After getting the trains running, just HAD to put the foam back in place to get a sense of the layout with mountains, gorge & tunnel! First video is a good sense of the scenery as separated into the two blocks, and the space of each. Second video is an inadvertant recreation of the Great Locomotive Chase, but also gives a sense of the height of the mountains with swooping helicopter shots Eventually I hope to have climaxes, shays and other puffers tootling around. (as well as that 3-way turnout done and operational!) Enjoy & Happy New Year!
Your layout looks great. How are your building the TO's using a jig or paper template. I am considering purchasing some Fasttrack jig's
Thanks for the complement! The #4.5 straight turnouts are fastracks jig, but the #6 straight, the curved #6 (12"/9") and the future 3-way are using paper template. I print out the template from fasttracks, spray elmer's adhesive and stick the pc ties on: Then, following Evert's tutorial, I work from the stock rail out, using the template as a guide but the NMRA gauge as the final say as I solder the rails. I do all the filing on a table-top vise I got for $15 at Home Depot. I like making them without the jig, myself, though if you do use just the template, take the time to curve the rails right for the curved turnouts (and all other curved parts): it'll pay off in the end with smooth action.
Really nice work. I'm interested in how your progressing because I am limited to a 30x48 space and your layout seems to be bigger then it is due, I believe, to your track plan and hand laying the switches to fit the space. You may have mentioned but I probably missed it. Is this code 55 rail? Again, great work. Bob NJ
Thanks, Bob. The layout probably looks bigger than it is (besides the massive mount of pink) because there’s no backdrop: it’s an island, or maybe, as it’s so small, an atoll. (spit? sandbar?). If it does go against a wall, then I’d put the tunnel side against the back, so you’d still have “walkaround” access to both scenes. I probably should have put the wiring access on the river/port side, but I didn’t want to squish it far left, and really a 7’ cord is plenty enough to walk around, as my lovely assistant demonstrates below during tonight’s ops session: [The bit of scenery you see at the bottom is my test track / diorama separate from the layout] You can do a lot in 30”x48”, and curved turnouts and handlaid turnout fixtures help mooch in maximizing the space. If I were to do this over, I’d probably skip the two-car “storage” tunnel in favor of a run-around on the mine side, but we’ll see how operations goes once I get all the trackwork laid at the waterfront. Yes, it’s c55: atlas flextrack (and one wye), with all the turnouts are ME c55 rail I got from Fasttracks. Speaking of turnouts turning out, I tried re-cutting my problem curved turnout two ties higher on the frog, and POP! Which left me with a gap that even Keanu Reaves couldn’t jump in Speed 27: The Little Actor That Could, and gave me a good excuse for re-building the frog points. After installation and cutting with dremel for isolation, the frog was still just a tad far out of the pocket, so I just superheated the frog and slid it a smidge with tweezers: The iso gap is a bit wider than the dremel disk, but works fine: all my locos pass through fine. (“all my locos” being a NW2, 44tonner and a 70 tonner, but we’ll see about pilot wheels when my 4-6-0 shows up any day now). And I’ve run long cuts of cars forwards and backwards on it with no problemos. And I laid down a wye and put up the temp coal/ore dock: Not exactly how I’m going to set it up: maybe have one of those 6”x2.5” barges slipped in under the dock. Not sure if I could fit anything along side it. Will figure it out at some point. Having the wye slope down to ground level caused the point rails to pop up a wee bit, so I filed them down a bit to fit with the rails. All works fine and dandy (though I’m going to have to make sure to have some good bumpers on the dock to keep any pushed cars from rolling off). The 3-way turnout is done & next!
Sooooooooooooooooo… I finally finished my #6 3-way turnout: I think it turned out pretty well, for a first go. I thought it was going to be a nightmare aligning all the frogs and diverging rails, but I actually had very little adjusting to do as I went along, and it was nice to get this done in a couple nights instead of weeks. I’m sure there’s some way for the center to use fewer pc board ties, but I really didn’t want anything going anywhere, so this is a pretty solid mass. Did have a few issues, though: Some of the point rails come pretty close to other rails and should have been shaved a bit on the non-running sides to create more space for the flanges. [Light Blue Line] I think I just stuck a spinning dremel disk in and lightly grinded away a little, and then did a little bending and now there doesn’t seem to be any problem. We’ll see when we run trains! (the 70tonner seems especially sensitive to pinched places). But the Big Booger was this little guard rail up top [Yellow Circle]: in the pict above, I had used a pre-bent guard rail and filed down one side, but between the bent and the insufficient filing, I created a Pocket o’ Problems where those two rails come together: wheels would Thunk and then ride up and over the rails. (I guess that’s the jump ramp for the previous frog gap). So I pulled out that little imp and cut and filed a new piece: I filed out part of the base so the top could sit on top of it’s neighbor’s base (I should have filed away some of the side of that point rail, and will, next time). Then I filed the proper angle to meet: It ain’t pretty, but it does the job. I also made sure to install it as far down towards the points as I could without pinching the outer rail. Now cars move through it fine & dandy. The turnout works great! Yeay! Oh, wait! I have to cut it up to make it electrically friendly!?! And have little clue on how to do!?! Guess I better do another post!
