American O Scale: "Portway Terminal Short Line, MN".

[F-UnitMad]

Good evening everyone.

My name is Jordan, and I'm a....

 

Umm, I'm a....

 

Oh dear this is so difficult to admit.

 

(Deep breath, clears throat)

 

I am a Plymouth-aholic. 🙄🙄😳😳😳😟😟

 

 

It was just sitting there, on Ebay. Almost as new, wheels unmarked, boxed, with handrails.... not a lot of bidding on it.... well what's the worst that could happen??

I could resist no longer. My fifth Atlas/Roco Plymouth has joined the roster this week.

[F-UnitMad]

While I'm in penitent, confessional mode, I had better confess to other irregular behaviour....

 

Probably last year, or even the year before, I started a diversion called "Enderlin", a very small (for American O) layout, albeit based loosely on a real place.

"Jordan Track" was laid & painted, and a Depot (Atlas kit) built....

...and that was as far as that got. It would need a 'fiddlestick' of some sort making, as well as a way to connect it to the main board, plus a backscene & all the scenery. I think once I'd scratched the itch of laying some more track I just lost interest.

But... I didn't lose interest in doing something rather silly for American O Scale. A 'real' micro-layout is defined (as per the late Carl Arendt) as having dimensions not exceeding 4 square feet, regardless of scale.

Having successfully shortened one of my Plymouths to an 0-4-0, devious thoughts started to drift into my mind as to what sort of minimum radius it could negotiate.

Add to that a desire to build a self-contained (i.e. one board) Micro, thoughts turned to what is commonly called a 'Pizza' layout. I think the term comes from the fact such layouts can fit in a square pizza box, and/or the fact the trackplan is a simple circle.

 

Thus.... behold:- instead of "Enderlin", I have now created "Enderless".....

The radius is about 9 & 5/8ths inch!! Board is 2ft x 2ft square.

And it gets worse.... further distraction (or more Plymouth-aholic type relapses) have led me down the path of On30, & Bachmann's Davenport critter, which I've posted about earlier. So no, I have not adopted 3-rail O gauge, "Enderless" is now a dual-gauge line, which will give my young friend @the black knight somewhere to run his On30 & O16.5 stuff when he visits....

 

It's all a bit of fun, and really just replicates the oval on my 'proper' layout that trains can endlessly circle should I so choose - just in rather less space!!

I even have a deadline to finish it by, as it's booked, along with my British Micr-O "Lyddlow Goods", for the Cradley Heath club show in October!!

Don't get dizzy now!!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IBIA1Ku2Tm8&feature=shared

 

Edited May 10 by F-UnitMad

[Northroader]

That’s really fantastic. I still remain a big fan of Enderlin, however.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

15 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

While I'm in penitent, confessional mode, I had better confess to other irregular behaviour....

 

Probably last year, or even the year before, I started a diversion called "Enderlin", a very small (for American O) layout, albeit based loosely on a real place.

"Jordan Track" was laid & painted, and a Depot (Atlas kit) built....

...and that was as far as that got. It would need a 'fiddlestick' of some sort making, as well as a way to connect it to the main board, plus a backscene & all the scenery. I think once I'd scratched the itch of laying some more track I just lost interest.

But... I didn't lose interest in doing something rather silly for American O Scale. A 'real' micro-layout is defined (as per the late Carl Arendt) as having dimensions not exceeding 4 square feet, regardless of scale.

Having successfully shortened one of my Plymouths to an 0-4-0, devious thoughts started to drift into my mind as to what sort of minimum radius it could negotiate.

Add to that a desire to build a self-contained (i.e. one board) Micro, thoughts turned to what is commonly called a 'Pizza' layout. I think the term comes from the fact such layouts can fit in a square pizza box, and/or the fact the trackplan is a simple circle.

 

Thus.... behold:- instead of "Enderlin", I have now created "Enderless".....

The radius is about 9 & 5/8ths inch!! Board is 2ft x 2ft square.

And it gets worse.... further distraction (or more Plymouth-aholic type relapses) have led me down the path of On30, & Bachmann's Davenport critter, which I've posted about earlier. So no, I have not adopted 3-rail O gauge, "Enderless" is now a dual-gauge line, which will give my young friend @the black knight somewhere to run his On30 & O16.5 stuff when he visits....

 

It's all a bit of fun, and really just replicates the oval on my 'proper' layout that trains can endlessly circle should I so choose - just in rather less space!!

I even have a deadline to finish it by, as it's booked, along with my British Micr-O "Lyddlow Goods", for the Cradley Heath club show in October!!

Don't get dizzy now!!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IBIA1Ku2Tm8&feature=shared

 

Just wondered, is there a particular reason the HOn30 circuit is against the tighter inner rail of the O-gauge track, rather than against the slightly more generous outer side?  All this would be way beyond me to do, so I was just curious as to whether it was technically easier to make it that way round.  Runs really smoothly from the video, a nice and slightly different pizza layout (worth sharing in the Micro-layout Forum too?), Keith.

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Just wondered, is there a particular reason the On30 circuit is against the tighter inner rail of the O-gauge track, rather than against the slightly more generous outer side?  All this would be way beyond me to do, so I was just curious as to whether it was technically easier to make it that way round.  Runs really smoothly from the video, a nice and slightly different pizza layout (worth sharing in the Micro-layout Forum too?), Keith.

Hi Keith, yes that was a question I pondered. The answer was partly reached by asking "which side of the track would the platform be on?", which in this case would be the loading dock for the Feed Mill, which is in the centre. I also wanted it to be absolutely clear to viewers that the On30 runs on the middle rail; this is more obvious by using the inner & middle rails.

I was going to use a small "flagstop" sort of Depot in the middle, but when I tried Bob's Feed Mill there it just seemed to 'work' - being taller it dominates the trains better, and also acts as a view block, so the trains disappear from view - however momentarily - and that somehow gives a fleeting impression of the train going somewhere, rather than just chasing it's tail.