Aaand It's Gone: Modern Layout Scrapped, Preparing for THE ONE

We barely knew thee.

The decision came swift and sudden. Once the modern layout was brought from the garage into the new basement, I realized it just wouldn't fit right and I'd be wasting time, effort, and resources trying to make it work. So we stripped it of trees and as much of the bushes I could scrape off, tore up the track, and now it's back in the garage awaiting final disassembly. I plan to salvage the wood. Probably a good 90 percent of the boards and plywood can be recut for the new benchwork.  

As a final farewell, here are a few photos of the layout as it stood just prior to early retirement. The only place I could set it up was on the basement countertop. But as you can see, the shape of the layout caused it to stick out awkwardly with the entire side of the hill exposed. I briefly considered trying to just store it or sell it. But both those options were bad and just me trying to avoid making the right decision. 

All that being said, now is the moment we've been waiting for since we started our model trains adventure almost five years ago. It's time to start planning the The Layout, our Civil War Era N Scale Train Layout. It's almost unreal to say that. I'm a little nervous because I don't want to make too many mistakes this time around.

All the modern equipment we've gathered over the last two years will be put to good use, however, in quick temporary layouts to have fun while we work. I also plan on using the modern era equipment to run a nice circle around next year's Christmas Tree. Building a platform for that should be fun. 

Outings and such 2022: Trip to Boston, Reenactment in Morristown

We went on two blog-related trips last year. The first was a two-night stay in Boston. We took the Acela, covered completely by our Amtrak points. The second was a quick trip to see a Civil War reenactment at Fosterfields in Morristown. A few pics from each. 

One of the first sights we visited was Boston Common 
and the Robert Gould Shaw & 54th Mass. monument.

Boston was in April, and much colder than we expected, especially downtown where the wind was funneled through the streets and on the open bay taking the ferry to see the Constitution. As much as we didn't get to see, we did pretty well considering. If I didn't already know I'm a Northeasterner through and through, going to Boston reminded me of that. I absolutely loved Boston and the ride through New England. The family really enjoyed the trip, too. 

The other trip was a short Saturday afternoon in June to Morristown for the Fosterfields Civil War reenactment. I had been keeping an eye on the reenactment schedules last year, and one of my old units--the 7th New Jersey--was hosting this event once again after a hiatus. I got to see some old faces and take in the smell of black powder smoke. I tell you, it did spark a little flame inside to maybe try reenacting again. The boys had a great time and I'm going to try to take them to at least two this year. And if things fall the right way, we may try suiting up before this time next year. 

Boston South Station.

Old Ironsides.

Charlestown Drydock.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

Newark Penn Station.

Bi-Level NJ Transit Cars.

Fosterfields Civil War reenactment dress parade.

Marching off the field of battle.

Modern NJ layout: Curves fixed, factory built

 Once I made the switch to a modern-era layout set in New Jersey, I ran into the problem of curves being too tight for longer passenger cars like the NJ Transit coaches. After some unexpected construction and a few purchases of wider radius curved track, the issue is resolved as best as I could hope for. The only other option was to tear up most of the foam and completely rework the frame. That wasn't going to happen. So here we are. 

The track realignment was really stressful, having to add extensions to the "east" end of the layout and fill in the angle inside the squares. You can see the old curve inside the new. It's not a small correction. 

Old curve with new curve on top.

Track ripped up. 

Adding the new expansions consisted of cutting new frame pieces and some new plywood that hugged the planned curve. Took about a day to complete, using leftover foam chunks on top. The other addition here was to go with a double track mainline. I figured since I had the space now, why not allow space for a full freight or passenger train to bypass the other. Ultimately, I'd like to add separate power to the inside line and allow for independent operations within that, including the industrial area. 

After adding the new expansions and the first plaster cloth application.

I spoiled the building reveal with that photo, but it's actually the only one I took of the new section before more was added to the scenery. The double main line will be very nice and give much more depth to the layout and operations. 

Factory

Back in November, we picked up a Walthers George Roberts Printing Co. building set at the Edison train show. This spring I finally got started on it. It was surprisingly simple to construct and took about three days from start to finish. And that was only because I had to wait overnight for some of the big glue phases to dry before moving onto the next. 

Sprayed white, with dry-brushing brick. 

Since I wanted the brick to have the older look, I sprayed the base white as the mortar before using a dry-brush technique for the brick color on top. I had to be much heavier with the brick color than I thought. The concrete sections used a dark gray color. I debated whether to use a more tan/beige color, but the gray worked out just fine. I thought the red fire exit doors came out pretty cool in contrast to the rest of the building. 

Finished factory. 

Those trailers are about 40 years old, and too short compared to
modern 53-foot trailers. But they look cool. 

I've got a backlog of updates to post. Just have to write them out and get photos together. Expect another post next week that includes adding real roads and more scenery to the central and eastern portions of the layout. 

Crap! Crap! Crap! The Turns are Too Tight

There comes a time in every project when you realize something is wrong. This time, it's really wrong. Catastrophically wrong, one might say. The turn radius on the layout are too tight for the modern passenger coaches. The Amtrak coaches made it through fairly well, but the new NJ Transit double-deckers simply cannot make the turns. This has forced a major shift in the track plan, which I'll explain below. 

As for the title of this post, yes, it should be sung to the tune of "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!"

The Eastern Curve that's too tight. The NJ Transit
coaches derailed constantly.

These curved track sections are the tightest radius Kato offers that are meant for standard trains. The problem seems to have been that I originally built this benchwork thinking the biggest rail cars would be the 47-foot Civil War era coaches. Then once I switched to a modern era layout, I forgot the turn radius would be too tight for the much longer modern coaches. 

The Eastern Curve at the necessary radius, much
larger than the current benchwork.

You can see how much wider the curve radius will have to be to comfortably accomodate the modern era coaches. There's not much choice here but to add on "wings" of some kind to widen the surface area on which to build this new track plan. I'll also have to purchase additional track, as I only have the wider turns from the original M2 Kato set, which we want to save separately. 

The Middle Inside Curve, also too tight for the NJ Transit coaches.
I'll have to rip up much of this.

The middle inside curve area just down the line from the trailer yard was also too tight for the modern coaches. This will have to be ripped up and realigned with a wider radius curve. I'm really upset about this part, due to all the ballast I set down for the yard area. That's going to be a real pain to remove. My estimate is that the new track will have to shift right down the middle of these two current tracks. But I'm not sure yet. 

Somehow, the outside/farside curve is not having any derailment issues with the new coaches, despite being the same radius. My conclusion with all this is that the turn radius would have been tolerable is laid down exactly perfect, but they must have been just a degree or two too tight. The tunnel is a similar situation, where I could "untighten" the curve inside the tunnel and the coaches seem to do alright. 

This is so frustrating. But as I've said continuously through this process, I'm learning so many hard lessons that I really don't want to have to learn during the Civil War era layout down the road. That layout will have to be near perfect and I can't afford any screw ups like this. 

Photo Time

I do work on some small side projects from time to time. This one is a new wood load for the DC Atlas 4-4-0's. It looks much cleaner than the previous wood load, and hides the tungsten putty very well. 

New tungsten-weighted wood load on the Scout.

New NJ Transit multilevel coaches

 For my son's birthday, he wanted NJ Transit coaches. Specifically, "double-deckers" like the ones we see so often around here. Naturally, I've been eyeing this up for a while, too, and managed to get a fantastic deal on them from the Garden State's own Yankee Dabbler down in South Jersey. Always a good feeling to buy from a local shop directly, especially one in New Jersey.