A friend in our train club passed away last year and our club has been selling off the trains etc. for the estate. I picked up some of the older freight cars and have been repainting some, as well as some engines I have had for a while for repaints. I took down my friends layout in January that I had helped build years ago. It was a large room with 2 rail O scale track. Some of the scrap bits from the layout; wood; 2x4's for supports and plywood that I cut into curves and used the existing straight plywood sections, roadbed and track I was able to add an elevated couple of loops of track at about 6 feet elevation over my lower tracks. The track loops around rear train room allowing me to run long trains and scale steam locomotives. It is a 12x26 foot room. The 6 foot height lets me walk in without ducking much. The lower level existing 2 rail track has a couple of loops of track and yards and requires a drop in section of track to operate making for a low duck under when running. I also have an existing elevated 6x4 mountain with 3 rail loop and On30 loop with full mountain tree scenery. Around the room walls and floor to ceiling are shelves for trains and vehicles etc. and the room stores underneath most of the empty model boxes, and the equipment I take to train show set ups. The new elevated double loop has on the outside the used 2 rail O scale Atlas track, the inside loop I used old Gargraves 3 rail track with the outside rails insulated so with the flip of a switch I can run either 2 rail O scale on the 2 outside rails or use all 3 rails for my longer O gauge 3 rail trains and bigger engines. With the track mounted on the roadbed sound deadening board and using the Atlas 2 rail and Gargraves 3 rail track allows me to run long trains with very low noise levels. At the bottom is a photo of the train control panel allowing me to power trains with DC power controlled from a cab 1 using TAS engine TMCC control boards feeding the track power supply rather then mounted in an engine. Or I can flip a switch for AC TMCC to the track. An additional DPDT switch allows running 2 or 3 rail track power. I also have a MTH TIU wired in for DCS operations.
I have about 20 freight cars I have been repainting for both my 3 rail and 2 rail trains. I use mostly CDS dry transfer decals I pickup up many years ago. I sand down the old paint jobs redoing some freight cars with boring paint jobs to something for my local railways. Here are some CN cars I painted up some older weaver cars like the hopper and old 1970's Atlas plastic box car kits. The shot of the elevated layout shows some of the CP Rail cars I have repainted. The Orange and Black CN engine with the white stripe was originally like the green and yellow engine in the background. They are Atlas 2 rail dummy engines. The CN engine with the orange stripe was a black and orange different road name I just sanded and repainted all the orange and small black patches to change to CN. It is an MTH 2 rail engine and is a very strong puller. The yellow CP caboose is an Old 1970's plastic Atlas caboose I repainted with a little artistic license. It shows the elevated track sections.
Additional shots shows my main layout room with old CN switchers pulling a 35 car freight train with the Maple leaf scheme; half the cars I had custom painted.
The Lionel track on the green carpet is a track I set up with old rusted track for my 2 year old grandson. I pull the motors from 0-27 trains as he just like to push trains around the track no power. It is mounted on a thick foam from a hot tub lid. This is now set up on his back deck so he can push his trains around while the family is enjoying the out doors. Hope you enjoy my latest projects!
