The Layout

The layout was begun first by building the room, or addition on the house. I must have been bitten by that bug that makes you build a large layout.  Besides the layout room came a laundry room, an extra bed room and a enlarged bathroom on the other side of the house.  I like to think of the room as an above ground basement since the house only has a small damp basement.  My wife and I did 95% of the work.  Yes, she’s good at it and has learned over the years by being around me when we do projects.

The train room measures 22 x 44.  There are no posts because truss's were used.  Over the years I have visited many layouts and  read a lot of articles.  One thing in the planning stages I was concerned about was making the layout room a nice place to be and operate.  Ceiling fans, florescent lights, wide enough isles were all considered when designing the layout itself.

The design stage took maybe a year.  I wanted as few duck-unders as possible, and then they needed to be at an acceptable height.  The actual design was done on 1⁄4" graph paper.  The grades, switches, isle ways, etc. were all able to be calculated very easily.  The benchwork is all L girder construction using risers.  There is one thing here that I would suggest to everyone, and that is The Butt Test. Before you go any futher with the benchwork, or road bed, crawl under it and see if your butt clears.  Mine doesn't!!  The layout should be another  4  inches higher.

I also didn?t want any posts or wires to interfere between Binghamton and East Stroudsburg.  Therefore Binghamton is cantilevered off the wall studs.  The frame goes all the way into the wall with four screws on each side into the stud.  There was still too must deflection so we fabricated a brace from a 2x6 to be put between the beams.  Then a 2x4 block at the end of the beams gives you a pretty sturdy box beam. While laying track, I have had to lay on the entire benchwork of Binghamton and it didn't collapse under my 235 lbs.

The track plan calls for double track main line.  The grades are 2% with 1 1/2 % around the curves in order to ease the strain on the couplers.  There is one grade that is probably 3%, but I have never checked it.  It just had to be.

The road bed is either homosote on plywood or homosote on spline roadbed. If there were gaps, or seams, between the pieces of homosote, I used drywall compound to level things off. The scenery is formed blue/pink insulation board. I use a hot wire knife to cut and shape the blue stuff.  Then I coat the ground with a tin coat of plaster.  I feel this thin crust gives the ground from material something to hold on to and also something to plane the trees into.  I get plaster from a lumber/supply yard.  It is regular plaster in 80 lb. bags.  One kind is gauging plaster and the other is structralite. Gauging plaster sets up quickly and is smooth, while structralite gives a texture and allows you to work with it longer.  Most of the time I mix the two together.

The track is primarily handlaid Micro Engineering code 83 track on Campbell ties.  The switches are also handlaid. The loops use code 100 flex track and Peco switches.  Why was I sick enough to handlay track on a large layout?  It’s because it looks better and the switches fit any where you want in any size.  It makes you work though.  Bad track show up quickly …gauging problems, frogs, guardrails, etc.