The Trains

The Beginning (April 30, 2010) – As I mentioned in one of my blog posts, my wife got me a big treasure chest of model train stuff for my birthday. This was someone’s layout made from a couple of Tyco sets circa 1978-80. (Anyone remember the Silver Streak?) Several of the cars were broken, some are just plain silly (again, the Silver Streak), the track-side buildings are VERY brightly colored…  but what this has done, is give me the jump start I need.

Over the years I have tried to get a real layout going. Sometimes it was HO, sometimes N, sometimes solo and sometimes with a buddy. I have drawn up track plans, bought multiple sheets of 4×8 plywood (even stained one a horrible brown for dirt), subscribed to Model Railroader magazine a few times… suffice it to say, I never got farther than a dream.

About a year ago I picked up a copy of the MR supplement magazine 102 Realistic Track Plans. As usual, I quickly shot to the back to look at the huge, basement sized layouts. This is what I always do, dream bigger than my house, finances and skill will allow. So, when I realized that, I went back to the front of the magazine and looked at the smaller plans. I decided that part of the reason I never finish a layout, is that I plan so big that I can’t even get it started. So, with that in mind, I zeroed in on the very first plan in the magazine.

My track plan...

This is perfect… it is small, doable and the Treasure Chest of train goodies my wife gave me has all the track I need plus some trains to get running right now for fun. This plan also will allow me to actually learn some of the skills – laying track and roadbed, building scenery and towns, weathering engines and rolling stock, some basic wiring of switches and blocks. And then, once this is done (years from now), with one actual layout under my belt, I can move on to something a little larger.

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First Steps (May 13, 2010) – After setting up the track as shown in the track plan above, I found that I would need to do a couple of things right off the bat.

First, I needed to get some decent power. The small power packs that came with the original Tyco sets weren’t going to cut it. One was dead and the other was spotty at best. I found a local hobby shop and picked up an MRC Tech 4 220 power pack. As cool as DCC is, I am going to stick with DC power for this small layout.

Second, I had to clean the track. Makes sense since the track had been in a garage for 30 years – it was a little corroded. After an hour of elbow grease and a track cleaning block, the performance was greatly improved.

Now it is time for research! Before I move any further, I have some questions that need to be answered:

1. What line do I want to model?
2. What geographical locale do I want to model? (these two questions are obviously tied together…)
3. What time frame?
4. What engines and rolling stock will I use?
5. What type of buildings/scenes will I model?
6. What scenery can I include?

So, it’s off to the library (and maybe a Railroad Museum or two) for me!

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No Answers Yet (May 22, 2010) – So, I have been on tour in Pennsylvania for several days. This state is rich with railroading history and there are signs of it everywhere. And to be honest, I have often thought about how cool it would be to model the Pennsylvania Railroad. I also got the chance to visit the Railroading Museum of PA and get up close to several pieces of PRR equipment… very inspiring! Unfortunately, the general landscape of the PRR is not exactly flat… at least, not plywood flat like my small layout. So, it would seem that the PRR is out as far as this layout (although I am starting to make plans for a larger second layout once this one is finished…)

So, I don’t know yet what line to model but I know that it will be something from the plains. Now, I need to investigate the lines that run in the midwest. Any modelers out there, I would love your ideas!

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Answers! (June 1, 2010) – So… I have been to some museums, several websites, read numerous books and have answered the foundational questions for this 4×5 layout project…

1. What line do I want to model? As noted above, I decided that the line must be one that runs through the midwest, due to the extremely flat nature of my small layout footprint. I considered several different lines… Santa Fe, Chicago and Northwestern, Frisco among others but decided on the Rock Island line.

2. What geographical locale do I want to model? One of the deciding factors for going with Rock Island is that they ran quite a bit of tonnage through Kansas and Oklahoma. And having been born in OK and raised in KS, this appealed to me. Plus, the prairies lend themselves well to the rural nature of such a small layout (and small trains to boot!)

3. What time frame? I am going to go with the early 1950′s, somewhere in the range of ’52. This is primarily so I can run both steam and diesel. Rock Island was still in its ‘steam to diesel’ transition at the time so neither will be out of place.

4. What engines and rolling stock will I use? Again, it is a very small layout, but I am thinking of one diesel and one steam engine. The diesel will lead an imaginary version of one of the Rock Island’s Rocket passenger trains to make a stop in rural Kansas while the steam will power a small freight. As to rolling stock, I need to do more research into what Rock Island did freight-wise in KS (also allowing for cars small enough to be comfortable with the 18″ curve radius.)

5. What type of buildings/scenes will I model? Small town, rural Kansas scenes… farms, rural depots and freight houses, dirt roads, things of that nature.

6. What scenery can I include? I want to try and get a varied amount of things on here, both to add interest and to learn technique for later layouts. But, I don’t want to overdo it or make it cartoonish. I am thinking there will be sparse trees, dirt roads, a ridge or rolling hill in one of the corners that will add a little depth. I am considering a small stream coming in from another corner that ends in a swimming hole and allows for a small water-crossing for the trains. We shall see…

And now, it is time to get to work! ‘Before’ pics coming soon…

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Red Letter Day! (August 7, 2010) -Today, I have officially gone farther in the process of creating a layout than I ever have before. A small action, to be sure, but a huge implication!

I have been using the January – April 2007 issues of Model Railroader magazine as a guide to the early stages of the layout. In those issues, they cover the creation of a small layout called the Black River Junction. Step by step and with photos, they show the process. This has been immensely helpful, and will continue to be so.

So, the monumental step was this – I had laid out the track on my board to make sure that it fit, that I had the right track and so I could run some trains right away. I also threw on a couple of buildings that came in the original treasure chest.

The layout table with tracks and cheesy buildings on bare wood

I removed all the track and trains, and proceeded to glue down 1″ insulation foam board. I picked this up at Lowe’s in a 4′x8′ sheet and had them cut it down to 4′x5′. When I got it out to my Jeep, I discovered that I couldn’t get it in the rear hatch and had to use my pocket knife to cut that in half. Hence in picture 2, you see the freshly glued down insulation board, in 2 pieces!

The same table with insulation board glued down

The next step will be to put a basic grass covering over the layout using sheet grass. Then I can lay down road bed and track, carve out the stream and swimming hole in one corner and build up the small rolling hills in the other.

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