Hello All,
This month it the 1 year anniversary since starting my O Scale adventure. I was in the layout room cleaning and organizing and thought it would be fun to recap what's happened in the past year.
This crazy adventure started with an almost accidental trip to a local train/toy store (Choo Choo Bobs). I was looking for something fun to do with my then 2 year old son...and wow it was a hit! We still visit the store regularly to play with the wooden sets they have. That trip spun off into a trip to another local hobby shop and that trip turned into my 1st purchase. My son and I walked out with a Lionel conventional ready to run set. And that set turned into the imagination and dreams that started what is now our O Scale layout.
What started as an 027 carped layout morphed pretty quickly into SCARM plans, a bunch of lumber, and a wife who was pretty convinced I had lost my mind. Initially, I was pretty naive about most everything. That lead to a few mistakes and a bunch of FasTrack that eventually found it's way to a storage shelf. I still have all of it if anyone wants any! Thankfully, there are a wealth of friendly and knowledgeable people who are willing to help. And with that help, I learned. And I built. And I played. And best of all, progress continues and the layout continues to grow.
Here are some stats on what I'm working with. The room is 27'x10'. The larger table is 7'6"x14'. The smaller table is 8'x10'. To date, the benchwork is complete. It's pretty simple and definitely not as elegant as the other benchwork I've seen, but it's built sturdy. And that's what I needed more than anything. While I was designing the layout, I decided it would be necessary to crawl around on top of the layout to achieve the design I wanted. Which is OK for now...my back still works fairly well. The sturdiness also makes it 100% safe for my son to run around on top of the table and play with the trains.
As you can see from the pics, the track is mostly all laid. Track, track bed, wiring, and ballast is 100% on the smaller table. All of the track on the larger table is in place however it still needs a good portion of track bed, wiring, and all of it needs to be ballasted. The ramp to the upper level is about half done. If the left corner looks a bit extreme, it's because it is. I mis-measured that support and need to re-do that.
Lionel Legacy and MTH DCS are both incorporated. I've sectioned the layout into 4 blocks. The larger table has 2 blocks; the inner loop and the yard/turn table and the outer loop. The smaller table is the 3rd block and the upper level is the 4th. It's a bit overkill but (in my opinion) keeps the power distribution neat and tidy. All of the switches are controlled by Lionel LCS ACS2s. I'm waiting on 4 Lionel Powerhouse 180's...once I receive those, the power distribution and control will be complete.
It's pretty fun to look back at a year ago and see where I'm at now. I'm exited to see what the next year brings!
