I agree with you. Those hills are looking pretty bare. Some color and rock faces would really dress things up. I guess that's the next item on my to do list!

Just what you need Paul more

Just what you need Paul more to do.

Hey, if you play . . .

. . . the videos at once, it sounds like a consist of 11 SD-35s with a U-boat thrown in!

I love high-hood SDs! I also like how you routed the mainline under the mine tipple. Very nice and realistic touch.

Oh, Paul, I did a rough count and figured you need about 2,331 trees. I could be off by a 1,000 or so. ...

@ Paul

Paul,

The sound quality of the camera I used to film the trains wasn't very good, but I'm going to hae to try your suggestion for myself and play all the videos at once. Should be a lot of fun.

Like you, I really like the look of those high-hood SDs too. Thankfully the N&W roster was chock full of them.

It's nice to hear that you like how the mainline runs under the tipple. I did that intentionally. It's always seemed to me that little things like this that keep you from seeing the whole train at once have a way of stretchging the length of the train virtually in our minds, and adding visual interest to the layout.

As to the trees, yes, I do think you are a little off in your calculations. In my figures I came up with 2,337 trees!

Thanks for your comments!

Great fun, thanks for sharing.

Great video tour. Looks like some fun operation sessions are in the future. 

@ Thomas

With a few more engines now fitted with proper decoders, a future operating session is becoming more of a possibility. 

Great looking

Paul looks and sounds like great things are happening on the layout. You may not have a large footprint but you sure as heck do not have a small layout. There looks to be plenty of work for the train crews to perform. I think if you add both tree counts together, you may have a better number of what you will need. You don't wait for more engines to operate.

Thanks for sharing

TomO

@ Tom

Tom,

Thanks for the kind comments. 

I'm hoping you are right about train crews having enought to do for an operating session. Since I've never actually been at an operating session on a layout, I can only guess right now what is required.

I do know from personal experience that three of the four local trains that run to the mines and switch the industries each take about 1 1/2 hours of actual time to complete. But that's only if you know what you're doing and what switching moves need to be made. I would imagine it might take new operators longer to complete those tasks. 

As for the tree count, I hate to admit it, but you're figure is probably closer to the actual amount of trees that need to be made. Maybe I should keep track and later on have a contest to see who can come closest to guessing the actual amount!

Awesome!

Great videos, thanks for posting them. The layout looks great. It looks even better when I squint a little to blur the markings on the locomotives and pretend they're all Penn Central!    

Nice work!  

Would be a blast to operate. 

Randy

@ Randy

Thanks for all the compliments Randy!

Since the N&W and Penn Central bumped into each other at Hagerstown, MD maybe I'll have to get a few Penn Central cars on my layout just to make you feel a little more at home. That Penn Central green will leap out at you amongst all the N&W black and then you won't have to squint so bad!

Terrific!

Paul,

Terrific videos, thanks for sharing.  Watching all that mainline traffic makes me wish for a little more on my own layout.  AND it makes me want to put in the rest of my benchwork for the "overall" effect.  This Fall.  This Fall . . . Patience, I must learn patience!

@ Michael

Michael,

Glad you liked the videos, and if that helps whet your appetite for further progress on your own layout, so much the better! 

Have you settled on a "final" trackplan for the new benchwork addition yet? It seems to me you were on version 86 or something like that last thing I remember. Any further revision since then? I'm feeling the itch to mull over some good track plans! 

@ Randy

Squint?  Really? You need to do that just to see "another string" of black locos?  Black is black.  Or, as it has been said, orange is the new black.  Maybe you guys should switch to The DT&I or TP&W.   Chops. Bustin' 'em! Great videos Paul.  Someday we'll all get up to Minnesota to play!  

@ Jeff

Jeff,

When I built my first layout in N scale I made a fictitious bridge route "somewhere in the Appalachian mountains" called the Burlington Bridge and ran Burlington Northern green and black locos with some Southern locos thrown in because they shared that bridge route too. I did that mainly because I liked the color scheme of both those roads.

When I switched scales to HO, and became more interested in the prototype, that's when I changed to modeling the N&W. I have to admit, giving up the green/black of the BN and green/white/gold of the Southern for the boring basic black of the N&W was at first a little difficult to do. But now I've become accustomed to it, and do I dare say, I've even come to like/prefer it? 

My, how proto-freelancing can change a guy!

As for coming to Minnesota to play, you're welcome anytime!

Roundhouse

Nope, other than thinking about adding some grades so Angela's Landing is higher than Nicholas, and dropping the idea of a continuous run over the doorway.  That was Angela's idea, so . . .

All my time has been going into Spring yard cleaning, building a roundhouse, and making puffball trees!

I did follow your lead though, and went down and just ran trains last night.  My wife was on the phone.  I ran for an hour and a half, switched all of Nicholas and the Paper Mill, weighed a coal train on the scale, and made a passenger run.  Let's see.  I'm about 1/4 done.  4 times that is 6 hours.  Divided by 3 or 4 operators is a 2-3 hour operating session.  I think I'm on the right track!

Track Plan

Hey Paul!  I actually DO have a track plan.  This is for a friend named Will.  It's a 9'x14' room in his basement, and he wants a double decked coal hauling railroad.  He must have the same disease we do!

The room has a closet, and he wants to put a helix in there.  Here's what I've come up with.  Staging is at the bottom of the drawing on the left, in another room.  Staging for both top and bottom levels.  I took one of Rob in Texas' suggestions and put the big mine at the end with a wye for turning trains, and a small town in the middle.  The wye is questionable, as that doorway leads to his wife's side of the basement!

What do you guys think?

Level 1

Level 2

@ Michael

Michael,

I really liked the way you turned the Fast Tracks logo into a billboard sign for your layout. That was a stroke of genius! Great job!

Lately I've been putting the plaster shell on over my tape/cardboard scenery forms. It won't be too long and I'll be making puff ball trees right along with you. I'm going to have to go back and re-read your post on making those, since your technique is one of the best that I've seen. 

As for the track plan, I really like what you've done. You certainly have a knack for planning. I'd have to agree with you, I just don't see that wye happening given the location of the door. I do like the looks of that big mine in the corner on the 2nd level though. That should prove to be a good spot of operating interest.

Have you considered that some of the smaller mines might best be served by a single track, rather than splitting them into two? On the track plan for my layout I originally had my Park Ridge loader serviced by two short spurs, but found out later during construction that I could actually handle more cars with a single track than by splitting it into two, and it saved me a turnout to boot. 

Thanks for sharing!

layout

that is looking real good