Design influences: 4th layout (my first N scale experiment)

I mentioned that in 2002 we revived the Märklin layout in the garage. This was definitely fun, especially for the kids, as the layout had plenty of track, locomotives, cars, switches, and an interesting main line. But at the same time I had some nagging doubts.

I'd transitioned from a non-active model railroader to a quasi-active armchair modeler in 2000. I'd started subscribing to Model Railroader, and later Garden Railways, and had attended the 2000 NMRA convention in San Jose with my older kids. As I learned more about the contemporary hobby I became interested again in American prototypes and in the finer details of modeling. The old Märklin layout, with it's European prototype and Märklin's tinplate heritage (such as the third rail and locomotive pickup shoe in the middle), wasn't quite what I'd been dreaming about. The other problem was that Märklin is very expensive relative to the competition, and especially so in the U.S.

So it came to pass that on my birthday weekend in 2002 my wife sent me and the kids off to buy $500 worth of Märklin stuff for the layout, which was enough for one locomotive and one freight car. I headed out towards Redwood City, where there was a European train shop and a restaurant with a playground, when suddenly I turned to the kids and said: "You know, for $500 we could build a whole new layout in N-scale, and anything we added to that would be much cheaper." The kids loved the idea (especially my son), so I turned the car around and headed for Santa Clara, home of The Train Shop, instead.

The inspiration to jump to N scale surprised me as much as anyone, but apparently the idea had been processing in my subconscious for a while. There were a number of factors that made this an easy decision:

1. The space advantages of N scale were obvious. I'd first thought of N scale when strugging with the Märklin layout design in 1990. Given the tiny space I had to work with in our California home, N scale seemed like a good choice.
2. I was ready to get out of Märklin, for the reasons stated above.
3. I had little sunk cost in HO, or really anything except Märklin. All my old HO stuff was either really cheap (from the first layout) and out of date, or intended for the early 1900s (second layout) and not what I was interested in modeling now. My son had a very small selection of modern Bachmann HO, but not enough to make me stick to HO as a cost savings.
4. Although N had not held my interest for most of my life, over the prior two years I been reading articles on N scale layouts and about N scale in general and saw a few really good ones. It now seemed viable to me.

At the Train Shop I was introduced to their N scale pro. I'd seen him before over the years, but never worked with him until then. He was extremely helpful. We started talking about track. He asked me about code 55 vs. 80 and I said 80 because I didn't want anything that might make operations more difficult (I regret this now, but then they didn't have Atlas code 55 then). He suggested Atlas flextrack with Peco switches, which is what his N trak club used, and I went with that. He introduced me to Tortoises, and helped me get various Atlas switch boxes and wires, and some cork roadbed. We talked about DCC, but the cost and hassle (they didn't have factory DCC then, and installs were often a challenge) made me opt for cab control He showed me a couple of power packs for that, then we looked at rolling stock.

My son loved the Kato Amtrack Superliner Phase III sets which had just come out, so we got two of those and two P42 engines. We also got an Atlas dash-8 BNSF locomotive (my son loved Santa Fe, I loved Burlington, so BNSF was the obvious compromise) and a variety of freight cars.

I got home, cleaned off my son's 4x8 table, and tried to figure out what to build. I decided it would be a quick-and-dirty, temporary layout with as long as possible a main line (now that I was in N scale I wanted long trains, not the very short trains I was forced into with HO scale), double track, with curves as broad as possible (again, now that I was out of HO scale I was looking forward to curves that were not ridiculously tight). Also there would be very few switches, as they didn't have many at the shop and I figured I could add them later. I would throw in easements and superelevation, two concepts I'd learned about from the magazines and had never tried before. Using scrap wood I got the whole thing complete in less than a week. It was a dogbone schematic, folded over three times into a figure 8 double track, switchbacking it's way up a mountain, and resulted in a main line loop of 120' in just a 4x8 space:


Honestly, it doesn't look like much, but if the goal of model railroading is to have fun (and it is), then this was a great success because we had fun for several months. Eventually we covered it up and moved it to this side to focus on other projects, and in 2004 I tore it down thinking I would start another layout. (That never happened, as plans for moving out of the state kicked in.) But the layout definitely served its purpose as a learning tool and for model railroading fun.

So what did I learn from this that influenced my designs today?

1. N scale is cool. The whole experience was neat. After this there has never been any question that my dream indoor layout was going to be N scale.
2. I like very long trains. You don't need a train to be a full scale mile long (33' in N scale) to look like the train is realistically long -- 12' to 16' is usually sufficient depending upon the viewing angle. This is why my current layout standardizes on 12' trains and supports 16' through trains.
3. This curves thing was more complicated than I realized. I'd always had to build HO layouts with curves classified "sharp" or "very sharp", and now I had a layout that had "broad" and "very broad" curves. But even on the 20" radius curve trains still didn't look realistic going around. This realization led to a full study of the curve problem, and I'll describe this in a future post. It's also why my current iNdoor layout has a 36" minimum radius on the main line.
4. I like modern trains. This was the first time I got into modern container cars, autoracks, etc., and I found them very cool. By contrast 1940s stock cars and reefers aren't so interesting to me. I didn't finalize on the modern era for a layout back in 2002, but by 2004 I had done so because of this.
5. Digital (DCC) control was a must have for my future layouts. I'd never tried cab control before. My first two layouts only supported one engine at a time and my third layout used Marklin digital control. I used cab control with two cabs and common rail wiring. This wasn't hard to set up, but it was more work than wiring for DCC. However, running trains with cab control involved a lot of manual overhead and was something that the kids had trouble mastering. In addition, I missed having the train lights stay on when the train stopped.
6. I like double track with trains passing and lots of traffic. So my current layout is double-tracked with heavy traffic.
7. Good track laying is a must. At first all my locomotives were four axle diesel. When I added a six axle diesel I had to rework many of the rail joints, and then again after I got a steam engine. It's worth it to practice and redo as needed until you get the technique right, and to plan the layout design to facilitate quality laying and maintenance of track.
8. The 2-3% grades were getting old. All my layouts, except the very first with my dad, used grades to gain elevation and to justify having a lot of track in a compact space. I'd begun to just assume that I'd always build mountain railways. However, on this layout more than one item of rolling stock broke because it rolled down hill and fell off the layout. In addition, putting trains on a sloping track can be a pain. So, I'd begun to think about city layouts with 1% or less grades, and that is where I ended up.

After this layout was torn down I spent some time designing possible N scale layouts ... each one helping me narrow down what I'd do for my ultimate dream layout. I'll cover that in a future post.