Newport & Rock Falls: Another Retro Micro-Layout

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[Ed Kapuscinski]

That photo gave me chills thinking about Gregg's layout.

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You mean this one?



I had planned to edit the post to include exactly that comparison, but you jumped the shark!
Pretty astonishing that the sun angle is almost identical between the two photos, taken 1200 miles and 15 years apart...

Lee

[Dave V]

Pour one out...

Was fortunate to meet Gregg some 20 years ago at the Cocoa Beach prototype meet. I saw his little Pennsy steamers in person and they were true gems, as was the man who made them.

[OldEastRR]

Noticed some wind damage to one of the telephone poles.

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[Ed Kapuscinski]

Perfecto.

[OldEastRR]

Recently (temporarily) downgraded my DCC layout to DC by disconnecting the DCC feeds and attaching a DC powerpack.  I did this ostensibly for my friend who wants to test out the non-decodered Aerotrain he bought but he's yet to bring it over. However, that train reminded me a have a C-C M10000 w/o decoder and I hadn't seen that run for a while. I set it up, carefully cracked the throttle (it's a 16V pack) anticipating the train to go shooting off at lightspeed but no ... it ran nicely at probably what was prototype speed, circling round and round w/o mishap. And articulated trains with all trucks as power pickup never stalls!!
After that I wondered what my other old DC locos would do and so I hauled them out. I can see now why Lee loves these old toys. They run so much better than how we remember, probably because the layouts we build now are vastly superior in track quality than those first crude layouts (w/ terrible switches). And they just run and run! No derails, no stalls, all in all a very pleasurable experience. Love watching them smoothly go round and round (on my layout it takes three trips around the layout before they get back to where they started). Of course, the only old locos we saved from back then were the best-runners so that helps.
And an unexpected result is my BLI E7 (first run) that stalls out and restarts every few inches on the DCC now run straight though the whole layout w/o a hitch. With a 16V pack it's enough "oomph" for the decoder to get a decent speed, too.
Yeah Lee, you got it right -- old school is pretty cool. 

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Some low angle sunlight came through the office window the other day, highlighting the amazing detail of the layout.







I'll never get tired of this.
Lee

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In case you missed it, DKS did a wonderful write up of this layout in N Scale Magazine (May-June 2023)

[signalmaintainer]

Those classic structures sure bring back lots of good memories from the late 1960s and 1970s.

Thanks for posting.

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Back in business...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Hell yeah

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In preparation for display at the Cumberland Train Show on May 4th, I made a minor modification that will hopefully smooth out operations.


David and I talked about this when I picked up the layout a couple of years ago, and I finally go a Round Tuit.

The fascia at the end with the tunnel was very sturdily built, but it afforded no access to the hidden track below.  You could access the front or the back by unscrewing the control panel, which the folds down like a glove box, or through the battery access at the back, which is a bit less convenient, because it involves removing the backdrop flats.

So I took off the handles and the black styrene fascia, and made some dust with the oscillating saw.

With the new access port, I should be able to clear those Gomez Addams moments a little more efficiently.

I plan to cut the fascia into three segments, with the two fore and aft being secured by the handles, and the middle by doing some kind of rig using earth magnets so it can pop on and off with a minimum of trouble.

I've also lots of minor repairs that need to be made due to its fairly active schedule!

Onward
Lee

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More prep for the train show in Cumberland on Saturday.


First order of business is an attractive eye level stand so it can be fully appreciated.

Next to tidy it up.

Lee