This layout was built from an article in Model Railroader published in the December 1992 issue of the magazine. It caught my eye back then because the layout was contained within a 4' X 8' space but yet has a ton of detail and some interesting track work.
My love of model trains started back when is was 8 years old and like most kids of the day got a train set for Christmas. It was designed to be a figure 8 layout but after several days of that I was changing the layout. I kept my interest up in trains and my Dad helped me build several 4 X 8 tables that the layout continued to evolve on eventually incorporating 3 of such tables.
When I turned 11 I joined the Weblo Scouts and was fortunate to be assigned a scout master who was a model railroading expert. Jack is his name and his layout was fantastic. I was mesmerized by it and thought some day I would have one like that as well.
I continued working on the model railroad into the early years of high school but eventually radio controlled aircraft, cars, a job and girls did away with model railroading. My family moving to Cincinnati after High School meant everything had to be taken apart and packed up which it was.
After a couple of years in college I took a job working for a retail company, moved to a new area and as luck would have it ended up meeting Jack and renting an apartment from him. He was in the process of building a new layout as the one I had admired as a kid was destroyed in a flood. I offered to help Jack build this layout just to learn the secrets he had learned over all the years of his model building. He taught me how to build the open benchwork, elevate the under layment for the roadbed, cutting Homasote into strips for the roadbed, staining the ties, laying out the ties, ballast and then laying the track.
I was hooked again and began collecting the "stuff" I would need when the time came to build my layout which would not be for another 10 years!
1992 came around and I saw the article in Model Railroader and realized I could spare the 4' X 8' space required to construct the layout and in fact that would be small enough that I could move it and get it out of the way when needed. I built the open benchwork and the cookie cutter plywood under layment and using Jack's techniques ripped Homasote into strips and used that for the roadbed. Thinking that when the Homasote was glued to the plywood it would be extremely rigid, therefore I used 1/4" plywood for the underlayment which turned out to be a major mistake. I pressed on, laid the ties and then the code 100 rail. As Jack showed me I joined the rails together and soldered them laying 6' feet of rail or so at a time, this proved to be mistake number 2! I built the switches in place and pretty soon had the mainline and passing track running somewhat smoothly but far from perfect. Despite having spiked the rails about every 6-10 ties I could not keep the track in gauge, when I would get one section fixed it caused problems in other sections. I figured out this was due to the expansion and contraction of the rails and perhaps the roadbed as well. Frustrated the layout was stored in the barn!
I built several N gauge layouts over the years including one while staying in a hotel in Tacoma, WA while doing some work out there for a couple of weeks. I hired an engineer, Brian who I first met out there and it turned out he was a model railroader as well. I designed a layout based on the design from 1992 but this layout was only 30" X 60" which allowed for two mainlines and several sidings for industry since it was N gauge and half the size of HO. The hotel we were staying was convienetly located between a major home improvement store and a hobby store. The base of the layout was entirely built uses 2" blue foam as were the mountains and the tunnel. The layout ran great, used Atlas code 70 flextrack and switches on cork roadbed. We learned a lot working with that foam and while we never finished the scenery or the details of the layout it still runs as good today as it did 13 years ago. After the Laclede layout is done perhaps I will finish the scenery on that one!
So here we are in 2010 and I guess I am starting to work on my "bucket list" so out from the barn came the HO layout. My girlfriend Sarah has been gracious enough to give me the "art center" in her home to try and resserect the layout. The track work had actually faired quite well as it had been stored in the barn for about 20 years, in less than an hour I was able to get the train around the track with out derailing but the performance problems persisted. I get the most satisfaction from seeing the trains run so they must run well for me to be happy with the layout, this poor performance would have to be fixed.
With lots of trepidation but little hesitation I began to pull up the rails, one spike at a time, there must have been thousands of spikes! It took nearly 4 hours to get all the rail up and I was disappointed in the number of ties that also came up with the spikes. One thing is for sure whoever figured out that square spikes hold better then round ones surely was right! Since my plans are to use the "new to me" pc ties to help hold the rails in gauge and since most comments I could find on the web recommended one be soldered in about every 6 ties I went along and removed about every 6th tie working around the ones that were broken out from pulling the spikes I found this went pretty quick, a small flat bladed screwdriver could pry the tie loose and scrape the glue residue along with the ballast away fairly quickly.
I took a break following the completion of the removal of the rail and pulling out enough ties to be able to install the pc ties to visit the local hobby shop. I needed to figure out what to install for bridges in two locations on the railroad and was wondering about whether or not reinstalling the code 100 rail was wise or should I convert to code 83 which seems to have become the standard over the past decade. I need a short girder type bridge about 6" long and then another bridge, ideally a trestle type about 12" long. It is fortunate to have a well stocked hobby store so close by and the guys working there have many years of knowledge and are willing to share it with their customers. They have code 83 rail in stock but no number 6 switch parts so converting to code 83 would mean waiting for an order to be placed for switch parts and I am not willing to wait, that answers the rail question code 100 it is.
I found the perfect short girder bridge in stock but all the trestle bridges that looked scale and were high quality kits were too long, they did have a 12" girder bridge different enough from the shorter one to make putting it on the layout OK. I picked up another track gauge that would make the upcoming chore of re-laying the rails go quicker. A quick wander by the consignment table yielded 3 Concor Undecorated GP 38s for a good price, you can never have too many locomotives! A quick spray with flat black spray paint and some Southern decals and the GP 38s would be decorated. I also grabbed a couple of Southern box cars and the Kadee couplers required to convert them to scale couplers.
Now it was time to deal with the idea of pre-bending the rail for the curves, it is clearly the right thing as the rail was as straight as the day I bought it despite having been forced into the radius of the turns and sitting that way for 20 years. I recalled seeing such a tool on the web for about $60 but once again I would have to wait to order it and get it in. I have seen other devices for bending tubbing and such so perhaps I could come up with something locally. Off to a nearby home improvement store for ideas and hopefully a solution, a quick look at their tubing benders and I realized those weren't going to work. The tool on the web was basically two ball bearings fixed about an inch apart with another ball bearing on a moveable track that could be pulled away from the fixed bearings to put the rail across the fixed bearings and then the moveable bearing is forced into the fixed bearings and locked into place. The rail is then pushed through the assembly and comes out the other side in a arc, re-inserting the rail through the device can make the arc tighter or applying more pressure on the rail with the moveable bearing does the same.
I found in the sliding door repair section of the store nylon wheels (pulleys) for screen doors that slide along tracks, these wheels are about 1 inch in diameter and 2 packs of 2 would give me the 3 wheels I needed to build a similar device to what I saw on the web. The nylon wheels have a 1/4" hole in them so I picked up some 1/4" carriage bolts 1 1/2" long and wing nuts and washers so I could vary the tension on the wheels, make them harder or easier to turn in case that was critical to the process.
I got the stuff home, found a board and mounted the two stationary wheels on it about an 1 1/2" apart and then guessed at where the third wheel should go and drilled a hole for it's carriage bolt. Pleased with the results it was time to test bend a rail! Rats, third wheel not tight enough against the fixed wheels, the rail slides through fine and a very small amount of arc was created, this was going to work, just need to work out the tension and it was clear the third wheel will have to be moveable in order to get the rail into the wheels. I modified the hole for the third wheel into an elongated hole which allows the wheel to slide back and forth so the rail can be inserted with ease, the wheel can be adjusted to apply the tension and then clamped down with the wing nut. Another test and out came a rail with a nice consistent arc! A little experimenting and pretty soon I was whipping out rails nearly perfect in the radiuses needed for the layout. The great thing about this process is you can easily add more radius to the rail by re-inserting it in the tool and applying more pressure to the rail until you get the arc you need.
What a huge difference this makes to laying the rail, it is nice to have it sit on the ties in the position it needs to be more or less and only having to apply minor pressure to get the rail into the right position for spiking. So with this solved I started to lay the rail back down using the same rail and spikes I had pulled up but pre-bending all the rail that was going around the turns. I decided not to wait on the pc ties which haven't come in from either source I ordered them from. I even made some pc ties from pc boards I had around but the material was too thick and the effort to cut the ties too much. It should be easy enough to install the pc ties after the rail is down.
I laid about 1/3 of the track that evening making sure to leave gaps in the rail joints for expansion and not soldering them. I couldn't wait to put the train on and run it along as much track as was finished. The train ran fine, has some problems at some of the joints but those can be worked out once the pc ties are installed and the joints can be filed even.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Laying the tracks
You can see the Homasote roadbed and the ties and ballast following the removal of the rails, note the 1/4" underlayment has now been glued to 1/2" ply. The 1/2" ply is directly on the open benchwork but once the track is completed and runs fine it will be elevated with uprights from the grid. You can also see the numerous spikes laying beside the roadbed, as with the rail the spikes were re-installed.
The open section in the middle is where the long bridge will go.
The open section in the middle is where the long bridge will go.
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