Spare room layout in HO CSX

[Lovemymodelling]

Hi all,

ive decided to covert our spare room 23x11 to a two level modern CSX layout, its not strictly two level i.e. baseboards just the outer two tracks will be 4 inches higher than the inner circuit , the inner circuit will cross over a crossing and using 3% risers will raise to the higher track as the outside track pass through a yard then around once more where it then becomes the inner upper (hard to explain!!) down risers back to the lower track and round again this gives a run length of about 120feet via the 3 circuits, I’m including one 6 track yard and 2 passing loops around the circuit and a couple of switching areas. My track proposal is going to be PECO 83 and a few shinohara I have too.

i haven’t modelled US HO for several years last time most locos were Blue Box athearn (remember those handrails!) with some off Roco made Atlas too, of course a cheap way to configure a consist was to buy the old blue box dummy locos very cheap from the likes of Macs of Helensburgh Victors and LSWR and renumbered after adding a few other details like flush glazing, wipers etc etc , now if you want a consist it’s not cheap with another £100+ loco, so do many run more than one loco now?

Modeller choice?

Financial decider?

At the most I will run no more than 13 50ft cars and that would not in theory need 2 locos , at present the only 2 loco consist that I need to operate as a pair (and this is only as I like the real locos) is a Fox Valley BNSF GP60M and B set up and that cost me a pretty penny!

So does a single loco look fine or are two locos more prototypical?

 

i will keep updated on my layouts progresses in due postings 

 

thanks 

[mdvle]

47 minutes ago, Lovemymodelling said:

i haven’t modelled US HO for several years last time most locos were Blue Box athearn (remember those handrails!) with some off Roco made Atlas too, of course a cheap way to configure a consist was to buy the old blue box dummy locos very cheap from the likes of Macs of Helensburgh Victors and LSWR and renumbered after adding a few other details like flush glazing, wipers etc etc , now if you want a consist it’s not cheap with another £100+ loco, so do many run more than one loco now?

Modeller choice?

Financial decider?

 

The dummy locos disappeared for 2 primary reasons.

 

First, the motors/gears account for very little of the cost, and in the era of small production runs (a side effect of the large variety of stuff now available) the biggest component it paying off the tooling costs.  So no cost savings in dummy locos anymore.

 

Second, in the era of DCC with sound and lights, it is now practical (if at the cost of buying the loco) to actually run multiple powered locos together.  The DCC system allows for consists, where you enter in the controller the locos addresses and from then on the 2, 3, 4, .. (whatever the dcc limit is) all act as one unit from the DCC controller.

 

So the abundance of locos on a layout, and running trains with multiple locos, is if anything even more common.

 

This of course all comes at a cost - both in the DCC controller(s) and in the chips in each loco (or other things - you can even get cabooses with DCC sound chips in them these days), so if you can't afford it there is nothing wrong with doing it the old straight DC way.

 

47 minutes ago, Lovemymodelling said:

At the most I will run no more than 13 50ft cars and that would not in theory need 2 locos , at present the only 2 loco consist that I need to operate as a pair (and this is only as I like the real locos) is a Fox Valley BNSF GP60M and B set up and that cost me a pretty penny!

So does a single loco look fine or are two locos more prototypical?

 

I guess it will depend on how you define more prototypical.

 

You will however likely find on YouTube and other places many examples of a single loco, so I wouldn't worry about too much.