Screwjack's N Scale World

Playing with track plans...

2010-06-02T20:08:00.006-04:00

Well, it's kind of tough getting down to the basement these days when the weather is so nice lately. But I have been playing around with track plans which I am finding is kind of tough when you have no idea what you really want. I am going to stick with the main line like I posted a few days ago and try to add things from there.

I am thinking an industrial switching area would be nice to have so while the main train is running you can run a freight train and switch out some cars for entertainment.

Below are a couple of plans I have been playing around with...

As always comments and suggestions are welcome...

If the world were pink...

2010-05-30T21:09:00.006-04:00

Well, if the world was pink I could start laying track and not worry to much about grass and dirt and other scenery type things. I have my pink foam glued down to my bench work as you can see below...

I then decided to fill in the joints of the pink foam with some vinyl spackle compound. I did not take a picture, but trust me I did it.

While waiting for the spackle compound to dry I worked on some track planing with the RTS program. I have decided I want a fairly long main track to be able to run long freight trains and long passenger service.

Here is what I have for the main line so far...

I am new to this stuff but it looks like a good start to me. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Getting started in Model railroading...

2010-05-23T21:15:00.004-04:00

Well I have found that getting started in this hobby has been quite the learning experience.

First I had to decide what I wanted to do layout wise. Then how to build the bench work, and I certainly am no carpenter.

I was able to get some free plywood from work that was used for a crate to ship and aircraft windshield from Italy. So my layout will be build on some "Fine Italian Plywood". We also had some various pieces of wood lying around the shop that have been there for several years so I was able to use them also.

So my bench work ended up looking like this;

Not too bad for a non-carpenter type.

I still really have no idea what the track plan is going to be. I have been messing around with a program called Atlas RTS 8.0 to design a track plan. Mostly because it is a freeware program. I was able to get the bench work laid out in the RTS program, which looks like this;

Each square is one square foot.

As soon as I figure out a track plan I will get it up for everyone to check out...

What's a Blog anyway???

2010-05-21T22:06:00.004-04:00

Well here I am with a blog and I really have no idea what a blog really is. I saw a page like this that was owned by a guy on one of the train forums, quinntopia. Looked like a cool thing to get into to share the progress of my first real model railroad, so here it is.

I will try to post updates as I progress and possibly post things I have learned along the way.

So here I go, let the blogging begin...