From Illinois to Pennylvania!


Y

Yankeedave23

Member
I joined the forum this past Winter when I got back into Model Railroading after my wife and I got settled in our new house last November in Effingham IL. I built standard 1"x4" select pine bench work to accommodate a 6'x10' layout (I can reach the middle of the table w/ease). Used 1/2" BC Plywood with 1" EPS foam board as a top. In January I started laying roadbed and the track in February. In early March I had backbone (BUS) of the wiring done in anticipation of getting my NCE Power Cab for my birthday on the 23rd. I never took any pictures of the track or wiring (my bad) but I did snag some of the table and roadbed. Pictures below:

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I had lived in Illinois for closing in on 5 years. My wife and I sold my first house and had moved into a new construction that had everything we needed and a great space for Model Railroading. Well on the morning of March 17th while in my office I got a phone call from the corporate office back in Maryland and I was asked to come back and replace one of our retiring staff members. Amidst all the excitement and tears (this meant moving my wife who had lived in the same town her whole life, minus college) we decided within two days that we had to accept this opportunity. Within a few weeks I was checked out of Illinois and within 4 days of our house being on the market we sold it! So from March 17th to July 27th MRing had to take a back seat. I painfully disassembled/dismantled the layout (salvaged about 98% of the track) and tore apart the table :(.

Fast forward to today. We are all settled in our new home and the table has been re-assembled and I am ready to roll on this new layout. In the few short months I got to enjoy my layout in Illinois I learned a wealth of knowledge through this forum and the internet. I hope to not repeat any of my shortcomings from the short lived Illinois layout. Below are a few pics of where the layout (table) sits tonight. I quickly put the table back to together and hit Lowe's and HD today to source some 1/2" MDF, 2" EPS foam board (def better than 1"), and some cheap reject earth tone paint (thanks to this forum I never thought to look for mis-tinted paint, $9 gallon). I hope to have a track plan ready in the next couple weeks and I will start laying roadbed shortly thereafter. I will use this thread as way to post my progress and to ask questions! Enjoy!
 
Do people still ask, "Where in the *F* is Effingham"? ;)

Meant to make it down there for some railfanning while my son was at U of I, but I never got that far south. I hear it's a good place.

I agree that's nice, clean benchwork.

If you can't find the right thickness of extruded foam, you can always laminate layers to whatever thickness you want. I used to buy 2-in but it was a pain to get it home, so now I buy 1-in, cut it in the Lowes parking lot and glue layers together once I get it home. Just a side note...
 
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wombat457 said:
The bench work looks great Yankeedave - you have a very good start. Look forward to the progress.
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Thanks Tony. I have been working on numerous projects around the house, but I have managed a few minutes here and there to work on the layout. My wife seems to think the house should be the priority :rolleyes:
 
Beachbum said:
Do people still ask, "Where in the *F* is Effingham"? ;)

Meant to make it down there for some railfanning while my son was at U of I, but I never got that far south. I hear it's a good place.

I agree that's nice, clean benchwork.

If you can't find the right thickness of extruded foam, you can always laminate layers to whatever thickness you want. I used to buy 2-in but it was a pain to get it home, so now I buy 1-in, cut it in the Lowes parking lot and glue layers together once I get it home. Just a side note...
Click to expand...

HA... I never heard that while I lived in Effingham.... also known as Effington, Effingville, Effingburg, etc. EXCELLENT RAIL FANNING THERE! I used run parallel to a main (east west run) on my commute and saw so many awesome consists.

I had used the 1" in the past, but the 2" seemed to be a better fit with what I will be doing. I will be heading back to Lowe's to get a piece of 1" as well for built up scenery.
 
Yankeedave23 said:
HA... I never heard that while I lived in Effingham.... also known as Effington, Effingville, Effingburg, etc. EXCELLENT RAIL FANNING THERE! I used run parallel to a main (east west run) on my commute and saw so many awesome consists.
Click to expand...

Ah Effingham...as I recall, that was one of our night instruction destinations when I used to flight instruct at the U of I. We used to call it "#$&ing Pig." As in,

"Ready to fly to #%&ing Pig tonight?"
"What? Where?"
"You know, Effingham."