Making the cut So here’s the center of this 3-way: The center and right-diverging rails form a normal turnout higher above (to the left of) this section, so that’s no problemo. And I have a few ideas I’d like to run by you guys before I totally butcher this beauty. Here’s a pict of some proposed cuts: The YELLOW lines are proposed gaps in the rails. The BLUE lines are proposed cuts in the pc board ties. Guess my main question involves the lower-most point rail (that goes between the left diverging track). Should I cut it where I marked it (and pointing to with purple arrow), or should I cut it in line with the other two to it’s immediate right? Then I wouldn’t have to make those wee little cuts to separate it from the point rail immediately above it. But that would create a long section of dead frog (I’m not wiring the frogs). Any thoughts appreciated! [as this is an electrical issue, I’ll probably post this over on that forum, too] And am I missing any cuts? I’m trying to do all the filing & cutting on the workbench (for once), so I’m not pounding & hacking away at after installation. All help very much appreciated, and thanks in advance! --M.C.
MC, I don't know (nor would I posit a guess to) the answer to your above question, I just wanted to say your trackwork is stunning and I am envious/impressed. Great stuff! Having a helper must be a blast too
You might try contacting Steve at railwayeng.com regarding where to cut the gaps. He is a turnout mfr.
What an amazing layout. Beyond the incredible trackwork and smooth rolling, I am amazed by how much depth you have given a really tiny layout. I know how small it is, but when I see the videos, my mind tells me it is much bigger. Wow.
You may want to get some thinner cut off wheels if you will keep making soldered turnouts. I use Dedeco Ultra thin .009" wide cut off wheels. They are the same width as a Zona saw blade. You can slice your rail and tie gaps with them.
You've have certainly got me motivated and I'm thinking that Fast tracks may be worth looking at since I need at least 9 turnouts, possibly more. Cost per may be higher then manufactured but I suspect from what I read that reliability is much better. As for your 3 way, I'm impressed. Scary looking to build but impressive. Interested to see what the response is to the gaping question. bob
The 3-way turnout looks a daunting mess (that’s why it remained ties only for a couple weeks), but actually turned out not too bad. I had to re-cut & re-file a couple pieces, but otherwise it came together much like a regular turnout. I thought I’d be going crazy trying to line everything up, using the NMRA gauge until it melted into my fingers, but I guess I got the outer stock rails curved & lined up pretty close the first time, as everything else in the middle—frogs to points—all fit in fine, with very little adjusting of the outer rails. Who knows: maybe the next one will be a nightmare? But I have two more planned for a shelf layout after this one, and I feel pretty comfortable that I can make something decent, so that saves a couple inches of space. The most expensive item with the Fasttracks ensemble is the jig, and really you don’t need it. Print out the template from their website on thick paper, spray adhesive, stick the pc board ties on, and you’re ready to solder! I find it fun to build turnouts, especially now that I’m getting the hang of building fixtures with 2 or 3 turnouts in tandem, and I find the smoothness of the ride worth the time. $50 bucks worth of rail and pc board ties will get you about 15 turnouts, throw in another $40 bucks for a caboose handthrow for each, you’re still looking at under $10 a turnout. Not bad for custom work! So today I slipped some wooden ties into the spaces under the turnouts and then painted the mine side track a flat laytex called “tuxedo” black: I just slather it on (slightly diluted) everywhere except the points: rails, ties, cork, surrounding foam, hands, clothes, etc. Then I take alcohol-dipped cotton swabs and run them over the tops of the rails. Done. Need to get the tunnel sections prepped for ballast, as soon the mountain of foam will be glued in place. I did assemble the two mountains today using “Great Stuff” for windows. And when it says “expanding foam” it means EXPANDING FOAM!! Really, it should be called “Great Scott!!” as it shoots out of the can and then starts ballooning up. I squirted it on top of each layer and then spread it thin with a plastic putty knife (r.i.p.). Then I jabbed the nozzle in the cracks and let at it, as well as along the seams, thinking I could sculpt it a bit to create more of an incline. HA HAHAHAHAHA! There’s no sculpting Great Stuff until AFTER it hardens, which it was a couple hours after I went back to check on it. The can says it takes 8 hours to cure, so I’m not carving until tomorrow or day after. The hardened foam feels very much like the pink foam, so I’m expecting some good landfoams to form when carving it up. Note: the can suggests wearing gloves. I second this suggestion, as now my hands are thoroughly insulated against cold drafts and heat loss. Soap does not wash this stuff off: luckily I had some lacquer thinner on hand or else I might be wearing off-yellow “mittens” for the rest of winter.
