ON30 Layout - (4-17-14)

Russ,

All I can say is wow! Have never done any On30 before, but made a few HO layouts in my time. What I like:

-Main and Upper levels are Point-to-point with a reverse-loop/turntable on each end

-Plenty of yards on Main & Staging levels

-Good aisle space

-Operating Interest in switching and industries along mainline & Staging area

-Option of staying on Main level or switching to Upper & Staging levels

Please keep us posted with some pictures, looking forward to it!

-bruce

Russ looking at the design in terms of operation the main level lends itself nicely to continuous loop to loop operation if you add a crossover at the throat of the engine terminal versus sending train to yard and a second operator can do switching on the upper level and then both levels allow trains to enter exit the RR to the staging area allowing various operating styles or interests to coexist if you will. Keep us posted on the progress. Happy Railroading!!!-Don Klose

Check us out

www.bellevueandschenectadyrr.com

One of the major advantages to 3rail is that you can design in reverse loops with little concern for the electrical implications.  This is also true these days with DCC and ON30 because of little black boxes called auto-reversers.  Hurray!   Because we know this is a long term project the loops are also located at good stopping points in our layout construction schedule! 

Don we are looking at that cross over for just the reasons you suggest, we had in there for awhile in the design and for the life of me I can;t remember why we took it out!

Thanks folks, I knew I had to move my post to get some comments.  Russ

Impressive narrow gauge layout. I like the huge main level loop. What radius is that?

George

" 34 inch min radius, code 83 ME track and #5 switches, NCE DCC, 2 % max grade."

As close as we can figure we should have about 250 feet or so of mainline and with a maximum narrow gauge speed of 15 mph it should be a nice long run!

I finally remembered about the crossover at the engine terminal, the owner said no! Soooooo.

Neither of us are DCC gurus so what we are doing this week(s) is learning about 'stuff'.  Mostly switch machine controls.  The visible tracks all have tortoise slow motion machines and the hidden tracks all have twin coil machines.  If you think TMCC or DCS is fun try asking a DCC question on one of their forums!   I will try very hard to remember to take my camera next time and get a couple of pix posted.  Right now it is snowing heavy again so maybe next week!

Thanks again folks. I really do appreciate the feedback.

Russ

Off the topic. Snow! None of that here in northern new England, 80 degrees here today odd weather.

George

It is a beautiful plan. Minus the Crossover. I support such a installation.

I liked the Compact yard and area the best, it would generate trains rapidly.

"liked the Compact yard and area the best, it would generate trains rapidly."

That is sort of the concept.  We are modeling the middle section of a railroad so trains need to disappear off of the ends and then reappear later on.  In it's hayday the section of the railroad we are modeling ran 40 and 50 car narrow gauge trains!  We have compete train manifests for the period we are modeling.  Once we have the total car count capacity for our layout figured out we will use our car capacity versus the real train volumne and come up with the proper car ratios for our trains.  I.E. if they ran a train with 20 gons, 10 box, and 15 stock cars and we have a 1 to 4 capacity then we would run 4 gons, 2 box, 3 stock cars or 9 car trains which is our current target.  Hopefully I explained that well enough so you can see what we are up to.

Offline I'm working on the coaling tower and roundhouse, should have a mockup in the next week or two.  If it stops snowing I promise to post some pix.

Thanks for the comments.  Russ

Russ, I was wondering how you were going to handle the reversing loops without affecting mainline operation: "little black boxes called auto-reversers".

Wish I had those when I was doing N-Scale in the 80's!

Thanks

-bruce

Yeah when I think of all the confusing panels we have wired up with all kinds of multiple toggles etc, my goodness!  I have never been a big fan of DCC not because it isn't a good idea but just the way it has been pushed on the hobby.  About how EASY it is to hookup!  Yeah that is why there are now over 100 books on how easy it is!  Having said that the reversers sure are a cool piece of hardware!  Russ

Here's some updated pix that shows that we are slowly making a little progress.   Russ

 Transition down from a bypass track

The first of two helix's

A different view of the helix

A high level view of the helix from what will become the upper level

A closeup of what the wall brackets look like

Thanks for looking.  Russ

Russ,

Benchwork looks like it's coming along very nicely. One comment, in the first picture the transition from the bypass track looks a bit abrupt, but that could be just from the camera angle the photo was taken from.

Thanks for the update

Bruce

I thought the  Chama to Antonito was 3 foot gage?

ChaMa to Antonito is 3 foot guage

Scrappy

My comment may be to lat to effect the design much, but here it is.

Try to avoid having all the tracks parallel to the edges of the table.  Also this is narrow gauge.  Narrow gauge was used when because it could handle tighter curves with less roadbed preparation. Add some waviness to the straights.

Jan

Russ:

Very well thought out layout design. I've been doing a lot of DCC research and feel your pain. Reverse loops and wyes are the tricky part. I found a site that makes some automated "old school" reversing solutions at http://www.azatrax.com/. They use relays, so the signal is preserved. Would also work on DCS in case you wanted to run some MTH H.O. on your On30.

Impressive Russ.  How did you attach your wall brackets?

This thread is labeled ON30 Project layout - and ON30 is in fact o scale equipment running on ho track which makes the equipment narrow gauge.  It is confusing but yes this layout is narrow gauge from Chama to Antonito.

The Chama area is all we have corked so far but Chama is in real life very flat and straight, the only curves in the track are to go around structures such as the two sided water tank.  Once out of yard limits and across the Rio Chama bridge then things really start to get 'interesting'.  Thanks for your comments, I appreciate it.

http://www.cumbrestoltec.org/the-railroad/maps.html

Wall brackets are lag screwed into the wall studs through 1 inch angle iron with bolts to hold the plywood to the angle iron.  The little notch on the end of the brace is where a strip of ply wood will go to tie the ends together.  This then will be the mount for the fascia to hang from.  Thanks for asking.

Got some more cork down for Chama Yard and yes I know it's straight!

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoy this forum and all of the comments from all of you.  I posted this on the Narrow Gauge area and well let's just say this is working much better over here!  Thanks again.  Russ

" 34 inch min radius, code 83 ME track and #5 switches, NCE DCC, 2 % max grade."

As close as we can figure we should have about 250 feet or so of mainline and with a maximum narrow gauge speed of 15 mph it should be a nice long run!

I finally remembered about the crossover at

Neither of us are DCC gurus so what we are doing this week(s) is learning about 'stuff'.  Mostly switch machine controls.  The visible tracks all have tortoise slow motion machines and the hidden tracks all have twin coil machines.  If you think TMCC or DCS is fun try asking a DCC question on one of their forums!  

Russ
Very nice job on the craftsmanship. It's always a joy to watch someone take pride and time in their work! I hear ya on the DCC forums! I finally just got a response to a question after days! I am running a loop of On30 with my 3rail layout and after a little playing I've determined it may be in my best interest to hook up an HO transformer an run conventional on the On30 side of things. I'll hear enough chuffing and puffing from my Legacy/DCS trains. I also have some concerns as to how DCC may interfere with my Legacy signal......a whole nother issue in itself. I've been doing a little DCC reading however I'm an electrical nitwit so it becomes monataneous to understand at times.

Maybe you can give us an elementary "as you go" lesson on your DCC findings. The reverser doesn't look to tricky and I would like to have a siding or spur but thought I would just manually operate switches with an ol fashion harp stand. We could all benefit from your project, keep us posted.

Thank you for the nice comments.  However, most of the 'taking our time' is because of our other railroad interests, namely live steam!  It is not because of . . . . .

If the On30 is on a different ac circuit from both the dcs and tmcc you 'should' have enough isolation to keep things clear from one another.  Our layout room has wall outlets on all four walls but each wall is off of its own 110v breaker on the main panel.  Also each has its own isolated ground from the panel.  This will not guarantee success but it certainly won't hurt either.  I've built layouts for both tmcc and dcs with great success, but this is my first venture into the 'mystic, dark waters' of dcc. Russ

Making some progress on the layout BUT not with the camera work!  Anyhow here's a couple of pix of where we are at this week.  Russ

That is beautiful, beautiful work.  I love the design of your wall brackets for the upper level.

