Part 2 of the second level

Here is a view of the another ramp going to the north
table of the layout. It will be hidden by buildings.
The north table has only the bottom layer which
will be all narrow gauge track. The second level on
this section is only six inches
wide, due to the fact of the hidden ramp that goes
on the back.
The bottom photo is the end of the second level.
As you can see it has a peninsula that goes to the
north table. This section is only 24" long by 12"
wide.

Just FYI the second level is made
out of MDF board just like the
lower section. The only difference is that the
lower section is covered with homasote.

Second level

The second level is where most of the narrow gauge action will be taken. This section, for the most part is only 12 inches wide. This is where my creative juices will really start flowing. To begin with, modeling in O scale in such a small area will take a great deal of creativity and imaginations. O scale buildings takes a lot of real estates, especially if you are trying to model an urban city in O scale in such a small area like this. So time will tell how the finish product will look.

We shall start from the wharf. Here is a photo of the wharf with the false "temporary buildings". As you can see the wharf serves both the standard and the narrow gauge roads. This is where the merchandise arrives by ship and it goes by railroad to the rest of the destinations. The standard continues on away from the city while the narrow gauge serves the existing city. This wharf is 6 feet long by 12" wide. It has more than 1700 pieces of planks hand laid one by one.

Let's continue up the grade following the
narrow gauge road. Here we see the ramp
around the corner from the wharf to the left
heading up to the second level to the city while
the standard gauge goes underneath the city.
By making this small layout bi-level it makes it bigger with more running truck and more switching capability. The other advantage it has is that I can incorporate both gauges on the layout,
the standard and the narrow gauge. Giving the viewer an understanding between a narrow gauge train and a standard gauge one. The other interesting thing about this layout that it is a point to point, instead of a running around layout. That gives it a more prototype atmosphere and consumes more time and attention while operating the train.

Here on this corner is my favorite corner is the
point where the narrow gauge train coming from the wharf meets the second level. You can see the the narrow gauge equipment on all three levels, the bottom, the ramp and the second level. You can also see the standard gauge coming out of the lower section from underneath the city. The lower photo you can see a closer view of the corner.
The section where you see the strip is where the
Warren bridge will be located at.

July 13.

Well it has been a awhile since I have updated my blog so here it is:
I've done a lot since the last post. The second level of the layout has been installed. This is the section where most of the On30 track will be. Most of the switching will be up here also. Here you can see the first grade almost completed. The only left here is to do the Warren Bridge which will be installed here.
Also you can see on this corner the three elevation of the layout. The bottom left you can see the standard gauge train and on the right you can see the narrow gauge boxcar. On the ramp you also see another narrow gauge boxcar and on the top level you can see the Davenport narrow gauge engine. This corner is one of the most interested paft of the layout because of the multiple layers that they are all visible and full of action. This is the Southeast corner of the layout.

On this photo is the southwest portion of the layout. This is the corner where the railroad comes out of the wharf and into the city. The standard railroad will go underneath the city as you can see and the Narrow Gauge turns to the left and goes up the ramp that you see on the above photo. The Standard gauge will come out on the southwest corner underneath the Warren bridge as you can also see on the top photo. The narrow gauge track is hand-laid track while the standard is from Old Pullman.

The last photo is the end of the line for the standard gauge. The next post I will cover the second level.

All Labels:

Reader Comments
Allow
Don't allow, show existing
Don't allow, hide existing

Post date and time

The Progress

I managed to lay more track and to finish the standard gauge track project.

On this photo you see the motor passing the first turnout and the passing siding just on front of the motor.

On the rest of the photos you will see the second turnout and the stub.

The top photo is from the end of the line.

June 22

Yesterday on June 21 for the first time in many weeks I was motivated enough to work o my layout. I finished laying the standard gauge track. It covers three sides of the room, from the wharf to the opposite end of the room in a u shape. On the other end it has a passing siding with a spur at the end of the line long enough for the motor and one car to fit. Here you can see the track leaving the wharf making a left turn and going behind the grade of the narrow gauge road.

