Tuesday, April 7, 2009

And so it begins...

Welcome, readers. Seriously. (Again).

Some of you may remember me from my previous blog, which detailed my adventures in the Baylor in Oxford program in the summer of 2005. I had a lot of fun writing that blog, but I ultimately decided that I would leave the blog be once the adventure was over. I have a hard time justifying posting random blatherings that no one really cares about—that’s what Twitter is for, after all! (follow Cameron_Talley if you want to know more!).

What then, you may ask, prompts the creation of this new abomination of literature on the interwebs? That is a good question. Given my philosophy on blogging, surely there is a method to this madness, some reason for this new insanity.

Of course there is. And what, pray tell, is that reason? I shall tell you.

The other day I was cleaning up the guest bedroom, and I looked at my dilapidated N Scale railroad, sitting and gathering dust in the corner. I had not touched it for nearly 3 years—ever since I moved to my current apartment. Suddenly I got the urge to run the trains a little bit, just for the heck of it. So I get out the transformer, hook everything up, set the toggle switches and…..nothing. No movement. I give the Kato Mikado a little nudge, and it inches forward, stuttering. It seems the track had gone without a cleaning for far too long. I finally got the Mike moving a little, only to have the train get stuck in the tunnel. The one I can’t access without moving the whole damn layout out from the wall.

Son of a bitch.

And I got to thinking. Why do I still have this thing? It was started when I was a Freshman at Baylor, in the dorm, 8 years ago now. It was constructed using old-style methods of 2x4 benchwork and a plywood base, which had promptly warped in the Waco humidity. It had 9.75” radius track throughout (the whole layout is only 2’ by 3’), which looks bad and runs even worse. The scenery was pretty ugly-looking, a poor first attempt that clearly needed a do-over. I was never going to be happy with this.

Dejected, I packed the power pack away and rerailed the locomotive and cars, parking them to gather dust once more. But as I looked at the Mike, and the Shay sitting woefully neglected behind it, the drive rods in my brain began to slowly turn. I began visualizing how the furniture could be moved. How I could have enough space for 11” curves (or greater!) and more than 14 inches of straight track. Most of all, my blood started getting that feeling again—a longing for soot and grime, good old West Virginia Coke, and a return to an era where there was no more beautiful a woman than a N&W Class A, her drivers spinning as she barreled down the line, bringing the fuel that propelled a nation.

So I’m going to do it. I’m going to scrap the old layout and start over. I’m going to take what I’ve learned and improve upon my last effort. I’m going to spend way more money than I have on trivial things like wiring and switches and tiny little plastic people (Which are damn expensive, by the way).

When it’s all said and done, I’m going to descend into that railroading euphoria, that madness, once again.

So to get off on the right track (I promise I will keep these puns to a minimum), let’s take a look at my old layout:

Old Layout

Yes, here it is, in all its glory. This is near the end of its life. It took nearly 5 years to get to this point. Ugly, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s all I had room for in the dorm. I made a lot of mistakes with this one, which I intend to rectify with this new layout. Some things I have learned to get us started:

  • Benchwork first, then track plan. On this previous layout, I made the mistake of using paper Atlas track planning templates to block out (on posterboard) the track plan. But when I actually started laying track, I found that my carefully concocted plan wouldn’t actually work in the real world. It just didn’t fit together right. So from day one, there was compromise. Never again. I’ll build the basic benchwork, and then I’ll use the actual track to come up with a plan that fits without compromise (which only leads to headaches!)

  • On the topic of benchwork: NO PLYWOOD. It’s so passé nowadays, anyway. All the cool model railroaders use foam. Of course, you still need a frame; My Dad suggested using PVC pipe, which is lightweight and strong. The old layout, which was built with 2x4s and a “plywood plains” top sheet, was a pain to move. It was heavy, and the flat plywood didn’t allow any kind of scenery contour. So I’m going with 2” foam on top of a PVC frame.

  • No curves smaller than 11” radius. The previous layout was restricted to 9.75” curves. They look bad. They are tough on long steam locos—some will run, others will not. Same with rolling stock. So 9.75” curves are out.

  • NO TUNNELS. I had the brilliant idea last time of putting a turnout in a tunnel. Not to mention the sharp curves in the tunnel. I did have access panels in the back, and they helped tremendously. Until I moved, and the layout had to be put in the corner, where I couldn’t get to the back very easily. You couldn’t reach the track to clean it. God forbid you had a derailment, too. It became a nightmare, and one of the primary reasons I haven’t messed with the layout for over 2 years. So, no tunnels. All the track will be exposed. Depending on the trackplan, I may use a scenic divider down the middle. It’s still up in the air at this point.

  • Electro-frog switches, at least for mainline. I have had NO LUCK at all with the standard Atlas switches. They have a plastic frog, and my steam locos tend to stall. So I’m going to try and go with Electro-frog switches, which will complicate the wiring somewhat, but which will hopefully work better overall.


So there it is. I’ll be keeping track of my progress on this blog. I don’t know how frequent updates will be, but I’ll try to keep a pretty good update schedule. Of course, some of that depends on my progress! I’m going to set a tentative goal of having a golden spike run in about a month.

Until next time!

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