Thanks.  The brackets have worked out good so far.  They are also going to be used for some scenery backer support as well.  I will back light the mountain skyline using rope light and have the real scenery attached to the backer board.  The good news is that it is a triple deck.  The bad news is that REALLY means a whole bunch of BACKDROP painting!  Thanks for asking.  Russ

Russ, very impressive work.

hi Russ,

That is a great looking track diagram that you've come up with and the benchwork looks really nice.  You said you were going to use ME #5 switches, have you given any thought to using the FastTracks switch jigs?  The cost to build a switch is somewhere around $2 and you can pretty much build them to fit.  I've got one and I love it.  They are very well engineered and build really nice switches.  Here is a link to them:

www.handlaidtack.com  Just a suggestion.  I was going to go the same route you are with the ME #5's or #6's until a close friend showed me the switches he had built, then the real kicker was he built one as a demonstration for me.  it actually took him less than 20 minutes to build the switch.  With the jig, you can build either a right or left hand switch.  Boy how I wish they had a jig for 3 rail.  I'd buy one in a heartbeat.  Keep up the great work.

OK here's the 'rest of the story'!  I am a partner in this new layout BUT not the owner!  I have hand laid track in all different scales and love it, but the owner has purchased all of the ME track and switches so far soooooo.  I have looked at the Fastrack jigs and they look very good and the reviews from those that use them is always very positive. But . . . . . . Thanks for the comments and I will post some more as time permits but also we have started a quicke website that is pretty corny but does have some info and pix.  I will be adding a constuction page soon.  Russ

http://www.hobby-tronics.com/1940DRGW/

http://www.handlaidtrack.com/  Fastrack website

Well today was a complete bust (well not really)! We got out da' ON30 Goose with dcc sound. Well that was just a blast! That guy shifts gears worse than my wife! Needless to say we got NO work done, but left the layout room with giant grins! Russ

Good progress this week.  Got helix two about 95% done.  Started work on the long trestle.  Also even got a little of the upper level started.  Thanks for looking.  Russ

I took a break from layout construction to put together another building for the new layout.  Yes I know its a structure but . . . . Anyhow hope you like it.  Russ

Well today 'should' be a milestone day in the life of the railroad.  I 'should' finish the last of the woodwork for the roadbed today! Hurray!  I'll updaye with some pix tomorrow and then do some cleanup of the railroad room and then cork and track and cork and track and . . . . . Have a great day.  Russ

Here's the pix of the now completed roadbed.  On to more cork and track and wire and running trains.  Also lots and lots of buildings to build.  Working on another section house, the sand house, bunkhouses, car inspectors house, etc,.  Lots to do but the heavy duty wood working is over.  The remaining wood work is all the cosmetic stuff, valance, fascia, and of course some much improved lighting.  Russ

That is some terrific craftsmanship!  Nice job.  It sure will be enjoyable to follow this layout build!  Keep us posted.

Took another break from the layout and had a great day.  Drew, cutout, assembled, and base coated a couple more structures.  Got the sandhouse, Cumbres depot and another section house going.  Great fun.    Still need all the details but it's a start. Thanks for looking in.  Russ

OK is everyone ready for a good laugh?  Well since I have pretty much finished the heavy duty wood work I brought over the buildings I have been working on.  WELL, I placed the roundhouse where it 'SHOULD' fit!  Well it ALMOST does!  I just have to move the loop around the backside of the roundhouse about 1 1/2 inch wider radius!  At first I was a little upset then we both started to laugh because when we were putting in the loop we had joked about doing it BEFORE we had the roundhouse done, well now we are paying the price but a not a very big price.  I just thought you would get a laugh out of it too!    Russ

Made some progress today.  Ran a couple of test trains one on the main and one on the engine service bypass super grade.  Both worked as expected.  The super grade allowed an engine and 5 cars to be switched.  The main up the lower helix worked like a champ.  Both test runs were made using DCC from the first wired in panel.  Having Fun!  Russ

That's shaping up to be one awesome layout, Russ!  I enjoy following your progress.

Thanks Allen, that means a lot!  It's nice to finally have some running track, but. . . . Yep there is always a but!   But now we are finding out that some of the rolling stock has coupler springs that could be used on your car!  We are finding out these cute little on30 cars are way to light to be used in long trains.  We are  . . . .   Thanks again, it is just a lot of fun to be building a layout with my buddy with no pressure, no deadlines, and just really enjoying ourselves!  Russ

Very nice Russ, being a on30 fan I look forward to your updates. I have a on30 line on my hirail layout but thinking one day I just may scrap the 3 rail and go all on30. 

Very nice layout! Thanks for sharing your progress!