Grade

On these two photos you can see the bottom portion of the grade. I installed the Woodland Scenic incline kit in the middle. On top of the incline set I installed two (side by side) sheets of balsa wood, 3/32 x 3 x 36 inches long to be my base for the road. On each side of the incline I just cut a 2 inch thick styrofoam sheet to size to give me the support. You see it well on the aerial photo of the incline. This will give two functions for the incline, a road that will connect the upper portion of the city to the lower portion and the second purpose is for the narrow gauge to go the upper level and service those industries on the top prtion of the city as well.

As you can see on this photo from the front of the layout the degree of the grade. Once the layout is done, from this view you won't be able to see the standard gauge train. It will be under cover. The top of it will be the city that the narrow gauge will serve. "A big metropolis". On the front of the grade the city will be table-top level. So the city will be split level.

Grade to the second Level

Here you can see the top of the and the 18" radius that it has on the top of the grade. At this point it is just about 5 " high. I need to add another 1/4 inch to make sure it has enough clearances for the standard gauge train to clear.

Continuation

May 10: It has been a good week on the progress of the layout. I finished planking the wharf and I added 6 more feet of the standard gauge and added the grade for the second level on the narrow gauge line. As you can see on this photo on your right you see part of the wharf with all the planking done. In the center of the photo you can see the standard gauge track with a train on the background and the grading (4%) on front of the standard gauge train.

On the first photo you can see the aerial view of the grade with the narrow gauge track in the middle of the road and a vehicle on the right lane going up. Once this section is done I am not going to laid any more narrow gauge track until the standard gauge is completely done.

De

May 2, 2009.  I just finished the deck on the wharf. A little over 1600 pieces of planking on the deck top. Now I will start installing the pilings and all the support features. Those who wants to attack something like this needs to be highly motivated. I am glad it is over. 

Later on I will write on the rest of the progress of the rest of the layout.

Narrow Gauge

29 April 2009- Continue hand laying the narrow gauge track. Did the 18" radius and now I will start the up hill grade to the second level which will be 5" higher than the bottom layer. This grade might be a little steep than normal. I haven't decided how steep this grade will be. I am still playing with the idea of where this grade is going to end.

This is still under construction. The ideas will flow and new ones will come. I will keep you posted with the progress.

Standard Gauge

28 April 2009: The work keeps progressing. I have cleared the next section, by removing all of the HO track and laying a new sheet of homasote over the MDF board. I have laid a 26" radius curve of O scale standard gauge and a straight piece of track. I still need to install the feeder wires and test it with the SW8. I ran the 40 footers boxcars with success. I am still debating if I am going to cover the standard gauge with the town over it or just cover portion of the track. I am very excited how is coming and hopefully by this weekend I can accomplished the standard gauge portion.

Planking

Friday 24th, 2009. Went to the hobby shop and bought all the planking that they had (15 pieces). I went ahead and order a batch more. I went to get some Dio-Sol, they did not have any either, so I ask them to order it for me with the batch of balsa planking. Everything that I needed it they did not have it in stock, so I asked them to order it. i did get the I-beams that I needed to do the entrance post for the wharf and the chains to hang the sign.  When I got home I started to install more plankings. 

Saturday 25th of April: Continue installing more planks. Until I did them all. I have about 15 % more to do before the whole deck is done. Now I just have to wait for it to come. I weather a couple of boxcars, standard gauge ones to have on the layout.  Since I did not have any more materials to work on the deck I started to work on the removable section that goes across the closet door. I added and installed the standard gauge track and also hand-laid the narrow gauge track. At least I added 27 more inches of standard and narrow gauge track.

Decking/ Layout Plans

I am about 70 % completed on the deck. Only if the hobby shop had enough material at one time for me to get enough to finish it.

