My new layout so far...


C

Chemdawg

Member
I've been working on this since november. So far I have the benchwork done for now. Eventually there will be another leg coming off with a turntable and more staging area that will be behind the scenes.

For components, I'm using all digitrax. All my track is Bachmann and all turnouts are bachmann. I do have some flex track in areas where I could NOT make the bachmann stuff work. So I custom made my own using the bachmann roadbed without the black ties and rail. I then fit the atlas flex track onto the grey roadbed.

Components used:

Digitrax PR3
Digitrax DS64 X 3
Digittax PM42 X 2
Digitrax Zephyr Xtra
Tortoise switch machines X 12
Dell notebook that had a broken display. Display was removed and I am using a ELO 15" touch panel with JMRI and Decoder Pro 3

My bridges came from Campbells but have been modified to fit my purpose.


Anyways, here is a video of what I have so far. It is a very rough video, cause I'm not used to making them. I used my Iphone to make the video.

Any comments are welcome.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPkJ8rkEcgk&context=C3a3e7c2ADOEgsToPDskJrQSJm56IOE_ew9JPxckru


Enjoy
Pat
 
Looks like you are off to a great start on the layout and I love that touch panel control!! You had me a bit worried when you said bachmann switches (remembering the horror we faced using them lol) but had a sigh of relief when I saw you used toroise switch machines.
 
I really went through a TON of nightmares with those. I had to pull everyone apart, and remove all the garbage parts inside. I drilled a hole through the tie that holds the two points together, Ran a piece of carbon fiber rod down to the tortoise. I filed the points so they made a nice close contact with the rails, and between that and the tortoise machines putting pressure on the carbon rod, I don't have any issues with turnouts.
 
Good to hear that, because we had ours on the board for about a week, got so freakin mad, then replaced them with Peco turnouts lol. We even filed down the points but that didnt really help. Yeah they are junk. We would hold our breath everytime a train went over them. Not fun at all. I never thought about the tortoise idea though with them, good idea!
 
My biggest problem is that everything was done backwards. I bought a bunch of bachmann track before I even know what I wanted to do. Ebay was good to me with the track. I bought several boxes of 50 of 9" straight, and I bought 33.5 Degree radious and 22 and 18 radious track. So yeah I had a ton of it. Then tower hobbies was my supplier for the turnouts. After I did that I spent months playing around trying to find that perfect layout plan. After scratching ideas so many times, I finally found something that suited me. So my goal was to make the bachmann track work for me.

Yes the bachmann turnouts SUCKED. So I kept toying around with different ideas till I found one that worked pretty good. I still find myself spending LOTS of time perfecting the track. But to me spending the time now is worth it.
 
Chemdawg said:
...
I still find myself spending LOTS of time perfecting the track. But to me spending the time now is worth it.
Click to expand...

Not spending time on perfecting the trackwork is a mistake that many modelers make. You are doing this right! I don't know about you, but I've seen many a layout where the scenery has been finished to a very fine level, but the trains don't run, or even runs poorly with lots of derailments, because the owner hasn't taken the time to do the trackwork and electrical well at all..

I've been told that every model railroader has a real specialty within the hobby, and fine trackwork is apparently yours! Doing it now, saves alot of grief later, when correcting mistakes isn't so easy. There won't be any scenery on my layout until, 1. ALL trackwork is 100% down, debugged and derailments are non-existent. 2. This includes debugging of all cars and locos. 3. Wiring, for the track is 100% done and functioning trouble free. 4. This all is to be proven by many op-sessions spread over a set period of time, approximately 1 year, after completion of trackwork and electrical.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've been told that every model railroader has a real specialty within the hobby, and fine trackwork is apparently yours! Doing it now, saves alot of grief later, when correcting mistakes isn't so easy. There won't be any scenery on my layout until, 1. ALL trackwork is 100% down, debugged and derailments are non-existent. 2. This includes debugging of all cars and locos. 3. Wiring, for the track is 100% done and functioning trouble free. 4. This all is to be proven by many op-sessions spread over a set period of time, approximately 1 year, after completion of trackwork and electrical.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. While it may not be that fun at first with no scenery or nothing on the board besides track, it will definitely be worthwhile when the trains run 100%. Nobody will notice all of awesome scenery and other work if your trains are laying on their side :D
 
Off to a great start!
I laughed about the Dell part, I have a laptop with no "B" that monitors staging on my
Urlington Northern!
 
I think when I decided on what I wanted to do as a layout, I did everything all wrong. I have no idea what structures I am going to use even. I did the benchwork, then started putting down the track till I had something that was close to what I wanted. Then glued down all the roadbed/track. Next step was to install all the tortoise machines. Using a pin vice I drilled a really small hole straight through the tie that holds the points together on the turnout machine. Ran a piece of carbon fiber rod through and connected it to the tortoise.

Next step was to find a good spot to connect the electrical components. Used a piece of hardboard, and mounted everything. Then spent almost a week wiring everything. Once I had total control of all turnouts, and had the PM42's working, I started working the bugs out of the rest of the electrical. Got a JMRI test panel setup and a separate program track. So everything worked on electrical, so now it was time to get the track all lined up and perfected. I'm watching my steamers go over the rails, and even the slightest shift will have me marking the track to look at it and perfect it.

I do have a good idea of what I want for industries, and scenery, so that is my next goal. This is NOT a prototype railroad. It was done for the sole purpose of personal satisfaction.

I have one BDL168 that will get wired in and my 7 districts will get broken down a bit more so I can do block detection. I purchased 20 resistor wheels for my rolling stock so I can do block detection. However, that is for a later date.

I'm happy to have the imput from everyone here. It makes me feel better to know I'm in the right direction.

Pat
 
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