Post by Beekster on Mar 2, 2024 22:13:33 GMT -6
Sometimes things just snowball, right? As of last weekend, the purple Mustang was still letting the Glosscote cure, and the S2 and Neptune were queued up for white paint in the gear wells but it was too cold and wet and the garage too uncomfortable. And so it has remained this week, so they sat. Last weekend my wife and I were discussing ideas for some redecorating upstairs to be tackled after she retires June 30, 2025: repurposing a couple of extra bedrooms, repainting, and such. In my L-shaped War Room over the garage, I will be out of the hobby business for a while if I have my way: Move everything out, including a big metal desk and fifteen linear feet of bookshelves, plus a big table and other sundry furniture. And lots of kits. We'll rip out the old carpet and replace with vinyl plank that looks like hardwood. I will repaint the whole room, myself and get a contractor to replace the ancient track lighting. So we were up there discussing this, and how stuff might be rearranged and the library in part or in full to one of the other bedrooms. And yes, I need to thin the herd in that regard. I'll start on that soon.
And as I stood there visualizing the space, it occurred to me: This leg of the room is eight feet wide and six feet long, with a window at one end. Even with a carve-out around the window, there's a fair bit of surface area there. You know where this is going...
When I was a boy my Dad and our then-pastor at church built me a little 4x6 foot HO-scale model railway. The pastor had a bigger 8x10 foot layout in the basement of the parsonage. It was great fun for several years, but my Dad's modeling skills were limited (as were mine, back then) and eventually I grew bored with the oval-within-oval and couple of sidings. It went into storage, and eventually my young nephews (now in their mid-to-late twenties) took it over for a play set. It no longer worked electrically but all the rolling stock was there and they had several years of fun with it.
And as I stood looking at my space with fresh eyes it occurred to me that half a century of modeling has given me a far superior skill set for building, painting, and weathering rolling stock and structures as well as scenery. I could have room for a new railroad, significantly bigger than my childhood layout! And so down the rabbit hole I went. I found an online track planning tool called AnyRail, and played with the free download for a couple of days. That got me hooked; I could see the potential. So early last week I spent $59 and bought the full package. And spent most waking hours over the last five days drawing and refining several ideas for a logging-themed railroad. I envision a sawmill with conical sawdust burner (Walthers has one), the kind you saw everywhere in the Pacific Northwest until the early 1990s. A few derelict ones are still around. Also a big vehicle maintenance building for logging trucks and other heavy equipment (Walthers has that too...and about a million other structures). Heavy equipment including a Madill 071 yarder. Having built one in 1/35, I am certain that I can build one in 1/87 scale. A suitable Sherman kit is less than $20.
Obstacles? Oh, yeah, several... I need to get some books on the subject, especially for basic benchwork and wiring and how to implement the new DCC control systems. And cost...I figure nearly $300 for one DCC locomotive alone, and rolling stock ranges from $25 to $75 per piece and a couple of dozen wouldn't be out of place. There are lumber costs for the benchwork, new tools from a simple set of track nippers to a jigsaw for cutting bench sections to elevate the grade and more. And cork roadbed, and track, and associated nails & adhesives. The software includes track libraries from various manufacturers, including many I never knew about. One such has a lovely and very useful piece, a shallow X-shaped section that allows a train to enter on one end and exit through either end on the other side of the X. Either straight across or making a shallow curve either left or right across the feature using two moveable switches. Really versatile for making double loops that meet at that one point. One piece of track...at about $110. But like Star Trek's Dr. David Marcus using protomatter when developing the Genesis device, it's the only way to solve certain problems... So I will have one. Maybe two.
Yes, I'll get back to the airplanes in the next few days. I need to continue my research and revisit my track plans from time to time to eliminate trouble spots that could cause a derailment, and that will take some time. Nancy is feeling fried after nearly six months without a break, so we're off to the coast next weekend. Away from the computer and track software, I can let ideas tumble around in the deep dark recesses of my mind. At least I have fifteen months before I can consider actually committing to a new railroad adventure.
And as I stood there visualizing the space, it occurred to me: This leg of the room is eight feet wide and six feet long, with a window at one end. Even with a carve-out around the window, there's a fair bit of surface area there. You know where this is going...
When I was a boy my Dad and our then-pastor at church built me a little 4x6 foot HO-scale model railway. The pastor had a bigger 8x10 foot layout in the basement of the parsonage. It was great fun for several years, but my Dad's modeling skills were limited (as were mine, back then) and eventually I grew bored with the oval-within-oval and couple of sidings. It went into storage, and eventually my young nephews (now in their mid-to-late twenties) took it over for a play set. It no longer worked electrically but all the rolling stock was there and they had several years of fun with it.
And as I stood looking at my space with fresh eyes it occurred to me that half a century of modeling has given me a far superior skill set for building, painting, and weathering rolling stock and structures as well as scenery. I could have room for a new railroad, significantly bigger than my childhood layout! And so down the rabbit hole I went. I found an online track planning tool called AnyRail, and played with the free download for a couple of days. That got me hooked; I could see the potential. So early last week I spent $59 and bought the full package. And spent most waking hours over the last five days drawing and refining several ideas for a logging-themed railroad. I envision a sawmill with conical sawdust burner (Walthers has one), the kind you saw everywhere in the Pacific Northwest until the early 1990s. A few derelict ones are still around. Also a big vehicle maintenance building for logging trucks and other heavy equipment (Walthers has that too...and about a million other structures). Heavy equipment including a Madill 071 yarder. Having built one in 1/35, I am certain that I can build one in 1/87 scale. A suitable Sherman kit is less than $20.
Obstacles? Oh, yeah, several... I need to get some books on the subject, especially for basic benchwork and wiring and how to implement the new DCC control systems. And cost...I figure nearly $300 for one DCC locomotive alone, and rolling stock ranges from $25 to $75 per piece and a couple of dozen wouldn't be out of place. There are lumber costs for the benchwork, new tools from a simple set of track nippers to a jigsaw for cutting bench sections to elevate the grade and more. And cork roadbed, and track, and associated nails & adhesives. The software includes track libraries from various manufacturers, including many I never knew about. One such has a lovely and very useful piece, a shallow X-shaped section that allows a train to enter on one end and exit through either end on the other side of the X. Either straight across or making a shallow curve either left or right across the feature using two moveable switches. Really versatile for making double loops that meet at that one point. One piece of track...at about $110. But like Star Trek's Dr. David Marcus using protomatter when developing the Genesis device, it's the only way to solve certain problems... So I will have one. Maybe two.
Yes, I'll get back to the airplanes in the next few days. I need to continue my research and revisit my track plans from time to time to eliminate trouble spots that could cause a derailment, and that will take some time. Nancy is feeling fried after nearly six months without a break, so we're off to the coast next weekend. Away from the computer and track software, I can let ideas tumble around in the deep dark recesses of my mind. At least I have fifteen months before I can consider actually committing to a new railroad adventure.
