I was left with some 23" X 13" leftover board after a kitchen improvement. Of course my 1st reaction was: micro layout http://www.carendt.us/ At the same time I wanted to have a try with Peco turnouts and flextrack. Any other switching layout fan here ? My wife like it because it doesn't take much space. Last month I even convinced her that we should buy an Ikea shelf so I could store my trains stuffs. Of course I was planning another shelf layout :tb-smile: The layout has a sector-plate , a teamtrack, a freight depot , a tunnel and serves a brewery. Here are some pictures. Jacques
Okay, I'm sure it'll be on the Micro Layouts site. But I think I've seen this plan somewhere else... is it like the one MR showed in the late 90s as an example of a small switching layout?
Before Unitrak, I used to have a plank of wood about 4' x 1' point to point switching layout, which gave me hours and hours of enjoyment. I used to travel frequently with my former wife and educator, to conferences all over the state, and standard activity while she was in conferences, was a shopping trip to the LHS, and bringing back the wares to run on the switching layout next to the hotel bed. One funny story was at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Winter Park on Franklin St, it is a huge 2000 room complex. My wife and I spend a long weekend there at a conference and I made good use of the switching layout. I inadvertenly dropped the edge against the floorboard trim, and made a mark. About 5 years later with a new wife, we stopped in WinterPark again, I picked the familiar hotel, and would you believe we got the same room - years apart - only different wives!!!! I knew it because the little mark I left, was still there even still had some grass imbedded in the scratch. Talk about Twilight Zone!!!! Man, I still miss that switching layout, but since then, have taken a small case with Unitrak, a power pak, some structures, and trains and run them on business trips and vacations. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Thanks Ken, Thomas and Triplex ( I've seen your name somewhere else :tb-smile: ) for taking some of valuable time to reply. Ken, I won't tell your story to my wife. She might associate micro-layouts with divorce. I wish I had known micro-layouts when I was constantly traveling from my home in Montreal and staying in a hotel room in Ottawa. Thomas, not just N scale. Those amazing guys at http://www.carendt.us/ can even fit a HOn30 scale layout in a shoebox. Triplex, as a matter of fact I contacted Carl Arendt and he replied that he was interested in my layout but he would like me to complete the scenery before publishing some pictures of my layout. By coincidence I realized that another fellow Belgian countryman track plan was published in http://www.carendt.us/ march 2006 issue. It features the track plan of a Belgian vicinal rural railway and is an exact mirror image of my layout. Small Layout Scrapbook ( see at bottom of the page ) So I'm working on the scenery now. I completed the concrete road ( made out of styrene ) and just finished ballasting the track yesterday. Jacques
nice work jacques, i think i would like kind of layout too, it is finished rather quickly and you can move on to the next one, also relatively cheap. i see this amost as a diorama but with a operational train. more pics please! greatings from a fellow country men stevenb
Thanks for the kind words Stevenb. The time involved in finishing a micro-layout ( by definition, smaller than 4 square feet ) depends ( like any other layout ) on the level of details. I remember reading about one guy who built a complete micro layout in 10 hours. The scenery was of course ... minimalistic. People can spend months even just on a diorama A micro-layout is not necessarily cheap. It requires good quality turnouts and might require 3 way or expensive double slip turnouts in order to save space I agree with the definition of an operating diorama. I'll post more pics with the road and ballast installed. Jacques
I did some more work on the layout. 1) I repainted the concrete road because the concrete color was too dark. 2) I painted the side of the road dark brown. 3) The track was ballasted ( Woodland Scenics fine ) 4) The bridge was painted and weathered. I had to do some cutting and sanding on the bridges and the piers because the bridge crosses the layout diagonally. 5) I built some mockup for the malt silos and the Molson billboard. Jacques
Cool. I've been wanting to build a couple of timesavers to run at the club. With a smaller DCC system and a couple of throttles, you could have a lot of fun.
very nice jacques! but can you please work faster, im very impatient i really want to see the finished product. i think i would like doing something like this too one day. i like the locomotife in the pic. stevenb
Ooops sorry stevenb, I forgot to reply to this one. I have only 2 turnouts , so I operate them directly by hand. I added the dirtroad and started building the malt silo for the brewery . I also added an industrial building mockup to the left to hide where the bridge intersects the left backdrop. Here are 2 more pictures. Jacques
Please excuse my ignorance, but I have never thought about an “Operating Diorama”. What does that mean exactly? It doesn’t look like much room to actually do anything. I’m asking because I was given a small Z scale train a few years ago and I don’t know what to do with it. I thought I might make a small Diorama on a shelf to display it. Since you mentioned “Operating”, I’m now thinking of setting up an auto reversing circuit and have it move back and forth.
SleeperN06, I call a micro-layout an "operating diorama" because its size is often just the size of a diorama ( a couple of square feet ) . But the big difference is that it is "active" as a standard size model railroad layout. The engines and rolling stock are rolling and the turnouts ( switches ) can be activated to simulate a real railroad operations. I hope the following link will give you some idea for starting your Z scale "operating diorama". http://www.carendt.us/scrapbook/page71a/index.html Jacques
My compliments on your switching layout. It appears to be coming along fine. Keep the photos and story lines coming. Have fun!
Nice little switching doo-hickie. I have grand plans,, but sometimes I just don't have the drive to work on anything. Maybe small is the key. Adios wyatt
First of all, I want to compliment you on your project. It does look good.:thumbs_up: Secondly, Thanks for the link. It was a real eye opener. I’m totally inspired now and can’t wait to get a little time to start something on my own. :tb-smile: My N scale layout is on hold right now, because of work related stuff.:tb-frown:
After 1 week off for watching that great fall scenery north of Montreal, I'm back. I build the silos out of cardboard tubes , applied 2 coats of flat clear acrylic ( to avoid the cardboard absorbing moisture ) and applied some spackling compound. Here is the result: ( I still have to paint the silos ) Jacques
Jaqcues its looking very nice! a few questions.What is spackling compound and where to get it? do you think i can use this to embed track? (to simulate tracks in concrete). Where did you get that molson sign? i assume you had to make it yourself? Is that a CP RS12 loco? i have a CN one runs great. thanks stevenb
First, thank you Rick (BarstowRick ), SOO,MILW,CNW , SleeperN06, and Steven ( stevenb ) for the encouragements. To SleeperN06: being by nature lazy, perfectionist and procrastinator, by building a micro-layout I do not have any excuse for not finishing it. To Steven: Spackling compound is an already mixed vinyl patching compound used to repair small cracks in dry walls ( gyproc? ). It is available at hardware stores such as Canadian Tire, Home Depot. I don't know if Rona and Reno Depot have stores outside Quebec. It is made by "LePage" but I think DAP makes it too. It doesn't shrink. For embedded tracks, I would try papier maché ( Sculptamold ) first, but spackling compound would be my 2nd choice. Try both on 1 small piece of track and... please post the results. The CP engine is an Atlas GP-9. I have 2 others Atlas HP-9 ( CN ) , plus 1 each CP, CN TH&B Atlas GP-7 Both are very smooth runners. I'm puzzled with your CN RS-12.? As far as I know, CNR didn't have any Alco RS. I checked Atlas website and they don't mention any RS-12, but they have an RS-11. Could you please post a link to that model ? About the Molson logo, I downloaded it from : http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/categories/beer/ More of those logos are downloadable in .EPS ( extended postcript ) file format. It's good because graphics in EPS file format scale down without any loss of information. You can even download plenty of Belgian beers logos, including the best beer in the world : Duvel. Jacques
