Introduce Your Model Railroad In One Post! (N-Scale)

I got the idea for this thread from the HO Forum and figured since the N Scale guys post more actively this thread would be a hit.

So share your railroad with a brief description, size, location in your house, era, major industry, road, etc. Only post one picture/video! Share a link to your blog or website as well.

My layout is called the Blue Ridge Northern (Although I am considering a name change). I model the Northeast PA region of the U.S. and run modern NS operations. The layout is basically "fantasy" as opposed to being prototypically modelled from a specific town. My major industy is centered around the transportation of coal. My layout is an L-shaped layout and is about 13' diagonally. It is located in an unfinished basement in the house I rent. I started bulding it in 2011 and have just transitioned into the scenicking stage. I have avoided scenicking the left leg of the layout in anticipation that I will have to cut the layout to get it up the stairs of the basement when I inevitably move out of the rental.

Layout as of this date:

 

T.H.E.R.R.

Freelance railroad built in a 1987 Pace Arrow RV I got for a song and a dance. THE layout is 32 inches deep all around. The right side is 20 feet long. The left side is 16 feet long. The back is 7.5 feet across. The majority of the layout is Lucky Penny Yard...which I love working in ! I run freight while THE Wife has an Excursion train she runs around from time to time. There is also a scrap yard and a concrete batch plant on the left side. The track is laid going in there...just need to finish up the industries. One old warehouse serviced off of Lucky Penny Yard on the top right. There will also be a fuel distribution tank farm about where the ruler is laying

Time frame runs from 1980 to present..depending on my mood...lol.

 

Here is my Minneapolis, Louisville & Southern Railroad; totally make believe based on railroads I've lived near. ML&S resides on a 4.5' x 8.5' layout in a downstairs bedroom and depicts mid-50's to 70's timeframe. This is my 3rd layout since re-entering model railroading in 2005. I am testing out the 2-track main and turnout control and building a CTC panel with JMRI. Next I will continue laying track for the branches and yards, and scenery shell.

 

My layout is a freelanced branch of the Tidewater Southern. It's built on a HCD in my bedroom. I'm hoping to have a feed mill, a produce packing plant and a lumber yard as customers. Along with my TS and WP equipment, I run my Japanese prototype equipment as well. My JR Tsubame passenger train is in the bottom of the photo, pulled by a C62 4-6-4.

 

I'm currently building a room-sized (12' x 12') layout in my basement. It will eventually include portions of the southern Minnesota towns of Hope, Waseca and New Richland. The layout features two continuous loops of track ('cuz that's what I do), one representing the UP (nee CRI&P, nee C&NW) spine line between Mpls and Albert Lea and the other representing the DM&E (nee M&StL, nee C&NW) line between Mpls and Albert Lea. I'm modeling it as it is today (more or less), so lots and lots of scratchbuilding.





http://www.spookshow.net/trainstuff.html

-Mark

 

Greenbriar, Delta & Rutland

The Greenbriar, Delta & Rutland (GD&R) is a freelanced railroad and is not based on anything other then my imagination and an article based on John Allen's Time Saver in Model Railroader. The GD&R is a continuous loop urban short line switching layout that is operated as a point to point.

The GD&R started out as an 8 X 4 ell (or a 7) 2 feet deep in July of 2004 (in the house) with 3 customers to serve with in the Time Saver. Over the years it has evolved into a 10 X 12 horseshoe (in its own building) with 11 customers, team tracks and 2 interchanges, all along keeping most of the track work located within the original ell.

The name came by picking up a map book of our current state and finding three towns that started with the letters of my and my wife's names.

It all started here

A sheet of paper and some switches laying on the floor.

Gary

 

I'll cheat and refer you to the website of my little endeavor.

http://www.irwinsjournal.com/wny

 

I have a layout thread (that needs updating) here: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...Valley-Western-a-portable-expandable-railroad

Skip to the second and third pages for photos.

