New layout progress (Some scenery)

Alright, Norm! Now you did it! Looking at your work, you have forced me to start to redo the Ironville, Sporting Valley and Southern after a three year hiatus. LOL! Excellent work and I can't wait to see your progress in making what is new old.   

Well good Jim, hope to see some progress shots soon.

Just before the holiday break I got the Greensville Cutoff put in place which gives me the second reverse loop. The supporting benchwork here may be temporary at this point. I think there may be some bridges installed in this area depending on how ambitious I feel.

I also decided to rework the Northbrook yard trackage a bit. I took out the short spur since I didn't want to spam another factory into this scene and I felt the sidings were too cramped up anyway. Doing this rearrangement allowed me to bunch up the switches closer to the main duckunder for this end and now they are more accessible. I will put a tower and some signals here and use this trackage to mostly pose trains and rolling stock.

This is what the plan is looking like now:

Not sure if I'll put that spur in that scissors off the RH/TT approach.

Norm,

I saw your layout the first time on "I Love Toy Trains" and was blown away.  I kept it on the DVR so I can go back and watch it over and over.  Your old layout inspired me to get back into trains.  You did 3 rail trains like I wanted to build all these years-weathered and realistic.  I have started planning a layout and I am getting everything together to build my dream train layout.

Saw all of your youtube videos also and I am thrilled, as a new member here, to see your new layout progressing.  Just incredible is all I can say.  It is great to know guys like you are members here.

Thank you for motivating me to start building a dream.

Thanks 86. Hope everyone is enjoying some time off for the holidays. I haven't had much time to work on the layout until this past weekend. I am starting to lay out the flats for what will eventually be Northbrook. All of these buildings are from the old layout, and some were in semi-retirement after I rebuilt my previous layout to play around with some different ideas I had at the time.

Someone might recognize the old Wilfred Gage building which got to spend some quality time with Mr. Table Saw in order to get slimmed down to fit into its new home.

I plan on working this area over the holiday break, working from the background forward. I think this is the final configuration for the flats but that could change, who knows. I ordered a 28" PRR style TT from Al Z. and I will take a break from grinding away on the city scenery to set up the engine yard and install it. Out of all the layout doings, I am the most stoked on getting the new turntable set up..

Hi Norm,

Looking fabulous, I have the same TT from Al that you just ordered. It's amazing, did you purchase the automatic indexing system from him

Thanks,

Alex

Norm thanks for the pictures, the layout is looking good. Keep upthe good work.

Thanks guys! Alex, no I plan on running it without indexing. He showed it to me at York and it's real nice. I will have the TT on a peninsula and plan on running it with my CAB-1 like I did on my old Bowser. I can be up close to it and can easily align the tracks by eye. I am looking forward to setting it up, hopefully in mid-January.

Norm,

Looks great!

Dave

Good to see some buildings on the layout Norm!

Norm

This looks great!

Thanks for posting.

Norm:

Looking good man! Keep those pictures coming!

Billy C

Hi Norm,

It's a pleasure to watch everything unfold. Please keep the updates coming.

Andy

Thanks everyone. I took a break from the layout work to film this Q1 rolling through Northbrook. I bought it knowing it was not in the best cosmetic shape. I still need to rewire the engine itself (pull the markers, disable the smoke, etc.) and fix some minor paint issues then it will eventually get weathered. I was pretty stoked to find out that someone had put ERRCo cruise and sound in it as I am thinking these were made with EOB originally. I had to work on the antenna and swap out the R2LC to get it to run right. I also put a Kadee on the tender since the original electrocoupler was smashed up.

Looks great...have to follow this thread !!!!

Norm, the layout is really shaping up and looks good.

Nice find on that Q1.  Yes, you're right in that they originally came with EOB.  Already having a Cruise Commander is a big plus.  In case you want to get rid of that N&W hooter whistle, Lionel sells the RS board from their S1 duplex and it sounds good in the Q1.  It's what I used in mine and the part number is 691RS4E018.

Looking forward to seeing it again after you weather it.

Good advice Bob. I just pawed through my stash and don't see it in there. Thanks for the part number.

Looking Great Norm as always!!!!! 

Thanks Drew - glad you like the progress so far.

I got back to work on the layout today to carve another foam hillside for Northbrook. I was thinking of parking another factory flat on top but decided to reuse my hillside dream shacks.

Also, can't go wrong sticking with the classics, this one has been in heavy rotation down here in the basement...

."...don't follow leaders and watch your parking meters.

  the pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles"  

or was it

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"

Abe said "God you must be putting me on?"

God said "NO" -  Abe said "What?"

God said "You can do what you want Abe but,  If you see me coming, you'd better run!"

Abe said "God where you want this killing done?"

God said "Out on Highway Sixty- one..."

How can I remember that from 35+ years ago but have trouble with my keys? 

Norm, is that Homasote painted black? Or something else?

c.sam, that would be the latter, pure Americana, and it seems to help with visualizing scenery.

Dave, I am not using Homasote, that's 1/2" plywood painted black.

