April, 2009

The track and scenery base

13 April, 2009

After quite a bit of consideration I decided to not have a turntable for the layout. The trackplan is based on the waterfront at Wiscasset and what I've done here is to add a run around and two short tracks that on the prototype would be the beginning of the yard. Then rotate and flip the whole thing so entry is from the left instead of the right. It represents a short branch off of a larger set of tracks 2-3 miles away. Location is not a waterfront, but somewhere in the "hills".

Operation wise I get a lot to do here. Trains would arrive with passengers and freight, then return to the main yard area, somewhere "over that a way". The track will sit about 2 inches above my base to allow a bit of scenery. The layout is planned so it can be viewed from either side. There will be no backdrop on this.

It's Easter weekend in England, which means Monday is a holiday, so today I've cut out the track/scenery base and the supports. They will need gluing together and re-inforcing over the next few days. I'm still at odds about the Peco turnouts. I really don't like Peco track for American narrow gauge - it's totally out of scale and appearance (okay for English tracks, but other than that....). If I do use this, I could (as said before), just bury the ties in dirt.

I still need to find some telescopng plastic tubing, that's strong enough, to hold the base units etc. together. 'Twould be nice it I could find some threaded stuff and then just screw it all together. The fiberglass resin will need to be applied to the main base units before that.