layout pics, a bit different view...

thanks jerry,  i appreciate the comments!  it will be fun to start over. this new layout will be my first in std O with DCC.  i learned quite a bit about DCC with the current layout i just took down.  thanks again for the support!

and i just used some wood from the "keep" pile to reinforce some of the yard tables that are sold.  

thanks matt, i may have to try that next time. i never thought of of it!

well everything is down.  only the 16' yard table up but it is unscrewed from the wall and ready for the new owner.  all in all it took about 8 hours to dismantle.   8 years to build, 8 hours to demo.  kind weird how that worked out.  now on to cleaning up the room, fixing some minor dry wall issues, painting and finally cleaning the carpet. (and finding a place for all the stuff that was UNDER the layout!) 

I'd post photos but can't seem to get them from my files to here> No problem posting to Es or face book. Here, a fine science.

Phill

thinking about something like this, loosely based.  i would use millhouse river studio turntable and transfer table.  car shop would be double the size in length. roundhouse would be 3 stall.

Did you talk about your new location yet

size, room, etc

i learned a lot from this thread, thank you and good luck

j

j,  since i am going to try out the modular mainne layout system i am going to build this one in sections.  first section will be 6' x 23'.  loosely based on the mrr graphic in an above post.  the room is 23 x 40' overall. (it is actually bigger but i like having a lounge area, and workshop area that is not under or near the layout.)  so that is what i have to work with.  glad this post is of value!  thx for the feedback.  

here is the turntable section of the yard,ready to go to a new home.  the other table  going is 30" or so x 16'.

hi all,

well 90% of the previous roster of engines, rolling stock and buildings have sold.  here are a couple pics of the millhouse river turntable and transfer table. they were delivered earlier this month.  room is painted and carpet cleaning about to start. 

Looks good Zak. Thanks for the update.

Beautiful...you gotta love Al's products.

There is a thread running about changing from an around-the-wall layout to the "usual"

loop layout.  In shows there are displayed these modular layouts, which, obviously,

are designed to be set up, taken down, and transported.  IMO, that looks like the

practical design if you ever think the layout will have to be moved, taken down, or

even worked on (where you could yank one section out of it).  I think building this

type of point-to-point layout is as realistic as running the trains, out to today's

end of line where the Chinese are putting in trestle piles , just like real railroads

were built.  Start at one end and lay track toward the other.  This type gives more access, and is more easily divisible for takedown, and more easily built for that eventuality.  Of course, there are wider areas that are not as accessible, such as yards, and the terminals with their wyes, yards, and turntables.  The negative:  you can't just set it all up and watch the trains run.

I agree Colorado Hirailer,

i had an HO 4x8 in our basement as a teenager.  As a young married adult, I started building a larger N scale layout, but had to tear it down when we moved.  I then built modular, and moved it twice, before I discarded it when we moved again and I was thinking of going back to HO.  I moved HO modules twice.  In the case of the last HO the ultimate plan was to have provision for continuous running, but I never got that far.  I ran point to point.  Now I have a 'temporary' 4x8 O gauge hirail, but anticipate building another modular once our last daughter moves out and I can claim a full 12x12 room.  It will be around the walls modular, in case we move in retirement.  That way I can reuse some or all the modules.  I like continuous running, but at the slow pace I build, I have spent most of my years running point to point.  I get my dose of continuous running at shows where the Pittsburgh Independent Hirailers or the Fort Pitt HiRailers set up their marvelous modular layouts and run the big engines!!

hi all,

i just started on a new website.  it is a work in progress but i will be posting pics and updates there as well.

http://www.michaelluczak.com/index.html

hope everyone has a great spring and summer modeling season!

mike

Mike,

Very nice Web site.  I see you make your drawings on paper.  How novel.  Just kidding, I'm an old paper and pencil draftsman and never got the hang of CAD.

