A spoof on a Tyco friend's collection of street lights. Perhaps an unusual accessory to collect, he has hundreds and is always adding more.
Awfully nice of you guys, gals, thank you. I will tell you that I had more troubles filming that four minute video than any other I've done. Took about 8 hours of filming to get four minutes of useful film, and by this point I just chopped it together to get the project over and done so I could move on to other projects (a point to point subway layout, two micro layouts, and a switching layout). WM183, along with TrainGeek, and I had been chatting about micro layouts in another thread. Armadilloville started out as a factory designed Tyco Expander Layout: some passing sidings and a couple of spurs. As time progressed, I found that the profusion of turn outs more annoying than interesting; a bit of overkill. So, with simplicity in mind, I relaid all the track in such a manner as to be a twice around, got rid of the passing sidings, and put in one outside spur. This allowed me to fit in the Tyco US 1 slot car track, as well as maintain and improved the trolley section. As I wanted to keep it relatively 1970's vintage, I used period Tyco train set transformers. One of the best things I did was get rid of those crummy things. They have very poor speed control, and typically we model railheads, unlike our slot car brethren like to see how slow we can go, not how fast we can go. The MRC power packs made a world of difference, particularly with the trolley. The two ovals of the twice around are wired in distinct blocks, which allows one to run two trains simultaneously, a feature that might be a bit of overkill in itself. When I did Armadilloville, I never wanted to strive for a proto-real look, but rather a distinct vintage look- something that a 12 year old would do if he could. Decades ago, as a young, and avid, model railhead, I came across this cartoon warning against trying to do too much in a small space. Well, and good, but I rather like trying to do too much in a small space! The twice around maneuver really does give the illusion of traveling a further distance, without having to add more square footage, and with use of camera angles, the track work looks a lot more complicated than it really is.
