Last night, my wife and I went to a concert. A friend from a long-ago creative writing class had invited us, as she's good friends with one of the basses who sang in the concert. At the 'after' party, over margaritas, conversation wandered to scrapbooking. I have a camera specialized for macro work, so I told her about it, thinking that she might want to try some macro pics of common items, as an experiment of sorts. She didn't understand, so I told her about my attempts to photograph my N-scale models. One of her friends overheard and told me about a local live-steam guy, and offered to introduce us, which I thought would be great- but then came the better part: Somebody gave her an N-scale layout, which she thinks is around 8x16. And she doesn't do model trains. And she wants her basement space back. And... she'd be delighted if I could take it off her hands. For no money. Hoo-wah! Now, in order to not get myself all psyched up then really let down if it is not what she described, I am assuming that she actually has the 4x8 plywood prarie in HO. But even that will give me free benchwork I'll post more- and pictures, if I can find where my son hid the digital camera- when I see the thing, probably Wednesday night.
BIGGERHAMMER, That's Fantastic you must have stepped in something!!!!!! One day looking through the local paper a guy was selling some N scale,I called and went to see what he had,low and behold he had a few unopened kadee 6 packs,a limited concor Alton limited set. I told him I would buy the 6 packs and the concor set I gave him a couple hundred dollars before I left he said take everything!!!! we loaded about 10 large cartons full of N scale engines,rolling stock and model kits. So you just never know!!!!!!!That was my crazy day!!!
I got into N Scale in a similar fashion,was riding with a co-worker and stopped at a crossing.I started rattling off reporting marks and the conversation turned to my love of railroading.This guy said he and his uncle started a layout and never finished it,it was mine if I picked it up! Cookie cutter benchwork,cork roadbed, Atlas flextrack with turnouts and some plaster mountains,virtually a blank canvas.You just never know what can happen when you let people know about your hobby:thumbs_up:
It's here! The layout actually arrived a few days ago, but my camera is on walkabout somewhere, so I had to borrow a camera. Picture the first is a closeup of the 'focus' point- a waterfall which will have a curved trestle crossing in front of it. The other two are pictures of the rest of the layout. There are some awfully tight curves, and some tracks that need replacing. But WOW what a way to start!
If you have the room for the addtion, it should be pretty simple to install a turnout to connect the find to what you already have.
If it didn't cause any real reverse loop problems or such, I think I would eliminate the crossing in the tunnel, or move the tunnel back!
What were the actual dimensions? Looks like a 4x8'. Th grades look steep, and the curves are severe, but for a mountain layout, that'd be perfect! Think Colorado Midland, or Denver, Northwestern & Pacific. Standard-gauge, but severe mountain terrain. And cookie-cutter! What a score!
Have you tried running anything on it yet? It really does look like a great start point for a dream layout.
It needs about three Bright Boys used up on it first... and, alas, a good bit of the track needs to be replaced. It'll be a while before I see trains running on this one.
Biggerhammer, Wow, what a reward for putting up with a concert and party! If you had attended the Bluegrass concert you preferred you would have missed the trains! 8<)) Ernie C
