Well... dear readers,
As agreed, I'm starting a new thread on the building of my model railroad. Since I have more than five pictures, I'll make this a multi-post thread for today's session. These initial posts are lengthy ones since I'm laying the groundwork for the story that follows so please bear with me.
This railroad has a history. I was into trains as a kid (like many of you) and had a collection of Lionel trains and equipment. My dad built the platform with me and then it was up to me to go on from there. Here's the layout circa 1958. I made the mountain out of screen wire and paper maché and it stunk the house up for a week. My mom was a good sport and liked that I was doing creative stuff and staying out of trouble.
I bought all my stuff used or at after-holiday closeouts. I made some of the buildings from scratch. The trestle in the back was the start of a second level, but it never got finished. It was fun to build though.
The kid at the controls was not me... it was a cousin. As usual, upon turning 16 and getting my drivers license, my Fender guitar, and then girls (in that order), the trains took a back seat and we're dismantled prior to my going off to college.
They stayed in boxes through my kids' childhood since we lived in a townhouse without a basement and a one-car garage. I built lots of models in that garage, but the trains stayed in their boxes. My son was into Legos and computing big time and didn't show the interest that I had at his age. My grandkids are a completely different story and are very excited about rebuilding the trains.
In 1992, I sold all the trains to a local train store feeling that "I would never get back into trains!" Famous last words... that's like my daughter writing in her diary (we didn't read it...she told us about it) that she would "never get into a serious relationship again with a man" the day before she met the man she's been married to for 12 years.
In 1995, I cleared out the basement in our single home in Newtown, PA and found there was enough room to build trains, and my son and I had started an n-gauge train layout just before he was off to college. We built the L-girders and legs and designed the track plan, and then he was gone and the frame sat there for 6 years gathering spiders. So, I foolishly thought that I would get n-gauge trains, only to find out that I really couldn't see them. The day my son was taking his M-Cat tests, I decided to go to a large train store in Broomall, PA while waiting for him to finish. I was thinking about going into HO, but then I saw them... "Them" being what happened to O'gauge trains in the intervening years from 1958 to 1995.
Computers had come to trains. Model O'gauge locomotives have the equivalent of an Intel x-86 series computer in them and reproduce sounds and actions that are amazing. And, I can see them! O'gauge engines have heft, they're not too fragile, and the kids like them too. So I started all over again.
I convinced my wife to let me have a budget so I didn't need to hold a justification hearing for every purchase. That worked well!
I bought several locomotives and cars, plus a couple pieces of track and had them sitting on shelves as I was designing the railroad of my dreams, and then I was asked by my company to move to Germany. These were my first two engines, a Pennsy GG1 electric and the very large and strong, Pennsy J1-a. From the get go, I was pushing myself to a design with the largest curves I could swing. Most of the engines I buy are large ones.
That was it for the trains, or so I thought. But the house in Germany had a nice, bright, heated basement with a room that was 13 X 29 feet. I asked and got approval about moving the trains back to the USA if I were to build a layout there. I had the floor plan of the Newtown basement. Did I mention that I was allowed to keep my US house vacant during my German stay. So I designed the German layout to fit in both places.
Once in Germany, I started buying American train stuff and getting it to Germany. I bought one locomotive and had it shipped, but the duty was 30%. I wasn't going to resell any of it and in a little over three years was bringing it all back, so why was I paying duty? I became a smuggler, sneaking in contraband train stuff in dufflebags full of the stuff. I could do this because of how Germany handled customs for international flights. We would fly through Munich, and then take a local Deutsche BA flight to Düsseldorf. They didn't make you take you bags off the international flight for customs before getting on the connecting flight, like we do in the USA. Instead, it would be loaded onto the local flight without passing through customs. And once it arrived in D'dorf, as a local flight, there was no customs officials waiting for it. As a result, I brought in tons of track and cars.
The layout was 21 X 13 feet. I designed it to be disassembled and re-built. All joints between Ply subroadbed panels were doweled as well as screwed so they would realign perfectly. Wire joints between panels were all of quick disconnect, European-style terminal strips.
The shippers wrapped and crated everything, including some raw plywood pieces. These guys would even pack trashcans with the trash still in it!
When I reassembled in Pennsy, I had more room, especially if I turned the layout on an angle (thinking outside the box). Therefore, I added 6 feet of length to it making it 27 X 13 feet. In this picture you can see all of the layout parts wrapped in bubblewrap. And you can see the Lally columns in the middle of the room. The room was about 25 feet square, but there was a lot of stuff in it.
As planned it dropped right into the spot missing the two Lally columns. This is a panoramic picture so please ignore the distortion. I had just completed putting on the fascia boards around the perimeter when I got laid off and we had to consider moving.
I papered the ceiling with Tyvek. The reverse side has no DuPont printing on it and it helped keep the dust off and brightened up the space. It's a "poor man's dropped ceiling". I'm not sure I'm going to do it in the new space.
When we decided to move to Louisville, KY, I knew that the new house was going to have a much bigger and better space with no columns. I also knew that I was going to be able to enlarge and change the layout to both grow into the space AND to eliminate some trouble spots in its design.
As a result, I decided to scrap the subroadbed ply and the foam rubber roadbed under the track. It was glued with Liquid Nails and removing it was a pain in the butt. It also saved some moving money at $50 per 100 pounds. But I also knew that it was going to cost $$$ to rebuild in the new space and got agreement from my wife that I was going to incur this cost.
So today, the lumber arrived and I moved all the dimensional material into the basement. I will start another thread for this part.
As agreed, I'm starting a new thread on the building of my model railroad. Since I have more than five pictures, I'll make this a multi-post thread for today's session. These initial posts are lengthy ones since I'm laying the groundwork for the story that follows so please bear with me.
This railroad has a history. I was into trains as a kid (like many of you) and had a collection of Lionel trains and equipment. My dad built the platform with me and then it was up to me to go on from there. Here's the layout circa 1958. I made the mountain out of screen wire and paper maché and it stunk the house up for a week. My mom was a good sport and liked that I was doing creative stuff and staying out of trouble.
I bought all my stuff used or at after-holiday closeouts. I made some of the buildings from scratch. The trestle in the back was the start of a second level, but it never got finished. It was fun to build though.
The kid at the controls was not me... it was a cousin. As usual, upon turning 16 and getting my drivers license, my Fender guitar, and then girls (in that order), the trains took a back seat and we're dismantled prior to my going off to college.
They stayed in boxes through my kids' childhood since we lived in a townhouse without a basement and a one-car garage. I built lots of models in that garage, but the trains stayed in their boxes. My son was into Legos and computing big time and didn't show the interest that I had at his age. My grandkids are a completely different story and are very excited about rebuilding the trains.
In 1992, I sold all the trains to a local train store feeling that "I would never get back into trains!" Famous last words... that's like my daughter writing in her diary (we didn't read it...she told us about it) that she would "never get into a serious relationship again with a man" the day before she met the man she's been married to for 12 years.
In 1995, I cleared out the basement in our single home in Newtown, PA and found there was enough room to build trains, and my son and I had started an n-gauge train layout just before he was off to college. We built the L-girders and legs and designed the track plan, and then he was gone and the frame sat there for 6 years gathering spiders. So, I foolishly thought that I would get n-gauge trains, only to find out that I really couldn't see them. The day my son was taking his M-Cat tests, I decided to go to a large train store in Broomall, PA while waiting for him to finish. I was thinking about going into HO, but then I saw them... "Them" being what happened to O'gauge trains in the intervening years from 1958 to 1995.
Computers had come to trains. Model O'gauge locomotives have the equivalent of an Intel x-86 series computer in them and reproduce sounds and actions that are amazing. And, I can see them! O'gauge engines have heft, they're not too fragile, and the kids like them too. So I started all over again.
I convinced my wife to let me have a budget so I didn't need to hold a justification hearing for every purchase. That worked well!
I bought several locomotives and cars, plus a couple pieces of track and had them sitting on shelves as I was designing the railroad of my dreams, and then I was asked by my company to move to Germany. These were my first two engines, a Pennsy GG1 electric and the very large and strong, Pennsy J1-a. From the get go, I was pushing myself to a design with the largest curves I could swing. Most of the engines I buy are large ones.
That was it for the trains, or so I thought. But the house in Germany had a nice, bright, heated basement with a room that was 13 X 29 feet. I asked and got approval about moving the trains back to the USA if I were to build a layout there. I had the floor plan of the Newtown basement. Did I mention that I was allowed to keep my US house vacant during my German stay. So I designed the German layout to fit in both places.
Once in Germany, I started buying American train stuff and getting it to Germany. I bought one locomotive and had it shipped, but the duty was 30%. I wasn't going to resell any of it and in a little over three years was bringing it all back, so why was I paying duty? I became a smuggler, sneaking in contraband train stuff in dufflebags full of the stuff. I could do this because of how Germany handled customs for international flights. We would fly through Munich, and then take a local Deutsche BA flight to Düsseldorf. They didn't make you take you bags off the international flight for customs before getting on the connecting flight, like we do in the USA. Instead, it would be loaded onto the local flight without passing through customs. And once it arrived in D'dorf, as a local flight, there was no customs officials waiting for it. As a result, I brought in tons of track and cars.
The layout was 21 X 13 feet. I designed it to be disassembled and re-built. All joints between Ply subroadbed panels were doweled as well as screwed so they would realign perfectly. Wire joints between panels were all of quick disconnect, European-style terminal strips.
The shippers wrapped and crated everything, including some raw plywood pieces. These guys would even pack trashcans with the trash still in it!
When I reassembled in Pennsy, I had more room, especially if I turned the layout on an angle (thinking outside the box). Therefore, I added 6 feet of length to it making it 27 X 13 feet. In this picture you can see all of the layout parts wrapped in bubblewrap. And you can see the Lally columns in the middle of the room. The room was about 25 feet square, but there was a lot of stuff in it.
As planned it dropped right into the spot missing the two Lally columns. This is a panoramic picture so please ignore the distortion. I had just completed putting on the fascia boards around the perimeter when I got laid off and we had to consider moving.
I papered the ceiling with Tyvek. The reverse side has no DuPont printing on it and it helped keep the dust off and brightened up the space. It's a "poor man's dropped ceiling". I'm not sure I'm going to do it in the new space.
When we decided to move to Louisville, KY, I knew that the new house was going to have a much bigger and better space with no columns. I also knew that I was going to be able to enlarge and change the layout to both grow into the space AND to eliminate some trouble spots in its design.
As a result, I decided to scrap the subroadbed ply and the foam rubber roadbed under the track. It was glued with Liquid Nails and removing it was a pain in the butt. It also saved some moving money at $50 per 100 pounds. But I also knew that it was going to cost $$$ to rebuild in the new space and got agreement from my wife that I was going to incur this cost.
So today, the lumber arrived and I moved all the dimensional material into the basement. I will start another thread for this part.
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