CNW Iowa Divison in HO Scale

We’ve purchased a new house and I suddenly find myself with a 18×16 bonus room that is completely empty. Whatever will I do with it? This is as close to having a model railroad-ready basement as I am ever likely to have so I am giddy with anticipation! Well, maybe not giddy. More like “well now what do I do?” I’ve got the benchwork that originally was meant for a 11×13 bedroom that occupies a 10×10 area. I could just bolt it back together and have room for a second layout. I think ideally what I’d like to do is go with my original plans for a double deck arrangement of two different layouts, only with more space. If nothing else it’s a good excuse to sharpen the pencils and get cracking on the graph paper. If only I could remember which box I put all that in…

More than a halt really, more like a head long retreat and the gnashing of teeth! Just kidding about the last part. Since I designed the layout to be modular and to be taken apart in sections if needed, I decided to try this out and actually do it. The fact I was doing it because we might move was only part of the decision. We’re getting our place in shape with some remodeling and paint on the walls to try to sell and that meant the bolted-to-the-walls benchwork had to relocate for a while! I figure this gives me a chance to consider my benchwork decisions and see if I want to make any tweaks before a) I put it back up again or b) we move to a new home with new spaces and requires me to change it all anyway!

In the meantime, I was gifted a copy of Railworks 3 train simulator by a generous friend and will be playing with that during the layout’s downtime. So far I like it, at least as far as the tutorials and Horseshoe Curve tour go. I’ll post a more detailed review later.

Finally an image! Here is a shot of the spline subroadbed coming up out of the staging level to the main level. I’m almost done here. Since the roadbed is mostly hidden and doesn’t need scenery, I can get away with a bit narrower spline. Once it’s finished, I’ll take a surform plane to the top to level it out, then put down a roadbed material and finally the track.

Three more 8′ pieces of spline and I’ll have the nolix done which goes from staging to the HO level! Once it’s in place, I can start the actual subroadbed for the HO. I’ll also need to actually start laying track since I need staging in before I cover it with the structure above. I need to start building some turnouts!

The HO layout I am building has two levels. The lower level is staging, or basically one big yard with long tracks I can “stage” trains in (the wings in theater terminology). You then can bring trains from the staging level onto the main layout and back again to simulate trains coming and going from a much bigger railroad. In order to do this in the space I have, I use the concept of a “nolix” or a helix that isn’t hidden. My concept is a bit of a hybrid because it’s hidden until it is high enough to be visible. It’s really just a long ramp at around a 2% grade. This will let me do switching in the small yard with through freights coming through and dropping cars off.

The cake is a lie (sorry, Portal joke!) but I’m still here. Due to family health issues I’ve put off my modeling for a time. We’re finally coming out of the woods from all that so I’m excited to get back to working on the subroadbed. I had some brilliant ideas on how to cram as much railroad as possible into the spare bedroom space I have allocated. This was both ambitious and probably a bit foolish given my still beginning skills at benchwork and track planning. I’ve decided to simplify some of my ideas which has the added advantage of getting things up and running much sooner than they would have been, eliminating design headaches, and letting me run trains which after all is the whole point of the darn thing!

Since I also have plans for other layouts in the same room (so far at least one if not two shelf layouts at different scales) I need to keep things semi-reasonable. There are huge chunks of the hobby I don’t have as much experience in and getting the track finished will let me get into those areas. Plus I’ve got quite a few car kits backing up ready to be built since I have to place to put them! There is an old Model Railroader cartoon with a man surrounded by cars piled on the floor around him with a wild look in his eye as he’s putting together another kit. The caption is something like “Up to there in cars and he’s still knockin’ them together”. I don’t want to be that guy!

More updates I promise. I need to remember to keep taking pictures of progress.

A new site! With the release of WordPress 3 and the continuing evolution of my model railroad layout, I thought it would be a good time to start fresh with current information!  Coming soon, information on my HO scale layout representing a small part of the Chicago and Northwestern Iowa Division!