I've been wanting to try a Homosote spline roadbed but my sectional approach has led me to try making my own roadbed. A 4x8 sheet of "sound deadening board" costs about $20 from the lumberyard so I wasn't in the mood to cut it to match my plywood sub-roadbed for fear of too much waste. Using 1/2 board cut into 1-1/2" strips seemed flexible enough to use like giant cork pieces but with enough profile to look right under my On30 trains. Center-to-center is from 2-3/4" to 3" (or more) so two pieces under the ties with similar strips cut with a sloping edge works out pretty nice.

... So my wife says "Why don't you work on the patio until the sections can go in your train room?" I'm not sure who she so, despite a room built for my hobbies" I am now taking over the patio. I's like 85 degrees up there during the day anyway.

I've attached a photo off my iPhone of my latest switch on this section - for now. It was starting to look like a railroad so I figured that the point of view should be from the boxcar roof. Without realizing a potential problem the roadway was graded in place using sparkling and over the rails, ties, and pc board tie! Looks ok for now but will short out my DCC system so some planking in this section will hide the future demolition.

I had some time alone in the train room last Easter Sunday. After stewing over the branch line height I decided to get down to some track work. O scale is BIG even if narrow gauge. After some more fooling around in SketchUp a plan was formed to have sections big enough to put some track and scenery on but not so big that it wouldn't be comfortable to bring in the house to work on the kitchen table.

If you've been reading this blog then you'll remember that I've been trying to reclaim portions of an elderly friend's HO layout but in On30. Much of his railroad isn't my style - mainline spaghetti bowl loop (big loop) and when I brought it home in huge chunks only the strong survived. Since On30 tie sizes and center-to-center spacing is som much different, portions of the layout are being used where you can't really tell that the rails is so out of scale. Some of the switches have come up in pieces so I am re-laying them on new ties and PC board ties from FastTracks.

After framing a 2x4 wall down the middle of my train room I took a break to lay some switches. Since FastTracks was back ordered on PCB switch ties I butted some PC ties end to end and started soldering my recycled rail. Funny how quickly one forgets some of the basics - clean surfaces, hot iron, tin toe rail or tie, and flux helps a LOT! Anyone who has ever hamdlaid track probably knows how smooth the rails can flow if thought out a little in advance. Well not me. I hadn't quite realized that recycling old switches would fix the geometry.

The weekend was spent building a concrete block wall along the front of the house to backfill with drain rock and divert some of the overwhelming amount of rain we had that turned everything into mud around here. Since the concrete takes a week to cure before I bust out the shovel and wheel barrow it seemed like an opportunity to get the layout room some benchwork. 

Subject: On30 track plan for my garage attic
Below is a plan I've started building now that the weather is improving and muddy issues are behind us.

After months of trying to shoehorn Richard's surviving pieces of his HO railroad I gave up. Rather, I gave in to my narrow gauge bug. A layout design in a publication got me thinking. What if I salvaged as much track as possible and us it for an On30 layout? The switches and flex track were not coming up intact anyway so I thought I'd relay them on longer and wider spaced ties. A sample of may little staging in progress are is attached.

Welcome to my new adventure. After many years of inactivity, a friend asked my help in dismantling his 24'x16' layout which has spurred me into creating it a new home. The problem is that I don't really have a space quite like his and wouldn't have designed a railway like his (nor really want one like that).

My space is similar in size but in plan only. The end walls slope from 4' height up to 11' at the center. The overall size is the same but to the exterior of the walls so everything is shorter and narrower.