I really like you locomotive roster!

thanks mark!  i actually let my dad draw up all my layouts.  he has done it a dozen times over the years for myself and various people. he enjoys it and i do not have to try and remember all my CAD, or purchase a layout drawing package. more pics coming of the room (its finally repainted and carpet cleaned) as well as motive power pics.  i am working on the well hole flat car now and going to start putting DCC in my engines. 

thanks again for the comments and taking the time to view.

mike

I posted some renderings of the benchwork Mianne Custom Benchwork provides within a quote.  Great people to work with.  Posted within the "Construction of GNPRR" bullet in the left hand menu of the webpage.

Mianne is a great choice, I'm sold on it (as I said earlier in the thread). And, if you ever decide to do another tear down and rebuild, all you have to do is re-configure the bench work. Mianne will help you do it too, just as they have with this layout. It also goes together very fast so you can get right to track laying. Good luck with it if you go that route.

Mike,

Great website and presentation. I will follow your progress closely as I'm planning on using the same benchwork and want to see how you like it as work progresses. One question. Where did you get that wonderful prime mover on the 62ft wellhole flat? Is that a kit or ??

Butch

hi butch, thanks for the post.  i found it at:

http://www.dhsdiecast.com

not cheap, but well worth the money in my opinion.

thanks again!

mike

i just purchased the benchwork system from tim at mianne.  looking forward to it in about 4 weeks!  thanks for the post and taking the time to view the site.

mike

When it arrives, I hope you are as pleased with it as I have been. I'll be following the progress. Good luck!

Great progress Mike

A thing of beauty

j

thanks j... 

i added a few more pics of roster engines. i also have been working on my 62' well hole flat car; some progress pics on the site as well.  have a great week!

hi all,

a few new pics on the site. also i uploaded a couple short videos to the youtube channel as well.  

i installed a QSI Titan DCC decoder in one of my PFM GN E-6, 4-6-0s.  video there.

i purchased a yoder GE 45 ton switcher. video there.

youtube link below in signature line.  have a great week, all.

mike

hi all,

just a quick update.

1) mianne benchwork arrived

2) installed QSI titan DCC in the glacier park northern pacific S-4 class 4-6-0

video of S-4 now on my youtube page.  you can link from the website directly now. left side last link at the bottom.

have a great weekend!

mike

how long for Mianne delivery

j

hi j,

4 weeks from the time i called tim at mianne to the day it showed up (2 days of shipping time in there)  here is a pic of the completed (minus one piece that was broken in shipping) of the benchwork.  took about 4 hours for me to do it by myself with a couple screwdrivers, hammer and a pair of pliers.  

I was waiting for some pictures, thanks. Looks very nice. I think I said this before, but this is great stuff and so fast and easy. No sawdust and no mess. Layout in a day or less! And you can re-configure it later if you change your mind or want to expand. I hope you like it as well as I do.

thanks rtr12,

it is really nice.  well engineered.  a lot of steel used for connection points.  just a solidly designed system.  i just put the millhouse river turntable in the plywood and placed on the top of the table. i may have to screw the benchwork to the wall in a couple places, but that may be just my over "over engineer / think everything" pet peeve.

quick pic of NP W-3 on installed turntable.

Glad you like it and are also impressed. Nice turntable and engine too.  

Once you get it loaded up with plywood top, track, scenery, accessories and trains it will be more solid. Mine is free standing in the middle of a space and it's pretty solid with just track, trains and a few accessories. It might move a little if I hit it really hard or really pushed on it though? Yours being on carpet would probably also be more stable. Mine is on a bare concrete basement floor.

thanks rtr12,

yea i have to see how it all settles and if i need to attach to the walls.  the table top is at 51" so it is pretty tall. i laid the plywood on the table just so it would straighten out a bit. it started to bow while it was leaning against the wall for a couple weeks.  question... the "L" brackets supplied to hold the table top to the benchwork. can you place those "L" brackets anywhere?  the instructions seem to show only to place them at the top of legs to attach plywood to benchwork.  but i know i have a couple places where i need to pull the plywood down to the benchwork because of a bow (which i am hoping comes out as the plywood lays there a bit).  thoughts?  

also, here is a quick pic of the transfer table, i just got it in this AM.

