Progress on the Albion, Lancing and Madison railroad

[tebee]

In spite of having a knackered shoulder I've managed some progress on my Freelance Albion, Lancing and Madison railroad. It occupies a 18ft 6 X 10ft 6 space at the end of my garage. It's designed for American style operations with 1 - 3 operators , control is Lenz DCC and trackwork is Peco code 75 and 100.

 

To get maximum operation into the available space its a Multi-deck layout designed in a "nolix" configuration, gradually gaining hight as it winds around the room and a central peninsular.

 

The period is loosely late 60's and its location in the US has moved around a few times and is currently a little uncertain. Grades are steepish at 2.5%( 1 in 40) curves are sharp (22 in) and the passing loops vary from 5ft to 8 ft long. Average train length is about 10 cars.

 

Its point to point with a large staging yard fed by a triangle on the lowest level. At the moment I'm only running test trains but I hope to have completed the lower terminus and the rest of the wiring soon and then I can start thinking about proper operations.

 

 

Here is Stewartown, the main intermediate station , below is the still incomplete Lancing terminus

 

 

 

Mill Valley industrial area. Top level shows the Branch to Hagerstone

 

 

 

 

The other aisle with three levels. Lockwood, junction for the Hagerstone branch on the top and the staging yard at the bottom

 

 

 

Detail of the construction used , Steel studding supporting foam roadbed.

 

[shortliner]

Oh, very definitely, WOW!

[Oldddudders]

Interesting to note that in all those pics there is hardly a loco in sight - but oodles of freight cars. This is in some contrast to many layouts, where locos get pride of place in the snaps, with the real business of the line - freight and passenger vehicles - apparently just bit-part players.

 

Overall very ambitious stuff, but walkaround operating does seem a likely success. DCC is the natural choice for such a system. Imagine all that with block switches!

 

I do think you might give back that smokebox numberplate off Big Boy 4022! UP may be missing it!

[Glorious NSE]

Awesome - looks like a great project.

 

Does the foam directly on the metal stay rigid enough? Do you fix it to the metal?

 

Also, who's grain elavator kits are they (making a presumption they are kits as they both look to be the same pattern?)

 

 

[tebee]

The foam is stuck down to the steelwork with clear silicon sealant, fairly liberality applied. Where the foam sheets join I fix a piece of thin ply, normally 5mm, the same way then use the sealant to attach the foam to that and to fill any gaps at the end. The earliest section were built 3 years ago and the foam has not sagged between supports in that time.

 

This form of construction is not as solid as traditional methods and would probably not survive a 20 stone man standing on it, on the other hand the slight flexibility does discourage people from leaning on the layout ! I've had to add two braces to the central peninsular to increase it's stiffness, - and to fix a boo-boo I made in construction - but otherwise all has gone to plan. It's much quicker and cheaper than traditional construction. I was lucky and got the foam from renovation throw-outs but I've had to buy most of the steelwork and the silicone sealant, so far I've spent the grand sum of 124€ on this layout.

 

I do have a weakness for freight cars, I reckon this layout will need about 300 for full operation which is about the number on it now , but as some sections are incomplete there are a few too many in some places. About 80% of them are weathered and all have individual numbers as I'm intending to use car forwarding software to generate the trains for realistic operation.

 

The silos are "Mountains in Miniature" I think. They are moulded foam not kits, they will probably be replaced by kitbashed Walthers one made into low relief but may get re-used at the end of the Hagerstone branch in a less prominent position. I was originally intending to have a mine tipple here but have realized I have far more grain hoppers than coal hoppers!

[Glorious NSE]

Thanks for that, interesting stuff

[robbostrains]

A huge project ,wish you well.Not familiar with "Mountains in Miniature" silos,tried Google but only got how to build mountains,any links available?Thanks.

[JWB]

I think he means "Mountains in Minutes". This is sort of a 1970s flashback; I don' t think their stuff has been available for quite some time. It was expanded foam and pretty crude except for roughing stuff in, as we see here. They had some rock scenery products from foam that were a little better and are in current use on my layout, but as I say, quite old.

[tebee]

Yes I did indeed mean mountain in minutes, they were fairly crude. I bought these second hand at least 10 years ago. I can't find much about them on the web the only article is a pay-walled one here http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/article.php?article=921.

 

I did find this in the 1987 Walthers catalog