The Missouri Valley Western is a fictional line set in southwest Iowa, a bridge route between the Union Pacific and Chicago & North Western, set in 1954. The fiction is that a couple early shortlines that in real life were gobbled up by the C&NW instead banded together to form the MVW.

The layout is designed as a sectional, using HCDs, and is designed to be operational at each stage of construction. (I expect to add one HCD to the layout each year.) The first HCD included a packing plant and a small yard. The second HCD added three more industries and greatly enlarged the yard. The next HCD (this year, hopefully) will include a freight station, passenger station and small coach yard. The entire layout could be completed with anywhere between 6 and 14 HCDs, depending on how much space I have to work with.

The layout is parked in a ratty old basement. Well, no rats, but pretty dismal surroundings. If I remove one non-weight-bearing wall and enlarge a doorway, I could eventually have 6 HCDs in use here. But we could very well end up moving, which is why I chose to build using HCDs in the first place. Relatively light weight and darn sturdy.

I use DCC and a rudimentary car-card system. Two operators can be kept busy for nearly three hours running an entire "day's" worth of trains. I use Atlas code 80 flex and #6 switches throughout (code 55 was out of supply when I started; I may use it eventually). Minimum radius is about 12.75". Currently no grades, but eventually will run grades up to 2%.

This is my first N scale layout, and the first layout I've ever built to this stage of completion (although it's far, far from complete). It was designed to be a layout I can work on and enjoy for the rest of my life. It's portable, and can be upsized and downsized if we move, and reconfigured for different areas ... and still be operational.

Great thread! Nice idea, Primavw.

Jim

 

Back in the early 1980s I began a smallish N-scale layout (L-shaped 14.5 feet x 8 feet) based on the techniques used in the MR Clinchfield (I bought the book). It represents 3 sequential scenes on the SP San Joaquin valley line circa 1955. At the time I lived in a tiny studio apartment, but made maximum use of the available space by building my layout above much of my existing furniture. Thus my workbench, stereo, wargaming table, etc. were all under the layout, which was at approximately eye-level.

That layout stagnated in the tracklaying and wiring stages, and has no backdrop, scenery, or lighting. However, since the design was portable, I was able to move it twice, and am now able to consider finishing it.

I still like my original design, with a few exceptions. These mostly include modifications to details of the track plan to more closely represent the prototype. I plan to do much of the scenery from photographs. These also include updated locomotive models, as these have improved over the years. My current major dilemma is whether to replace my existing Shinohara code 70 track (still unballasted) with code 55, along with associated changes to wheel sets.

Here is a concept plan view, recently updated; unfortunately it doesn't show the hidden track. The "lower storage and return" portion involves storage track along the back wall, and a reversing loop tucked under the right side scenery. The "upper storage and return" portion involves more storage track along the back wall (above the lower), and a reversing loop above the left side scenery and behind the upper valence. The layout when finished will have a lower valence, an upper valence with LED lighting behind it, and vertical connections between the 2 at the boundaries of the scenes, giving an effect sort of like a framed picture.

I have a layout construction thread elsewhere on the Internet, which can be found by searching for "N-Scale Vignette-Style 1955-1959 Tehachapi Layout".



MH

 

My layout is loosely based on Rock Island's subdivision #39 of Rock Island's Southern Division.

The Little Rock Line

It runs from Little Rock, AR south to Alexandria, LA and is set in the late spring of 1983.




The layout is based on the two locals that work North and South out of El Dorado.
It's operated as a point to point, but has the ability for a continuous run.
The Branch line that leaves the main at Haskell and runs to Malvern is owned and operated by a short line called the W&OV [Warren & Ouchita Valley].
The yard is 16' long by 28"wide at the narrowest point. It contains two sub yards with 8 tracks each , 2 by-pass tracks down the middle which can also be used for a reverse loop and the engine facility. The front sub yard is more of a Fiddle yard and serves as two towns, one for Little Rock, AR and the other for Alexandria, LA. The rear sub yard serves as open staging. This use to be our yard for our modular group.