Hi Mike,

You are obviously going to have a very nice engine service facility with lots of operational activity and modeling potential, but are you intending to tie this in to a running loop or just have a world class engine facility. I ask because I've been thinking along the same lines (service facility) but don't have the room width you appear to have to build up a decent running loop.

Butch

hi butch.  my first plan is to try and "complete" this engine terminal.  see how long that takes, my willingness or just how life goes/is, at that time. to see if i want to take on the next phase.  so not really sure. but this section will take a year or two to get to the 90%  complete level i like to be at before moving on.  at one section there is a 72" curve and curved switch( it is 54" long! from signature switch company)  that leads to the "future" section.  it may just end up being a 10' straight section that dead ends to a mirror vs. moving on to a full loop.  i HATE duckunders.  but mianne solved that problem too with their motorized table section lift.  so we shall see.  thanks for taking the time to comment and view, butch.

mike

I used all the L brackets that came with my original kit on the legs, as per the assembly instructions. I also had a couple of places where there was a slight gap between the plywood and top of bench work. I got some more L brackets and screws from Mianne and added them at the gap locations. This solved my gap problems. The L brackets are too big for the solid wood strip at the top of the cross braces, so I was only able to add them to the cross braces at the ends where the locking fasteners are. You could probably use the smallest metal L brackets available at hardware stores with piercing pan head screws similar to the ones that came with the kit. 

I just ordered more brackets and screws from Mianne because as soon as I got everything set up I placed another order for a transformer cart and some extra cross members for the bench work kit I got so I could add some shelves under the layout. I had talked to Tim about adding shelves below when I ordered my first kit. He added extra holes in the legs for the shelf cross members.  

Tim had some other brackets he said were for the problem I had with the gaps and he sent me a couple. They were long steel L brackets with short flanges (each L part about 1/2") with only one hole for one screw in one L part. I never figured out how they were supposed to be used so I didn't use them. Since the other ones fixed my gaps I never called to ask.

Here is one of the extra brackets I added and where I put it. Probably weren't all needed, but I added several more after I got going (even where there were no gaps), just because of the long span with no fastener in places like this.

The bracket was in the middle of one of the 48" long cross members like this one. 

Forgot to add that one of my problems was extra joints in the plywood, I had it cut into 2'x8' pieces. I has extra joints in the plywood that you wouldn't have with full 4'x8' sheets. I can't handle a full sheet anymore, even had to get help getting what I got downstairs. Home Depot cut it up and loaded it for me.

Transfer table looks nice too. Is that the same manufacturer as the turntable? Some of the indexing systems on turntables and transfer tables I have seen on youtube are worth the price of admission. Really neat stuff.

thanks rtr12,  I did a similar thing with the brackets. moving off of just the top of legs. I will have to run over to local home depot / lowes / ace to see what options they have for metal brackets. I am interested in the transformer shelves as well, but not sure how they would attach to an existing leg(s)? thanks for the pics and the explanation!

morning mike

you are making great progress

a question about the mianne bench work, it looks like the four foot width of a plywood sheet does not completely cover the the depth of the bench work - are the outer edges of the rails and the hex shaped legs depth four feet exactly - is this a problem if you try to max the coverage of the plywood (for example - a 4/8 plywood sheet would not completely cover the 4/8 footprint of the benchwork)

i am trying to figure out if you need to speck the mianne product a little less than four feet wide

thank you

j

The transformer cart comes with wheels and is a separate, free standing thing. I ordered an extra shelf for that one too.

The Mianne bench work is made for the plywood to fit in the center of the legs and cross pieces. If you order a 4'x8' Mianne kit it will be 4' center to center of the legs and cross pieces. Same with the 8' length. I have about 7/8" at the legs and 3/8" at the cross pieces. The advantage is if you ever want to add on you can just go from there without having to change anything. It wasn't a problem for me and won't be as I plan to add on to my original kit.

The only time this might be a problem is if you were trying to fit it exactly between two fixed walls or other items. In that case I would call Mianne and talk with them about the sizes and the space you are trying to fit. They are very helpful.