Never made it quite that far south for railfanning. Spent plenty of time in Tolono, and sometimes down around Mattoon, but that was about as far south as was worth driving for some unplanned afternoon train watching. I used to live in Savoy, within ear- and eye-shot of the IC main line there.
 
skyliner said:
Never made it quite that far south for railfanning. Spent plenty of time in Tolono, and sometimes down around Mattoon, but that was about as far south as was worth driving for some unplanned afternoon train watching. I used to live in Savoy, within ear- and eye-shot of the IC main line there.
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Good 'ole Rt. 45.... The IC main parallels it all the way to Effingburg. We have some very good friends that live in Tolono, nice little town. My wife worked at the hospital in Mattoon for a brief stint before we moved.
 
Yankeedave,

"...My wife seems to think the house should be the priority :rolleyes:...
Click to expand...

Yep, they have a tendency to think that way, can't imagine why. I tell my wife that the house, amongst other buildings, IS my priority - I don't think she has quite gotten the concept of 1:87th scale buildings falling into the same category as the real house as yet :)
 
The foam is down and ready for paint. I think I will sculpt the edges of the foam around the perimeter of the table before I paint.

Right now I am at a total loss for a track plan..... Hmmmm. Throw up some ideas if you got them. I def want to have two main lines and one long passing siding. I really want to get away from the standard oval as well.
 
Had some time off from work and amidst spending time with our 8 month old Doberman, I have been able to make some serious progress as well as go to MB Klein twice! Track is going down with ease and wiring will begin shortly. I'll post some pics in a few days. Switched to Code 83 and I won't be looking back.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Being from down-under and always interested in the locations members are talking about, I've been trying to find this town with Google maps, but with all the different names it makes it hard. Where is this Effin'place?
 
That is odd. I am trying to get away from google, but it does work in google maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/E...2!3m1!1s0x88739730d01138ab:0x16486c7facddbad7

You will note how much easier the URL for duck duck go (ddg.gg) is:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=effingham+illinois&ia=maps



tootnkumin said:
Being from down-under and always interested in the locations members are talking about, I've been trying to find this town with Google maps, but with all the different names it makes it hard. Where is this Effin'place?
Click to expand...
 
Been a while.......

Spent the first half of 2015 in Asia, Europe, and South America for work and when I was home MRR was pretty much at the bottom of the list. The time spent at home in the back half of 2015 was focused on my other hobbies/interests as well as continuing to improve our house. Finally have the majority of house projects complete, dog successfully trained (a lot of work, but worth it), garage cleaned up and functional, and landscaping around the house back to form. Now back to MRR.....

I found a picture from October 2015 when I was back at it.....
IMG_5580.jpg

I decided to stick with a basic track plan and simple layout to perfect my skill set and practice for building the big layout in our next house. In late 2015 I laid a lot of track poorly and did not like the outcome.... So around the holidays I tore the majority of it up and spent some time diligently laying the track.

Picture from December 2015
IMG_5821.jpg

Then Spring happened and I was back on the road for work and enjoying time outside. Finally got a rainy weekend with no plans and finished up wiring last weekend. I probably over killed the wiring, but there seem to be no issues involving power when running trains. I also left a siding open to expand off of the 6x10 table if I want too and I have ample space to do so in our basement. I will take some more pictures and post up. I am looking forward to the fall and winter and hopefully I can make some serious progress......

Dave
 
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At least you have a layout going. What I see from your photos, you're off to a good start. Keep the posts coming.
 
Well I got back to it after the holidays and started by cleaning up and better organizing the basement. I also built myself a nice workbench as I hadn't had one the past couple years. After a couple weeks of tinkering with table top layout I decided it was in my best interest to dismantle and construct a larger (modular design) walk-in style layout. The room space is roughly 12'x14' and I have pretty much maxed out the space. Access might be a bit of a challenge in a couple spots, but I think I have solutions. Attached are some pictures of the latest construction. I am now pondering what would be the best method for the sub-roadbed and everything else that follows! I Was able to salvage pretty much every piece of track off the table top and i reused all of the 1x4's in the new benchwork.

IMG_0348.jpgIMG_0356.jpgIMG_0358.jpgIMG_0359.jpg
 
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