Hi all, Andreas here from New York City. I got into serious model building more than three years ago when I built an N scale 4x4' (uncompressed) model of the Central Railroad of New Jersey Bronx Terminal, a New York freight terminal brought to fame by Tim Warris. Since then, I had to slow down a bit as space is scarce in Manhattan - there ain't no train room, no attic, no garage for me. Given these limitations, I'm following The One Module Approach (TOMA) as I'm building the East Harlem section of the New York, New Haven and Hartford RR. I love creating things from scratch. This includes benchwork, hand-laid track and turnouts, scratch-build structures, and of course scenery. I'm trying to stay close to the prototype and I model what i have researched and what I know, mostly in my neighborhood. My Bronx Terminal layout is completely built with DCC and the turnouts motorized with servos. I'm happy with my ECoS2 station but I have been looking for something smaller and simpler that I can use while developing and testing a piece of rail, a loco, some lighting or whatever. That's how I learned about Arduinos that can be used as accessory decoders and about DCC++. In the meantime, TrainBoard blogs have helped me to to put together a DCC++ base station built on an Arduino Mega, an Arduino Motor and Ethernet Shield. Instead of the native DCC++ front-end I'm using JMRI DecoderPro and WiThrottle. All this is still new to me and there's a lot more I want to know about. I look forward to some great blogs and interesting discussions on TrainBoard. Andreas My blog: http://www.harlemrivercrossways.com/blog/
Hi Andreas, welcome. That's a lovely module, you do excellent work. I look forward to the NH East Harlem module.
Welcome aboard, Andreas. I had a friend who is no longer with us who lived in NY City and had the same problem you do with space. I was raissed in Upstate NY, WAY upstate.
Welcome aboard. I'm impressed with what you've managed to do with a 4X4. Nice! Keep coming back and we love pictures.
Welcome aboard Andreas. My oldest daughter and I went to Manhattan over the summer and really enjoyed the trip. Penn Station and Grand Central are amazing to this farm boy. After seeing New York I completely understand your space issue and I must say I give some real respect to a model railroader who stays in the hobby with such confinement. Keep up the great work! Grunt
Thanks, Grunt. I'm not complaining really, it just sets some limits to what goes and what does not - like a 100 ft mainline in HO. N scale wasn't a hard choice for me as my Dad was a N scale modeler, too. And it turns out to be the best under these circumstances. Also, New York has so much railroad history in a relatively small area. I'll definitely not run out of ideas for a while.
Thanks everyone for your welcome and encouragements. I finally got around to add a new gallery to my own blog with photos of my follow-up project, the Park Avenue and Beyond layout. Below is a recent picture of module 1, the 4' East Harlem section stretching from E96th to E116th Street. See more photos using the link below. http://www.harlemrivercrossways.com/blog/park-avenue-and-beyond/
UESNScaler, that's a lovely model of the Park Ave. viaduct. I rode it very often 1953-1957 while in college.
