New to the Hobby

Welcome aboard FTE!  (I have to admire any man who invokes the M18A1 maxim.)  

I see you are in very good hands here.  These guys know their stuff!  Carry on.

WOW is all I can say! The feedback has been amazing! A special thank you to both DomMiele and Moonman for taking my layout to the next level! I have shown both the different layouts to my daughter who gets final say on what we build and she has decided she loves the extra switches in Doms workup utilizing the outside siding pictured below. I honestly cannot say thank you enough for alll the help! I use another program for my wood working and although its very similar to Scarm there is definetly a learnign curve. I am waiting now to purchase the additional swithes for the top run but i will post pictures as it goes together. I know most of the pictures I see online are small town layouts or modern cities but i am shooting for something a little more futuristic using buildings from a company called Warmill that makes MDF buildi9ngs. I mention the name as they are going to start offering 3d printing so you guys may want to check them out. Again thank you for all of the assistance!

Welcome to the forum....as you can see you will receive a lot of good help and information from fellow members....this is a great place!

Alan

Welcome to the forum!!

Hello Everyone I know it's been awhile! I wanted to share some pics as I still have some tweaks to  make and alot of terrain to add.  I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for such a tremondous outpouring of help! I am truly humbled by your enthusiasm for the hobby and passion for helping.  

Welcome to the best toy/model train forum on the web.  You can find answers to every

thing trains on here. A great bunch of people here.

Thanks for joining us.

FTE,

The layout looks great with the Alien train. I don't believe I have seen a futuristic colonized planet layout. Those Warmill structures are cool.

As you develop the planet to a safer state, some passenger service may be needed. Look for the Lionel Phantom. It will work perfectly with your theme once the Aliens cooperate and realize who's in charge.

Keep us updated. I can see your wargame skills will certainly make this an interesting layout.

Best wishes for the holidays to you and your family!

Looks like you are making good progress!

Belated welcome to the Forum! I like your buildings and structures. 

Welcome to the forum. A great place to learn. The layout is really coming along nicely.

You and your kids will LOVE this hobby. I salute you for being a great Dad. Makes me wonder what our culture would look like if more dads were doing what you are.

new to forum and building a dedicated train display. has anyone used this layout specifically?  I would like to know if someone has please. I really like the features. I have some fasttrack, but would definitely need to spend the cash to get all the needed curves and switches for this layout. (for my 13 and 10 year old boys and me to build). Have a 175 watt train master TW transformer. Thanks great forum!

I thought this had been solved, didn't notice the "low bridge" in oct.

I played too but never posted it. Not 100% done on lengths or line up here.

Adding purple surface, taking from blue. Hide the controls!

Not so much a visual treat didn't try. But more functional version here, with the "pretzel" flipped.

No backing, to get out of the middle loop now. Now full use of both reverse loops, or run 3 separate loops, or some small siding operations.

I REALLY like your tweak to include full use of both reverse loops, or run 3 separate loops.

Will try to download program to read the file you posted better so I can purchase the fasttrack parts for this one

ToddW,

See front towards the enemy's post above photos. he built dom's version. Check out the photos attached. Just click on one and use the arrows to view all.

Scarm has a parts list feature under the Tools menu. opens in a browser. then you print.

Here's Adriatic's version with the fitment corrected using standard FasTrack pieces.

Some more work needs to be done if you to want to electrically isolate any of the loops. It's a single train runner.

Right-click the attached file and select "save target as", then open with SCARM.

Welcome FTE your going to love it here, so much to learn and I personally have found my answers in a timely fashion.  Have fun run some trains.  Jim

ToddW,

Here it is a bit more refined. I missed the elevated section to replace with standard track and changed the accessory siding, which now includes the accessory activator pack. May need to modify for accessory used.

Also, if you scroll down there is a sheet cut. Two 4' x 8' pieces of deck are all that is needed.

Thanks Carl! I have to say FTE's progress and layout looks fantastic!

Carl the plan you are tweaking looks to be the one I want to go with. Having issues on my macbook air installing scarm at the moment

Thank you everyone again! I play table top strategy games like WarHammer 40k and Malifaux so my train table originally started as a wargamming table and has kinda morphed into a combination of the two which is why i went with a little simpler on the track layout. The rear bridge needs to be weathered and the trestles are just simple 3/4 x3/4 pine and poplar I ripped down on the table saw and used the Kreg Jig to make all of my joints. Although i have a ton of work to do I have been finishing my Masters so the table has had some slow spots lol.  In the future I plan on incorporating some rotating Anti Air guns using some really small motors from http://www.pololu.com/product/1594. Combined with some red and yellow flickering LEDS and an HO scale smoke maker I'm working on some burning barrels. But like everything there is always a learnign curve! Again thank you everyone for the support!