I was brainstorming with my fellow railroader friend, Jerry Diaz and we came out with a great idea on my layout of doing split level. Since I am doing an urban/city railroad. A railroad serving a particular city, we came up with the idea of having the standard gauge running on level ground while the narrow gauge will run on two levels. An upper and lower level. That would give me more running space and more city space. So the Standard Gauge will have room to run and serve industries on the ground level while the narrow gauge will serve on both levels.

So now that their is a distinctive plan, the work should go faster !

April 19 2009

Yesterday I bought some more strips of balsa and added some more plankings to the deck. The day before on Friday I installed new trucks to my UP Box car and weathered it. I am adding a small video of the wharf running the standard gauge train.

Third Day

Well I went to the hobby shop and picked up all their balsa strips that they had in stock. I got home and I was able to do and finish the rear end and also to cover the inside of the standard gauge. At least a little less than 2/3 is done. Now the only thing left on the deck is the area between the standard gauge and the front of the layout. Due to the limitations that I can get at the hobby store probably it will take me another 2-3 days. Otherwise it would be completed in one more day. 

Materials

Today after work I will be picking up poplar wood to make some more planking for the wharf. I will be picking up the custom dry transfer for the boxcar and getting everything for next week to continue the progress. Once I get home from picking the materials, I will be working on the removable section which is the next section right next to the wharf. I will install the homasote on top of the MDF table top and will be adding the tracks, standard and the narrow gauge. That will add another 30 inches of running !!! On this section most likely I will be adding the first standard turnout on the layout. This turnouts I got them from Old Pullman. They make great O scale turnouts. Real wood ties and done very well. Here with this post is a photo of their turnouts. All of my turnouts will be manually operated since all the tracks will be close to the front. The widest section of my layout is 2 feet wide.

Removal of Lettring

I bought this On30 Boxcar from AMS. But I wanted to remove the RGS letters and install the Home Road name. This was the project for this evening. Here are a couple of photos of the results. I need to clean it up a little more and tomorrow night I will post new photos with the new name on it.

Here is another view of the wharf. You can see closer the planking's between the rails. I ran out of material. So I have to wait for the weekend to pick up some more. In the meantime I have to work on a boxcar that I have to remove the lettering and replaced with the "Hometown" road name.

Here is a view of both gauges, the standard and the narrow gauge of 30 inches. This is the first 12 inches of the wharf. 

Here the photos of the work that I did last night, April 7th. Here is the photo of the standard gauge at the end of the wharf

Wharf

April 8: Last night I continued with the planking. I used all the materials that I had. This was my second night installing the planking on the deck. I've covered one foot out of the six that I need to cover. I figured out a system that it is quicker. Hopefully with this system I can finish this portion in four days.

I started this idea for this layout tthe 29th of March 2009. I started to rip off the old layout the 30th. By the 1st of April I had the homasote installed on the table top and by the 3rd of April I had the standard and the narrow gauge tracks laid on the wharf.

New Layout

This is something new for me, this blog. So don't know where to start. I am in the process of starting a new train layout. This layout is in O scale. It will have standard gauge trains and narrow gauge, being On30. This means that the track is 30 inches wide instead of the 4' 8.5" wide. This layout is in a spare bedroom the size of 12' x 10'. It is a shelf type. Two feet wide

and goes all around the room covering all three walls. The fourth wall is only one foot wide by six feet long. That is the wall that the entrance door opens to. And this section will be the wharf of the city. But the layout will be set up to run point to point. The entrance to the room won't be blocked nor it will have a removable section. The bench is made out of 1 x 4's frame and the table top is made out of MDF Board. On the top of the MDF I have laid a sheet of homasote.

The setting will be urban with industries and tall buildings. The main standard track will be on three sides including the wharf. The track will be mainly on the back of the layout while the narrow gauge will be the one going to all the industries throughout the city.

I am doing the first section which is the wharf. I have hand laid the main standard track and the narrow gauge track right on the homasote, since the wharf does not have roadbed and the track will be embedded into the planking's on the deck. . Last night April 6th I started to lay down the planking's on the deck. Now remember this deck is six feet long by one foot wide. So there is a lot of planking's to lay down.