Hi! I just wanted to let you know that I finally came around to upload some photos of my first real layout. I have put them on picasaweb since that was easiest for me to do with my computer. The theme of my layout is a freelanced american railroad serving a small rural area with a sawmill, a brewery, a small town and a harbor which serves as entry point for goods, rolling stock and passengers. I like to think of the area as an island since I only have the harbor as point of contact with the rest of the world. At the moment my rolling stock is a mix of eras and brands but with time I will focus on purely american stock from 50's until today. Track is also a mix between Märklin and MTL but I will hopefully be able to replace the rather coarse Märklin track with MTL in the future. I will try to add photos as my work progress, the photo attached is a view of my small nursery-garden situated in the corner of the layout. More photos showing how I made the landscape can be seen if you follow the links below as well as my first attempts of making a house from scratch following a plan. Timber house: https://picasaweb.google.com/109363...kshopForTheSawmill?authuser=0&feat=directlink Layout: https://picasaweb.google.com/109363440726330132036/TheLayoutInGeneral?authuser=0&feat=directlink
I think you are off to a great start for sure. If you plan on painting the track be sure and do it before you plant any trees or telephone poles as getting around them can be problematic.
Very nice Z layout. I like building on top of foam. Many good possibilties. Keep up the good work. Jim
Update 2012-01: What do you do when you cannot afford buying one of those fancy helix kits all the cool kids get in their christmas stockings? Well, I looked around and read about what others had done and somewhere I found a photo of a helix made, not out of wood but, of a combination of plywood and threaded rod. I needed a lightweight and space efficient solution for my layout so I could reach the upper level of my layout. Due to the fact that I share the trainroom with my girlfriend (who you can see in the youtube clip below) and her hobbies, I couldn't spend too much space on a long increase so the dimensions I had available was limited to a diameter of 66cm to take an elevation of 36cm. After some clueless experimentation of how steep I could make the climb I came to the conclusion that I had to combine a long (3m) incline with the helix to reach the upper level. The build of the helix was remarkably easy, my brother helped me with the construction and we made a foundation out of 22mm MDF-board in two layers with 6mm threaded rod through the top layer and M6 nuts to stabilize the construction. Due to how the construction of the second level of the layout is made the helix is slightly compressed and hence the six risers are unevenly distributed which makes the helix a rather cyberpunk attitude. Especially when you take a look inside where my "temporary" wiring of the power... View attachment 42931 There have been alot of discussion of how steep a helix in z-scale can get but I have to say that my brave GP-35 climbs the helix with grace even on low speeds. I have uploaded a video on youtube for you to see for yourself but I am amazed - the video is a bit jerky and to be honest I didn't clean the tracks before I tried it - I even think that one of my solders are a bit on the bulging side - but it works!! [video]http://youtu.be/ji78XZZbsTg[/video]
update on my saw mill I have updated my blog here on trainboard about my layout. http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2662-The-sawmill-is-slowly-coming-together More photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/109363440726330132036
The lumber facilities look good! I think that this is one of the fun phases of building a layout. Getting the buildings set where you want.
