After finding a good deal on cd80 flex track, and working the helix out in 3rd Plan-It, ( model railroad cad program) I was good to go.
I have never really followed a track plan for any of the layouts that I have built, just went with the flow. That is not saying that I have not used 3rd Plan-It to work on ideas, like yards and throat design. Also by reading model railroad magazines I came up with ideas.
I decided to build a helix so I could have staging. After planning it came out to be 7.5 turns, 20" radius, 2,15% grade and 795" of flex track involved. I would say all in all took me about 5 hours to build.
I came up with the plan of having the yard right by the helix. The idea was to be able to run transfer and or trains to and from staging and not interfere with the other operators on the layout.
The yard was stub ended except for the A/D track. The two tracks against the backdrop were for the grain facility, each track was able to hold a 30 car train.
This picture was my first experience using Helicon picture software, really easy to use.
The red and yellow rods you see are control rods for the turnouts. I made a home made control from a slide switch, aluminum angle and parts used for R/C plane control linkage.
Looking towards the helix in this picture, the rest of the layout is behind me.
Yes I know the picture is a little bright,,ok ok , alot bright. This is one of the parts from the very first layout. An 19"x96" industrial section that I like to call Fond Du Lac,is it actually modeled after Fond Du Lac, no, I just thought it "fit"
The more and more I think about it, I should stayed with version 4. Well we all live and learn everyday. Maybe if I would stayed with version 4 I would be closer to completion, but we all know a model railroad is never done.
I like the sweeping curve in this picture, flows real nice.
This section was also a piece from the previous layouts. I just had to relay the track to make it fit with the other part that I connected with.
No comments:
Post a Comment