Back to N scale

[Lucas in Alaska]

I've been on the fence between HO and N for years 8 years in N scale the last 1.5 in HO. I've just listed the rest of my HO stuff on TASWDMH so now I'm officially back to N. I still love HO but it was made known to me that it is a little big and with three young kids we are going to need some of the basement for a layout.

I have also negotiated a nice area for a layout, which I will be starting the bench work hopefully in sometime in Jan.


http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/73755

I will be loosely modeling the CB&Q 50's- early 60's steam and diesels. There is one foot between dots and the doors in the upper right give me access to the fuse box. My original idea was to model one large Midwest town but my wife suggested that I put in a peninsula that comes out of the middle part of the 45-degree angle and model two towns but the one stipulation was that I have to be able to remove the peninsula and store it under one part of the layout. The peninsula would be about 1' wide and come out 10' with a blob on the end so it would give me a 22' run between towns.

I have a lot of options, which is good, but I'm at the point in my life where I have to quite being an armchair modeler and actually build something.

Lucas
Sitka, Alaska

[Ian MacMillan]

Oh you can mention Ebay here......Whats the auctions, might have something im looking for!

[Lucas in Alaska]

Here's the link
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZlucasinak

I'm getting really excited about a layout. My 7 year old son is too but to my surprise my 8 year old daughter is really excited about a new layout. I and my wife sometimes chatch her looking at my train mags, she try and hides it like she's doing something wrong but it is cute.

Lucas

[ditterke]

Lucky you! My wife wrinkles her nose about my enthusiasm concerning model railway. So I had to a trick and combined modeling with my job: my current project is a modell of a real existing container terminal ... which is operated by a customer of my advertisung agency. (Picture of both -- original and fake -- you can find on my website: http://www.jaffa1.de/hafen_0.html )
Are there preliminary sketches of your layout you can show here?

jaffa --- alias JürgeN

[Lucas in Alaska]

Jaffa,
 Nice layout, you at least got something built. I've went through the planning gammit of having 10' on one wall in N scale to having as much of the basement as I want in HO but, when I get to planning and measuring things seem to change, not due to me but well say due to the family situation . I've pretty much been assured that the area I have will not be changed.

 One thing I have learned over the years of being an arm chair modeler is that I don't want a basement layout. I do secretly want a basement layout and love the idea of multiple towns and yards but I don't want the outgoing expense, time, area it takes. I think I've come up with a good medium beween door and basement layouts.

Living on an island in Alaska doesn't provide much for other model railroaders. I have friends here that say they want to operate with me once I get things running but, thats going to be a while. I just hope to be able to keep between 2-5 people busy during an ops session.

Lucas

[asciibaron]

welcome back to N - i made the switch from HO over a year ago, but it became official when i started construction of a layout in the basement.  i would love to have that kind of space for my layout - think about a 2 level design.

-steve

[Lucas in Alaska]

Steve,
 I thought long and hard about a two level design. I'm going to keep it a single level about 50" high. I want easy access behind the layout where the fuse box is for my staging.  I don't mind the idea of multi level I just want to keep it simple. I think that it will take me years to get the layout done to a point where I'm really happy with it but at that point I can expand a little into multi level if I want. Right now I'm just trying to keep it simple and fun (I always make things so complicated that it does take the fun out of it)
Lucas

[SAH]

Lucas,

Keeping it simple - A very good idea.  It's easy for our little projects to get out of hand and, as you state, take the fun out of it.

One suggestion:  Consider modeling a single town instead of two towns.  Your way freight (peddler, local or whatever the CB&Q called them) would then have a lot of work to do in one spot and could work with pretty long trains to boot.  Working the town with the kids will be a lot of fun after they tire of watching the trains go round and round.  I kept a 6 year old busy for an hour working the interchange at Spencer.  We both had fun.  As for the trackplan - What Would the Q Do?

Good Luck,

Steve

[Lucas in Alaska]

Steve,

 I’ve thought about modeling a single town. One idea that has been brought to my attention is to plan the layout so I can model it as a single town or two towns with the peninsula added on and a backdrop added it all depends on how my track is laid around the peninsula joint.

 I'm not sure how the Q did things. I plan on freelancing a lot of my layout with different Q industries found all over and if I can't find what I want I'll get it somewhere else. I spent years researching the UP trying to find a place I wanted to proto model in N and never found it. I was really discouraged and upset with spending all that time and I couldn't find the perfect place so I decided it is my railroad and I'll model what I want. I really don't want to put myself in a box like that again but as I get older things change and I may want to proto model something but for right now I'm just going to enjoy myself and model things that interest me.

Oh and yes I do like the idea of long trains.

Lucas

[SAH]

I'm not sure how the Q did things. I plan on freelancing a lot of my layout with different Q industries found all over and if I can't find what I want I'll get it somewhere else. I spent years researching the UP trying to find a place I wanted to proto model in N and never found it. I was really discouraged and upset with spending all that time and I couldn't find the perfect place so I decided it is my railroad and I'll model what I want. I really don't want to put myself in a box like that again but as I get older things change and I may want to proto model something but for right now I'm just going to enjoy myself and model things that interest me.

Golly Lucas, you make it sound as if enjoying oneself with interesting projects and proto modeling are mutually exclusive goals.     ;D

By all means pick and choose elements from industries and towns that interest you but when it comes to the trackplan, give practices the Q used a good long look.  I've found I can't make up stuff as good or as interesting as my prototype did.

Steve