The main mountain is not glued down to the base foam, so I could flip it over and carve & spackle the tunnel: With the storage mountain, since I want to build it as a lift-off section, I just Great Stuffed the bottom layer to the base, and carved & spackled the sides: I’ve also carved the “roof” which is the bottom of the mountain mass I Great Stuffed earlier. After everything drys I’ll try some grayish washes to see what the rocks look like. If I don’t like it I’ll slap some plaster on and press some crinkled tin foil in. So while that all dries I turned to the problem of cutting & wiring the 3-way turnout. Given the all the dead frog space in the middle, I thought it’d be about time to learn how to power my frogs. Coincedentally, I read just last night in N Scale Railroading an article about using slide switches to both throw and change polarity. A trip to Radio Shack turned up a couple different types of slide switches. My issue is that I use the Caboose handthrows, and so wanted to continue with this turnout. First thought: Drill a hole in the top of a slide switch and have the nearer of the handthrow pins throw that while the far one takes care of the throwbar. Could work, but would take too much engineering for me at this point. Then I found a smaller one and had an epiphany: I just filed the little thingy you push from a square into a circle and it fit perfectly in the hole I drilled in one of the HO pc board ties I use for the throwbars. I can just mount the switch under the styrene base I glue onto the ties for the handthrow to attach to. That way the handthrow is just moving the throwbar, and the throwbar moves the slide switch the correct direction. Yeay! (does it work? Let’s see!)
The problem is that I don’t know an Amp from an Assumption, nor an Ohm from a Buddhist chant. I’m sure there’s a way to calculate the electrical stuff, but I’m less of a math guy and more of a let’s see! kinda guy, so I had to test it. I found an old turnout and set up a “Powered Frog Testing Track” (or P.E.T.T. for short): The slide switch is a “Right-Angle DPDT Slide Switch: 0.1A, 12VDC”. I only needed a single but that’s what they had, so I wire it up only on one side. Good thing, too, as the heavy 22 gauge wires pulled off their contacts after I was all through, so there’s still one more set left! Tested it with all me locos, all creeped through great. I know the switch is working because when I threw it the wrong way the loco tripped the short thing on the Powercab. So hopefully this little dude will power the big frog section here in the middle: Yellow: rail cuts Blue: tie cuts Purple: powered frog Black: dead frog After figuring all this stuff out, and looking at the cuts I’d need to make, turns out it’s the same ones Fasttracks (and others over on the DCC forum) recommends on their template. Funny that!
So here’s how it should turn out: I’ll probably flip the upper handthrow to the left side of the turnout. The lower (and longer) frog will be powered, but the upper frog will be dead, as that frog is the same length as all the other turnouts that work hunky dory on the layout. Here’s an upper and lower view of a mock up of how it should turn out: I am a bit worried about having the switch under the turnout, just in terms of paint, water from scenicing, etc. But I figure I'll just be careful around that one throwbar when doing all that. So unless someone sees a glaring problem, I’ll probably have the turnout cut, wired and placed in the next couple of days. And that, with it’s spurs, will be the end of the tracklaying! Woot! By then some of the Great Stuff will be off my hands, and I’ll get down to some ballasting and bridge building. Again, all ideas, thoughts, critiques welcome & appreciated. Happy Monday!
You are very brave to use that can-foam anywhere near your trackwork. My experience with it is that a sticky gob of foam ends up exactly where I don't want it. Your layout is coming together very nicely though. Your turn-outs look amazing also! I can't even figure out how to possibly wire a 3-way turnout, let alone build one. Great work, keep it up!!
Very Interesting and well thought out. I think I would be concerned about diluted matt medium or white glue getting into the switch when laying ballast but otherwise it looks really good. Great stuff is one of those products that stirs the imagination when it comes to scenery but requires emotional stability in application. I ruined a pair of pants with the stuff. Bulged out sheetrock in my garage that eventually required cut out and replacement and it can be worse then super glue to get off your skin (gloves as you say). By the way, I appreciate your ability to tell the story of your layout (with very good pictures) and do it at the same time. Very clear and readable. What about doublesided tape under the layout to mount the dpdt with a short pull rod between it and the throwbar to move away from directly under the track and possible shorting. The five fingered power to the ground throw will overcome any linkage issues and if the elec switch should have a visit from murphy you won't have to touch your track work. Just a thought. bob
