Dismantlefication

The dismantling process started last week. The first step was to tear the Average section apart...

Step 1: Hollow Mountain

Clarks Summit: Empty Roadbed

Split River Bed, Neked Right of Way

Should have left the bare roadbed intact. New hobby idea...Modeling Rails & Trails.

Destroying Average yielded a 7' section of benchwork that was under the Split River... 

7 Feet of new Average

Another 8' section needs to be built. The two sections will be bolted together, It will make them easier to move in the future

Benchwork Removed: Top of the Bookcase

You can see the growing pile of debris in the aisle at the left of the photo. It's time to go at the bookcase. I had to move these...

Fifteen Feet of Books

Pile O' Books

Fortunately the 2" x 4" frame is aturdy. Must be several hundred pounds of paper there.

I forgot to take a picture of the "disassembled" bookcase. Needless to say there was quite a bit of broken wood filling the aisle. I filled the Ranger's 6 foot bed with scenery, styrofoam, and flakeboard. The bookcase and attached benchwork served as a kind of anchor for the layout. The other sections are mounted on casters. Without the book case they tend to move a bit when leaned on.

I laid the indispensable parts of the layout on the Owertown section. Trains, tools, controllers, DCC system, scenery items and a host of other paraphenalia...

Owertown

I've learned the hard way that model trains, especially N scale model trains, have a tendency to migrate to the garage floor. This migration, often as not, has little to no effect on the concrete. It does. however, take quite a toll on the migratee. I don't keep the little plastic boxes the trains come in, and many of them never had boxes to begin with. Even if I did keep them I would still need a place to put a jillion boxes full of rolling stock. I chose to make my own storage boxes. I purchased a few plastic storage containers and lined them with foam my wife had left over from upholstery projects. A bit of tacky glue to hold the foam together and Voila!!! Some place to keep things like this out of the parts bin...

Lehigh & New England #705 ALCo FA1 A-B Set

Train Storage

Sharks, Steam & Cabeese

I probably could put foam between the items, but the foam does a good job of keeping things in place. As long as the box is handled carefully, IE not dropped or thrown across the room, they should do the job. I need about four or more for the rest of the rolling stock.

That's it so far.

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

Relocation?

The Average Eastern is faced with a new challenge. It's more than likely the layout will need to relocated in the near future. Not far mind you, just thirty miles or so. This presents some difficulties. For one, the new home of ther layout will be a bonus room, not a garage. Believe it or not, The Boss, aka Wife, has decreed that the Average Eastern shall not be consigned to a garage. The layout will have its own room in our new house. A room with heat, air conditioning and finished walls. I love that woman.

While each section of the benchwork is is mounted on wheels none of them are designed to pass through a normal doorway or up a stairway. These considerations have caused me to rethink the basic idea of my model railroad. As it stands the layout will have to totally dismantlied. How can I take advantage of this situation?

I decided that it might be a good idea to modify the layout so it can be moved to its new location. and fit when it gets there. We don't expect the future location to be bigger than the current space. In fact it may be somewhat smaller. In all likelihood we'll be dealing with a bonus room, typically 15' x 20' in size. The Average Eastern's current benchwork is 9' wide and 15' long...

Track Plan: Current Average Eastern

One of the biggest issues to moving the layout is the long bookcase that supports the Average side. Fifteen feet long, the beast was cobbled into a single unit fron three smaller bookcases. It is firmly attached to benchwork, thus making it impossible to easily move it or the rest of the layout. In any scenario the bookcase has to go. If it does, the town of Average will have to disappear along with it.

I fired up XTrakCAD and started playing with track plan. After several attempts I came up with what I hope will be a reasonable design...

Track Plan: Average Eastern Redesign

The new design is 10' wide x 15' long. It is comprised of four sections. The 2' wide by 15' long.benchwork section replaces the bookcase. The aisle has been eliminated and this "extension" mounts directly to the wall. The two large 4' x 8' sections are attached to the Average extension. Quotidian has its own 4' x 6' section. All the setions are bolted together and can be separated. The new arrangement allows for a 48" wide aisle in the center of the plan. The entire Average Eastern mainline can be operated from this area.

Probably the biggest change to the track arrangement is the four track loop. Trains on the current "short" loop appear too often. The only way to lengthen the frequency of their "orbits" is to stop trains somewhere on the mainline in plain site. The "Class 1" mainline on the new plan now runs arond the entire perimeter, about 1 1/2" scale miles. A long freight moving at 15 mph takes over four minutes to make the entire loop. In addition the new loop also includes staging for eight trains, four in each direction. Each track can hold a four unit lashup, forty 40' freight cars and a caboose. This staging yard is open but separated from the rest of the layout by a view block. Finally, a lift gate has been added that spans the aisle and supports four tracks.

The yard and mine at East End are gone, replaced by the AE engine facilities and the two staging yards. Further "east" the interchange track at Average itself has become a small yard. The town is now supported by the 2' x 15' "exstension" that replaces the bookcase. The yard at Owertown still serves as the sorting yard for Quotidian and rests on a 4' x 8' section of benchwork. Quotidian has some changes to the track arrangement. Including the four track loop meant changing some of the industrial sidings.

Track Plan: Current Quotidian

Track Plan: Quotidian Redesigned

While the general track arrangement probably won't change much, it will be modified as the simulations are run and reconstruction begins. I may reduce the interchange yard to add more industries. I wish the AE mainline had a longer run, but that might entail reducing Quotidian or eliminating the staging yards. Not sure, I'm still mucking about.

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad