Essex Branch HO v5. Guilford in the 90's- a new beginning

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Hot damn, that looks good!

[nuno81291]

So it’s been awhile... we have been house hunting which has put an end to construction on the layout. It is a monolith and not movable so I haven’t bothered to advance it at all. In fact the potential move had me cleaning the layout to do some JFRTM solo ops to get some idea how successful or not this layout is/was. Some key take aways:

The almost eye height for me is awesome on the industrial switching areas, extremely immersive. In the yard, not so much. That said the yard is a large part of this layout and I am unsure if I will build a double ended yard (or have space to based on what homes we have seen).

It is a lot of layout for me. While I loved the idea on paper, the build and subsequent maintenance to get operational was quite a task, daunting even.

Vertical curves/transitions from mainline to Spurs, you think by now almost a decade and 8+ chain saw layouts I would have been able to get these right. Some are fine, some are too steep causing slippage/loss of traction. D’oh!

Backdrop.. no more Masonite next time. I don’t know how people keep them seamless, the room gets cold in the winter and my plaster cracked everywhere, tape be damned.

The yard design.. not having a way on to the main without a massive reverse move is rough.

I am at odds with what to do for the next layout if I have similar or less space, kind of hard to fit my interests in it in HO. I am thinking it would be roughly a small staging yard that feeds into a small town/terminal station for my passenger equipment and an interchange with a short line. The remainder of shelf would be an industrial branch for the short line.  Granted I have time to work this out but my desire of a mainline and long passing siding to keep the commuter and freight separated may not work and I am kind of at odds with this decision as AFAIK no such arrangement existed in MBTA territory since its inception. Last time I tried a purely industrial switching layout I was unhappy to not have Atleast a back and forth area to run my passenger equipment.

For now I will operate the layout as is to hopefully learn more from this experience to put into the next. Less track is more. Less maintenance is good. Trying to strike a balance between yard Ops and a freight branch will take some figuring. I have never done yard Ops before this layout, and while I like it, it does eat up valuable decrepit branch space. Maybe the next layout will be 2 levels with a manual lift sort of elevator. Or maybe I will learn to make due with the space at hand. Model railroading is fun! (And can be extremely frustrating!!!)

[nuno81291]

[DH 5004 doing some work at the scrap yard.
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Pardon all the updates. Having difficulty posting photos 

[nuno81291]

MEC 293 switches the Danvers branch.
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[nuno81291]

Well the time has come and the sun has set on the Essex V4. Pictures included as a sad farewell. Locos and rolling stock survived the move, buildings 99% survived the move. Unfortunately the custom bridge abutments for the bakery branch did not survive. Currently stripping track, turnouts and switch machines out. Demoralizing to take it down, but the new space unfortunately wouldn’t take any of it as is. Goal is to get whatever screws I can out, and the rest of the train frame goes in the dump trailer to the…dump. Lower freestanding frame will be moved. I will be finishing the walk up attic and assessing my next steps from there. In the mean time I may build a small switching layout, I may just keep everything boxed up while the dust settles. A lot to take away from the design, some key thoughts: I liked the operating at eye level, hated building it. This layout was by far the largest I built, not sure if it became too much to take care of- or if the need to work on it on a step ladder made it feel worse than a more conventional height layout may be. It was fun to have a somewhat functional yard/yard Ops. I want to make sure I include a continuous run option for roundy round pleasure on the next layout. Thanks for following along!

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[nuno81291]

Well it has been awhile. Playing around with the idea of using the basement for another large layout. 

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[nuno81291]

Here is a quick and dirty layout if I keep it very similar to the old large layout, and use the upper area as visible staging. I am reading through the thread and reminded by how daunting building the old layout was. This version has quite a bit more length overall, so I am weary to make it much more complex. Part of me wants to investigate staging in the same area, either partially hidden with an industrial area infront, and the staging perhaps partially obstructed by scenery (the area to the right it would be accessible from behind the layout for 12 feet or so. We have a home gym in the space, so I am reluctant to run any sort of staging yard in that area. Luckily my CEO/CFO (my beautiful wife) is all for this depicted area being another joint train/lego layout as the bulk of her stuff has been packed up since we moved several years ago. I never got to really operate the old layout, but I enjoyed having a yard to make trains for the locals. I definitely enjoy the industrial branches, modeling guilford hanging on by a thread with inspiration from real local branches that are defunct. I like the idea of keeping the town for my MBTA/Amtrak equipment to go through as my earliest memories were taking the train from the various towns I lived in, or seeing an MBTA train go by at a grade crossing while on the bus for school etc. Rapido ran comet cars finally and im kicking myself for not buying a set. They even ran a claremont concord 44 tonner, something near and dear to me but unfortunately at odds with a MA based layout in the 90s! I would like to keep an option for continuous running, I enjoy the sound/visual while modeling at the workbench.

I am going to make a few more drafts as if I want to investigate some wacky grade changes to potentially hide the staging yard, and add another industrial branch that works its way from the other side that way. 
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One thing I would like to work in either way is some more depicted grade changes of the mainline being elevated going through the town or something that adds some more visual interest vertically. Thinking about the station/bridge in Haverhill or such.

[nuno81291]

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Here is a rough go at it if I go with a partially visible staging. I would gain another industrial branch. I could perhaps put a small grade down from the mainline to this area so it sits a few inches lower than the staging yard behind it. I would use a short divider, and keep the turnouts visible from the layout side. I would like to include an industry like Claremont Paper, or Prince Spaghetti that features street running. CPM had some steep grades, and I need to be mindful of clearances for the better halfs lego layout underneath. Her layout will likely be at 30". My current shelf layout is at 59.5" which has worked out well so far, i could see making it a bit lower, or at most a bit higher. The next concept will be if I make the staging yard underneath this branch line, using a downward grade from both ends of the yard. It looks like I can get 3" of separation and keep grades to 1.5% if anyrail is to be trusted. I would have to have the branchline go up some sort of grade to the next level, for that area, for perhaps 5-6" of clearance. This would necessitate very thin benchwork, limited vertical scenery in that area. I am going to mock up a set up like this 1:1 to see if I think it can be useable. It does sound like a complete headache, but in typical MRR fashion the fascination to explore possibilities is enticing. For anyone reading along, this isnt a sudden burst of mania, I re-tore my ACL this january and have had quite a bit of downtime that this idea has been stewing. I would take down the shelf layout in my office (likely making room for the long shelved N scale german alps layout).

[nuno81291]

Getting somewhere. Nixed the idea of building anything over staging or any grades. Hope to be cutting some wood this week before my ACL surgery april 1st. [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[nuno81291]

Started cleaning the area. Hope to be cutting some wood tomorrow.

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[nuno81291]

Benchwork is going up for hers/his. I decided to include a small grade down from the mainline to the branch that sits infront of the staging yard. And to make a below track height scene by the town, giving the tracks an elevated feel, and a bridge over a street scene in the corner. V4 of the layout was flat as a pancake, other than the 3 bridge scenes. I was not a fan of minimal below track height scenery so trying to strike a better balance this time around. [ Guests cannot view attachments ]