A follow up on my layout photographs in May’s newsletter.
My health physically prevents me from working on my newest layout in the basement of our new home. No matter how long I have here on this earth I hope to have a train layout. I really didn’t know what to do about accomplishing the building etc. of this layout. I did realize that there is nothing wrong with using my head to build and design. I’m sure several of the members have several hilarious antidotes that could go along with using my head. I started to have some club guys come and build the layout. But, I know when you get a group of railroad guys designing a layout you will get as many ideas as there are guys present. At that rate I would never get anything completed and certainly not the way I wanted it to. I will however will call upon my good friend Rich Hane’s electronic skills to wire the track system. The main wiring will be brought out to a trough with a hinged lid mounted on the front of the layout with all the electrical connections very easy to attach using twist nuts.
I hired two guys that weren’t familiar with model railroads. This has worked out great. There is just one idea and that’s mine. If that doesn’t work the it easy to lay the blame on myself. My workers are really good about tearing out something that they have just built and redoing it without complaints. The layout will be about 6 or seven tracks wide. There will be HO-Gauge, 3rail O-Gauge, S-Gauge and G-Gauge tracks. It will be mainly a simple mulit-operating track system so I can operate many different scales of trains. That proves that I’m just a Kiddies Loop runner, throw down a loop of track with a train and run them trains until the wheels fall off.
The O-Gauge track will have 0-72, 054, 027 curves. The G-Gauge will be a 4′ radius curve. The rest will be what ever will fit and I may be required to use flex track here. The track will very few switches or may have none at all. The layout will be scenic with trees etc. The track bed is 3/8″ plywood that is well braced in order to prevent sagging. It is covered with a 5/8″ carpet foam. With the foam the sound will be will cut down and the rubber padding will hold the track in place and it will not have to be nailed to the plywood. This is the way my old layout was built and it worked great. There is a 34″ lift gate so to gain entrance to the interior of the layout. We hope to have trains operating within 6 weeks.
I miss being with you guys. The Newsletter really keeps me informed.
Large-R
Ron Stubblefield