Thanks, Norm. I thought it might have been, but it was hard to tell from the side view in the photos.

Norm

As the previous layout was ballasted were you able to salvage much of the old track and how much time was spent if any cleaning out the ballast? Keep the progress reports coming.

If you get a chance please take a look at my thread at the 4,000 square foot layout progress updates of the TMB model RR Club, Hope you can visit some day.

Steve

Your rapid progress on that layout continues to amaze and inspire me, Norm!  

Steve, I was able to salvage almost all of the trackwork from the old layout. I broke up the old ballast with an old Windex bottle filled with hot water and a few squirts of dishwashing liquid. This broke down the ballast very quickly and I could pull the track up with no damage. You can probably see some of the old ballast still stuck to the recycled track on this layout.

I will have to look at that thread again, I was just checking it out the other day and it was looking awesome.

Thanks Allan!

Looks great Norm, keep up the good work!

Norm looks like your using all Atlas track, are you having any issues with the track system or switches?

As they said on one of the greatest sit coms of all time.... Noooooooorm! Very inspiring..keep the posts coming And thanks for sharing.

The progress is amazing, planning pays off for sure.  It is going to be another beautiful layout. 

Hi Norm,

Just a quick question. What is the center to center measurement between your curves? The reason I ask is on your rr track plan it looks like the curves are widely separated, while looking at your pictures, the curves look to be symmetrical in terms of distance.

The reason I ask is I am designing a new layout and using atlas 099 -090 curves and am keeping a 4 1/2 inch distance between them. But I am wondering if that will be enough for engines like the scale big boy, cab forward, etc.

Thanks in advance for the info.

Dennis

macdaddy, yes this is Atlas track, and no, no issues, at least none that are unexpected. Does that make sense? I've been working with this track a long time now, and avoid doing things that lead to operational issues.

Dennis, the closest curve spacing I have is on the O90/O99 set through Northbrook. This is about 5.25", opened up a bit from the standard 4.5" spacing by staggering the lead-in to the inner curve. This might explain:

The Greensville curves are quite a bit wider apart and the ones going in and out of GB Jct. are all O99s.

Norm,

Thanks for the explanation. I think I will follow suit to avoid problems with scale engines.

Dennis

Hi Norm,

Wow looking great so far, very nice video of the Q1. This is one thread I keep my eye's on, looking forward to seeing the progress.

Happy New Year,

Alex

Norm,

Coming along nicely.    And the Q1 was doing a real nice crawl.  Enjoyed it!  And I'm glad to see someone is making progress (I seem to be stuck in quicksand ).

George

Norm - what is your secret for cutting foam? I have burned out two hobby type foam cutters, and I have resorted to old serrated steak knifes, it works but takes forever!

Looks great Norm. Fast progress!! Thanks for the update!

Hey thanks guys, sorry to take so long to respond. I was goofing off up in Traverse City for a few days. Yes, that was me that brought the snow back with me to Detroit...

Louis, your layout's looking awesome too man, and George, I like your choice in modeling the Panhandle. I had a nice tour of the McKees Rocks area courtesy of my pal Kurt. We were kicking around where the PC&Y and the Panhandle sort of brace Chartiers Creek. I found some real nice buildings down there for modeling ideas.

John, here's a photo of the tools I use for my foam assault. Missing is the shop vac and work gloves. I like to cut a few major pieces that form the basic shape and give structure. I then fill in with foam pieces sort of cut into bricks. These are hot glued together for quick build-up. I use that cheap keyhole saw for roughing the basic shapes. I then use the Shure-Form rasps for finer shaping. Gaps can be filled with wedge-shaped pieces and after I'm happy with the general shape I might use cheap painter's caulk to hide the seams. The heat gun is for cleaning the tools (and any wayward hot glue dribbles) and I sometimes use it to knock down the foam fuzz-lets (technical term). The Harbor Freight hot knife was an OK purchase for less that $16 but I found it was best for cutting big chunks of material vs. trying to shape with it.

It's been a month since I checked this post and I must say Norm, the layout is coming along quite nicely.  Loved the video of the Q1.  I'm gonna have to check back a little more often.

Thanks for keeping us updated.

Norm, Progress looks fantastic!

Thanks Charlie!

New PRR TT arrived Friday night and I got it roughed in yesterday.

I built the TT and RH on 4' by 8' island with 3' of clearance around it. I am most likely going to rebuild the RH into a 3 stall config so I can run a track right into the center stall. I am surprised this thing has held together so well after the move and all the work that has been going on the past year. Since it will be viewable from all sides, I'd like to detail the interior and light it. I'd like to get the new laser cut Korber windows on it too.

Still have some benchwork to finish which will support the service tracks.

I am still tweaking the entrance to the yard and the final layout of the service tracks. I spliced the yard entrance into the outer main right at the front of the layout which keeps all the switches accessible. The drawback is that it's not too realistic operationally (would be better to connect into a passing siding on the outer main).

In the far distance you might see that I have placed a couple more inudtries in Northbrook. The front edge of this part of the part of the layout is 29'.