Passaic River & Western RR

[Cory Rothlisberger]

Well, digging through my parents basement a few months back got me back into building a layout after 15 some-odd years. Pretty simple little layout using something I thought I'd never use, Kato Unitrack! But, I'm lazy and don't really want to be bothered with trackwork with a 10 and 7 year old breathing down my neck to run trains. I started with a 2' x 4' loop about a month ago and last week added a 6" x 40" addition with a spare piece of plywood I had.
The gist of the plan was to make a roundy round for my kids to run on, and also have switching operations for myself. The premise is based on the Black River & Western operations between Ringoes and Three Bridges, but in a freelance theme. The track plan isn't 100% yet so I'm open for suggestions. My biggest gripe with Unitrack is that it's near impossible to construct a useable runaround track on a 2' x 4' space. Something I can live with for now. It'll give me an excuse to throw a caboose in for shoving operations.
So that's that. I'm back in the game. Now to finish digging through all the stuff that was packed away for all these years...

[Philip H]

Welcome back @Cory Rothlisberger. 

Your track plan certainly allows for a decent amount of switching and roundy round as well.  Should be fun.

[wm3798]

Good to see you back in the fold.  You might consider including a TTrak interface for quick expansion and bite size goals.  The urchlings can also be engaged with some scenery on their own modules as well as demanding that you run the trains on time...  Just a thought.

Lee

[dem34]

Cool little setup and even bare bones I can get the Jersey vibe.  My mediocre advice.
Couple highway overpasses would help break up the scene a little, and are slightly less cliche than mountains and tunnels.
Little nubs of disconnected scenic track could also imply things like truncated Wyes and disused connections. Track up North can get a little nutty between the overbuilt nature and the subsequent pruning to the point a loop might not seem out of the ordinary.

  You'll also need a lot of GP9s. The state Fauna.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Hell yeah my man!

It's great to see you back in the mix.

[Cory Rothlisberger]

Got some foam laid down and started playing with some elevations. I plan to use some hilly topography and trees to mask the loop vs. highway overpasses. Reason being is that I want to somewhat keep to my locale in regards to landscape (old EL lines Morris County NJ). So hills and trees. Lots of trees...



The biggest elevation will be the route up to the interchange. I want to separate the main part of the layout with the interchange spur the best I can. Figured the elevation change will help. I started with a full inch incline but I'll probably drop it down to 1/2" or 3/4".