Northern Pacific Shelf Layout

Greetings to all, long time lurker here posting at long last! Let me say too that this site is a great source of info and inspiration for me.

Anyway, to set the scene, a few years ago I was looking for a hobby to distract me from spending too much time and money on my main hobby, cars, so my father gave me a few boxes of N scale stuff he had after he dismantled his garage size layout. I layed a basic oval with a passing loop and a few sidings on a 2ft x 6ft board and didn't get that much futher.

A couple of years ago I bought a house that had a three car workshop/rumpus room fully insulated and alarmed and the little wheels in my head started turning. I bought a Kato UP F3 of ebay and that really got me going, after all, the stuff I had was around 20 years old:tb-err:. After I designed a 6 metre x 3 metre layout and started building the bench work, the urge to run trains and experiment with different scenery techniques lead me start thinking about a small 'test layout'.

So I decided to build a 2.6 metre x 1.3 metre x 60cm bench layout for the back corner of my study. A chance buy of an NP Intermountain F7 got me intrested in Northern Pacific & the Northwest in general, so thats what I've gone with. Rather than drawing, I've roughly mocked up a few plans, played around with them a bit and taken photos etc.

The setting is a small town that has a freight and a coal train in each direction per day, with a branch line running off that runs a small freight twice a week with cars dropped off by the through running trains. That gives me a reason to have a small Alco switcher based there with very basic service facilities:tb-cool: There is a larger town 6 or 7 miles further on with a larger passing loop lol. Around the hidden track at the back I've got enough room for two staging tracks.

I'm trying to use what I have already and this is more of an experiment for me before I build the 'real' layout. So here's what I'm planning atm.....


Looking North (tunnel at the bottom right corner)


Looking South. The main thing I dislike about the plan is the actual passing loop is only big enough for about 8 cars and a loco, however I was mainly intrested in operational fun and not having to go into tunnels to switch lol. A track extends round to face of the tunnel if needed (emergency or late running etc.) and the switcher could pull cars into the track for the timber mill as well if needed.

 

Rundown coal mine and creek crossing.




That will be the woodchip mill in the background.


Railfan trip lol.

Sorry for the long winded post above, and any comments are very welcome.

 

Welcome aboard Halfwit. I'm pretty new here myself. You're off to a good start with your layout. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun to operate.

 

Welcome to TB. Glad to have you aboard. Keep posting photo's of the layout's progress.

 

Excellent work, always glad to see another Northern Pacific modeler.

Cheers:

Bill

 

I love your layout and locomotives. My first layout was a 2x4 northern pacific layout with my one and only gp-18 that was under the NP flag. Seeing your layout brought back memories of teenage years.

 

looks like it will be a really nice layout. Looking fowrward to seeing more as time goes by.

 

Welcome and I agree that this looks great so far! Looking forward to following our progress. Jamie

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone. It's stinking hot here atm (couple of days around 40 deg C) so work has come to a halt.

Thanks, I'm collecting loco's slowly off e-bay as the local hobby shops here don't stock much and are very overpriced. My roster is restricted to four axle locos due to the hidden 9.75" radius curves (though my PA's and 4-8-4's are the only ones I've had dramas with in testing).

I'll be running UP and Great Northern until I pick up a few more NP locos. So far I have in NP, 2 Intermountain F7A's and a F7B, Atlas classic RS-1 and RS-11 and a Model Power Mogul.

 

Looks like a really good start. I like the packaging styrofoam hill mockups, its brilliant!

 

Actually, it is good to see someone recycling like I do. I use all sorts of packaging foam to build structure for mountains and hills like I see in your pics.. I thought I was the only one that does that, but it is refreshing to see I am not alone, lol.. I hand break it like that too for the randomness of mountains and hills. Once the key pieces are secured in place, then I will tie them together with cardboard then cover with plaster saturated gauze. I have some expired medical plaster cast sheets I got for next to nothing. When they expire, the medical industry can't use them anymore, and there was a time you could get tons of them for free, or a few cents a roll (that is gone now tho, now they can still be costly since the figured out that they are still saleable outside of the medical industry). But, they are still cheaper than Woodlands plaster gauze, and they typically have more plaster in them if you buy the Johnson & Johnson better stuff. When those can't be found, it is really cheap to just make your own with cheap rolls of gauze and a box of plaster (altho messier). Anyway.. I am rambling.. Nice work..

 

I've got a trash bag full that I keep for projects and current layout has some beneath the plaster cloth.

 

Welcome!

That looks like it's going to be an operations-packed layout. Nice job.

 

Welcome to Trainboard and nice start so far.

I use any kind of foam, pink, blue and white. I just take a rasp and go nuts. I also will use a dremel tool in spots. Then I just mix up plaster and paint it on. It is kind of messy so I will now use the advise from Jim Reising (see New Oakville Sub thread ) and just use drywall compound.

There are many ways to build up scenery that have great results. Read the many threads on other peoples layouts and choose a method.

I would build a backdrop first before doing any plaster type of work.

Good luck and keep the pictures coming.

Craig

 

Hi Halfwit, the layout's looking great so far - love to see more pictures as it progresses - also fantastic to see someone else from Adelaide on here! I hadn't noticed until I read your bit about how hot it is here at the moment, and thought "Hey, that's what it's like where I live!" LOL

 

I will try to get my gp-18 running its the older life like one that I bought in 1993. It has really seen some abuse as my first locomotive and it runs a little herky jerky now but it probably just needs a good cleaning. If I get it running I will post a pic or video.

Good luck with the layout.

 

Have a track plan you could post? Looks great so far.

 

I'm also an NP modeler, and have built a double-track coffee table layout for practice- the next layout will be a larger, more reality-based one for operations as well as scenery fun. Great work so far!!