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The Track Plan

27 December, 2008

It's taken almost two months, but I've finally got a track plan that I like. It will be a mining camp with as much detail as I can cram in. Instead of having cliffs etc., the layout will be open. Viewable from all sides, with a fiddle track on the left as a hinged extension.

 

 

Any minor adjustments will be made during the laying down of the trackwork. How buildings and the like will be inserted is still in the conceptual stage. I can see I shall have to re-familiarize myself with wiring and control panel assembly.

 

The trackwork

As mentioned in an earlier posting, I have a bunch of Peco On30 track and switches. Rather than dump this altogether I'll use it, but not with the Peco ties. All flex track will see the ties go in the trash can. The switches will be cut up in such a way that I'll retain the bits that are absolutely necessary to work with the switch machines. Ties will be hard balsa with some specials to fit around the switches required ties.

 

posted on 23:06   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

Nice web surprise

18 December, 2008

For some time I've been planning a little freelanced locomotive loosley based on a Porter 2-6-0. The plans I had were for the Godchaux Mogul and I messed around in Photoshop and turned it into a 2-4-0. The boiler was lowered, cab enlarged and tender shortened. It look quites nice.

 

 

Now there is no prototype remotely close to this. Or so I thought until the other day when I ran across some images on the web. Lo and behold, here I was looking at a loco, made by Baldwin in 1906, that was very close to what I've come up with. http://www.flarr.com/maddox03.htm (new window)

 

Is that uncanny or what? There must be plans for this as it is a restored loco on display in Florida. Very small (I reckon around 38 feet long by about 11 1/2 feet high at the stack. The prototype was in standard gauge, but hey, this is begging to be done as a narrow gauge loco.

 

The idea of a small 2-4-0 is great for sharp curves and a small layout like I'm building. When you see the photos on the FLARR site, you'll see the tender is longer than what I'm looking at. Since I won't be having a turntable over 9 inches, a shorter tender will do just fine, thank you very much.

 

posted on 22:50   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

Getting Forks Creek right

17 December, 2008

Here's how far I've got plan wise. I found an image of the actual depot and there's some difference between the model ( based on Harry Brunk's drawing years ago) and the prototype. Harry must have done his "selective" compression on the plan as the real one is higher.

 

An idea  based on the Forks Creek Depot

 

 

I may just drop this down to a single storey or shorten the extension a little - it's a bit out of balance. I don't have a lot of room for the depot. It will sit between tracks. Styrene will be used for construction as the layout is not going to represent a "run down" operation but an active one that's just begun to slow down. The windows and doors are going to be from what I have left over from years ago (I dont think I can get Grandt Line stuff like this in the UK easily (if at all).

 

posted on 09:01   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

Forks Creek Depot

13 December, 2008

The main depot I want to use is to be based on the Forks Creek one that was on the Colorado and Southern. Unfortunately I have no plans for this. A few photos from mags and that, but I missed the issue of the Gazette that had the plans in.

 

I think the depot was 25 feet long by 15 feet wide at the base of the walls. A hobby shop website had what looks like frontage drawing and I've scaled it up to 1/4 inch. Another website mentioned the width and length (in inches) for an HO model so I've used that as a reference.

 

An idea is to have a freight area on one end with a cover or even an extension to the building - not sure yet.

 

Now if anyone has a fulll set of plans out there that they could scan in higher res and send me the images, it'd be nice :-) .... please

 

posted on 08:23   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

Ah yes, the membership

06 December, 2008

Some years ago i was a member of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association here in England. While I don't do 7mm, On30 is included as part of the deal - so I realized today I needed to rejoin.

 

Some things have gotten better here and others have declined. The main ones being, there are more American style narrow gaugers than before (thanks to the rise of 0N30), through mainly Bachmann products (which I personally don't like). The down side is the lack of easily available stuff for North American narrow gauge, especially detail parts and basswood. The 7mm NGA used to have some of these items - which was a help.

 

 

On the construction side of things, I've got the base benchwork together and an now seeing just what I can do with it. Having a flat space ready to go helps in planning. I can visualize things better. Basically just a pine frame with ply and a kind of Homesote insulation board (I think it's called Celotex here in England).

 

posted on 17:51   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

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