 

Island Seaport in "one"(?) view

One picture? My Island Seaport layout, officially known as the Karankawa Terminal District of the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe, is a linear around-the-walls which cannot be shown in one photo, unless taken by one of those 360 degree panoramic cameras. So I cheated and made a composite picture.



Left to right: The line comes in from hidden staging over a "2 mile long" causeway to Karankawa Island, passes through a tourist-entertainment district with nightclub pier, souvenir shell shops and roller coaster. Passes cotton compress sheds... The Santa Fe yard where the line terminates has not been built yet. Behind it will be the port switching railroad interchange yard (also not built) and behind that, open staging. (The yard shown with all the cars) Behind the staging is a background representing port warehouses and docks. The staging line disappears behind a mammoth export grain terminal elevator. An offshore drilling rig is nearby, and dockside cargo sheds conceal the hidden staging, while the tops of ships appear over the roof. At far right, the shrimp fleet harbor.
In front of the partially-built port elevator and cargo sheds will be the Santa Fe yard, a passenger terminal and two blocks of downtown scene, based on then Strand district in Galveston, Texas.

 

I am just getting back into model railroading at age 31. I had a couple n-scale and HO layouts as a kid, and finally getting back into as a married man.

It's 40" x 80" Unitrack. To be DCC controlled. As a newbie, I'm not prototyping. Just trying to go for a small little California town with a fishing wharf. Set in modern day. Mostly running Union Pacific and probably the Califronia Zephyr for a passenger train. My industries are kind of TBD. The left side of the river/bay will mostly be landscaping and the town center and fishing wharf will be to the right.

Final layout design (after about 15 revisions). Credit to Paul & David K. Smith for helping with the design


Picture of my progress (although, this is with an older layout design and mountains that will mostly be changed)

 

Lots of crap I need to clean off, but here it is, in it's simplicity. No DCC, so all my locos are stored on the side until I get a place to store boxes and engines.

 

Pie, I know the feeling! My layout has become a desk. Lots of books and some mail and stuff got stacked on it. I'm in the process of cleaning it off.

 

See that little board sticking off the foam? Thats my work desk!

 

Introducing the Long Island RR Industrial Service

Backstory:
Served by the PRR main, the fictitious LIRR Industrial Service is a small branch of the LIRR, leasing LIRR and PRR equipment. Located in southwest Long Island and incorporated in 1948, the branch attempted to expand the LIRR beyond its commuter services. Needless to say the branch only lasted till 1959, using small, Ex-LIRR and PRR late steam (H10) and exhausted early diesel motive power VO1000, RS1, etc.

The elevated berm PRR two track main leaves cars for the LIRR I.S. to deliver to customers below.

An initial Sketch:


The track plan:



A recent pic:

 

Wester Pacific: Lost Coast Div.



Sadly I don’t have any photos that give a good overall look at my layout.
It fits in a room apx 12’x12’ wrapping around three of the walls and a peninsula with the mainline, along with a small closet used to hide a turn-back of the mainline. The forth wall has a shelf that is the harbor.
The three main cities represented are Red Bluff, Petrolia and Eureka and the theme is a fictionalized Western Pacific that instead of going to Oakland/San Francisco went instead to the port of Eureka Ca.
Main industries; one of everything. Okay, so I don’t have a mine or any timber operations but I’ve got a quarry and a paper mill.

 

Here's my layout...the Saginaw Transfer. It very generically represents an area in north Texas where BNSF's Fort Worth and Wichita Falls subs and UP's Duncan sub intersect. The interlocking isn't modeled since the layout wasn't initially designed to model this area specifically. But it will capture the flavor of the area...big grain elevators, yards, cold storage facilities, and railcar manufacturing/repair.



This end has the yard and some industry. It's a dogbone and the other end is somewhat of a mirror but only for the mainline trackage...no yards or industries, although eventually there will be a car repair shop. It's still in the very early stages at this point...work has stagnated of late.