Hi all--
I've been lurking for some time, and really enjoy the forum. I'm looking for some advice on a layout to build with my father-in-law. He purchased 2 O-gauge kits some time ago to play with my kids (and for himself), but the layouts have never had a permanent home until now. The two sets (I believe) are this MTH set: http://www.legacystation.com/M...enger-Train-Set.html and this Lionel one when his wife insisted he needed to haul some freight: http://www.lionel.com/Products/Finder/ProductDetail.cfm?ProductNumber=6-31936&expandBranch=0&Keywords=Pennsylvania&CategoryID=499&RailLineID=&CatalogId=. I believe he also picked up some MTH o-42 curves to expand his options
Just recently, my brother in law built him a 8'x12' table to setup on, and we're looking to get a bit more elaborate with the setup. Right now everything is running on the flat table, and, well, I'm a bit underwhelmed by it all. We're not doing any hi-rail stuff, so the tight corners in the Realtrax and Fastracks work just fine. I don't expect he (or I) will be getting into collecting rolling stock, so the 2 Steam Locos he has are all we need to build to. However, we would like to get a little more scenic (I would especially. My illustration background has me itching to do some scenery after weathering a few of the buildings we have). In terms of track, we'd like to do anything we can to keep the budget down, so ideally incorporate all the track he's acquired so far.
A couple things we'd like to figure out:
- How do we have two trains running using both transformers to minimize the battles amongst the grandkids over who gets to "engineer"
- How to create "loops" for grandkids running (do not need to be true loops - could be dogbones or other solutions that would allow constant operation in one direction)
- Incorporating "realistic" scenery into the layout - want to keep it from feeling too "toy"
- Create more visual interest for kids and adults alike (tunnels, levels, bridges, variety in scenery, etc)
We're not doing a strict modeling of any area/period. My father-in-law grew up in Hoboken so is of course a big Eerie-Lackawanna fan, even though his locos are both Steam-era Pennsylvania. We'll probably do some sort of fictitious hybrid of the two. We saw a great layout a few years ago at a train show that essentially split a table with tunnels, and had a city-scape on one side, and a mining/country area on the other. I like the idea and would like to possibly play on that to maximize the variety of landscape we get in the (relatively) small space we have to work with.
So what's the best solution? I think folded dogbones (going up/down slope to crossover each other) would look far better than any strict loops. I'm not sure about the compatibility of the two track systems he has, and whether it's smarter to just have two different systems running independent of each other on two different levels and/or areas? Any ideas?
