I have an Atlas RS-3 that I bought back in the late 90's, but it is Great Northern.
One thing I recently stumbled across is DCC++ which is an arduino based DCC system. https://github.com/DccPlusPlus/BaseStation/wiki/What-is-DCC--Plus-Plus
That could take care of the base station and controller. Would still need commercial decoders in your locos though. Not really needed on a layout of this size, but it may be a fun project to learn about DCC.
More track down tonight. Got the outside loop finished, only one more turnout to go in and the inside loop will be finished. Then the yard and yard lead.
The GG1 was mostly an indulgence, I love art deco and streamline moderne design so it was on the list to buy. I'm still blown away by the quality from Kato, worth every penny.
As for locomotives, I want to stick with Canadian stuff and CP Rail if I can because I love the CP livery.
Diesels would be:
Alco FA1, RS2 and S2.
EMD E8
Steam would be:
4-8-4 Confederation (mountain), 4-6-4 Hudson, 2-8-0 Consolidation and 2-10-4 Selkirk
Canadian Pacifc and Canadian National passenger livery was also nice.
CN ran the same livery on the Grand Trunk Western line they operated.
The nice thing about model railroading is, if you really want to, your railroad can have anything on its roster, because it's your world, and you can do anything you want.
Appleseed said:The nice thing about model railroading is, if you really want to, your railroad can have anything on its roster, because it your world, and you can do anything you want.
I've always wanted to make a model railroad of the New York, Ontario & Western if they hadn't been a bankrupt mess by the early '50s. The only diesels they owned were EMD FTs, F3s and NW2s. But what would an Alco RS3 or an EMD GP30 or a Baldwin Sharknose look like in the O&W gray, yellow and orange.
In reply to Appleseed :
That one would be on the Bob Rosster.
I see what you did there.
What do you suppose the livery would look like if the CP or CN ran GG1s?
Appleseed said:What do you suppose the livery would look like if the CP or CN ran GG1s?
A CP GG1 would be damn classy
CP livery for the period would be the tuscan red and grey on the Alco above. For the mid 40s to 60s it would have the crest with the beaver and script lettering down the side, earlier than that would be block letters and a crest without the rodent that reads: "worlds greatest travel system".
I did find a guy on eBay selling custom painted Kato GG1 locos. Maybe I will contact him.
I have an N-scale layout that I inherited like fourthhand from someone. I should really dust it off and run it. My problem was, I was trying to make it a PRR layout when I was a broke high-schooler and could never really get anywhere because N-scale PRR stuff is weirdly not that common and kind of pricey in some cases, so I lost interest. I think if I were to do it now, I'd either go with 1976 Conrail (huge variety of equipment, and you can run whatever railroad liveries because it took a while to all get repainted) or mid 1970s Delaware & Hudson (cool paint scheme, stuff like Alco PAs and Baldwin Sharks, and you can toss some LV C420s and Reading GP39-2s in and they fit)
My son's interests are pretty much limited to current Canadian National and Amtrak stuff. Currently, we have a P42, which isn't super exciting:
Next up is probably a GE ES44AC in Canadian National Colors:
And eventually, I think he'll want a Seimens Charger, which is pretty fugly in my opinion, but thankfully not available right now that I know of in N Scale:
This is, by far, the best angle, BTW.
He seems to want to keep rolling stock local, but thankfully our local trains have pretty much everybody's stuff running in them.
Sadly, new locomotive design isn't really anything inspiring, they all look sort of dreadful.
Like Hammond said about the Nissan Juke. Cars used to be designed by people who were mad about cars, now they're just designed by people who are mad at cars.
All track is down, all feeders but one are in, rail joints are soldered.
I changed one bit in the yard to allow me to have a maintenance building that I can park a locomotive in. It's just supposed to be a small maintenance and repair area so that should work great.
Wired everything up temporarily and it all works great. Everything has power and no shorts. All 3 blocks work together or separate.
Trains are running and that GG1 looks bloody enormous on there.
Next step is wiring.
Track feeds wired to buss bars for block control.
Next step is wiring the block control switches. Will build a small switch panel at work next week.
Started weathering track today.
Wasted a bunch of time drooling over George Sellios' layout: http://www.horailroad.com/fsm/fsmlayout0.html
Track wiring finished, block control switches installed.
They're on-off-on DPDT switches, I can send power from either throttle to each block separately.
Left is left throttle, middle is off and right is rigth throttle.
The left one is the outside loop, the right one is the inside loop and the middle one is the yard. I can have a train running the loop and still play with a switcher and a couple cars in the middle.
The DPDT switches let me switch both rails on or off, rather than using the common rail system. This will make switching to DCC as simple as swapping in a DCC power pack.
ShawnG said:Sadly, new locomotive design isn't really anything inspiring, they all look sort of dreadful.
My hoses are in this Progress Rail F125. How does this look?
Better than most of the new ones.
Ballasting track for the last few days.
Futzing around with ideas for the second level tonight.
Going to run a little point-to-point interurban on the top level with an auto-reversing system so It will run by itself.
Bought a Bachmann Brill Trolley this evening, on sale, heavily discounted at modeltrainstuff.com:
BC Electric Rail ran streetcars very similar to this. Not this exact model but very close. The colour scheme is the same!
If the mechanicals are rough, and considering the age of the Bachmann Brill with no updates, it probably will be , Bandai, Tomix, and Kato all offer 8 wheel chassis that are lightyears ahead of it.
Good to know! I was wondering about the quality. All the other offerings are incorrect or expensive. I was hoping I could mess with it and get it to work on tighter curves.
I was digging through some city archives tonight and found a picture of a BCER electric locomotive from when it was delivered. The records claim the picture was from a "manufacturer in Philadelphia". I figured it was probably Baldwin and it looks like I was correct.
Further digging showed that the BCER used locomotives from Baldwin-Westinghouse, Alco-GE and Dick Kerr so I have lots to chose from and can even come up with an excuse for running a GG1 on my layout.
Baldwin:
Dick Kerr:
Alco:
I can buy 3d printed Baldwin bodies from shapeways so I might be able to put something together.
This is the BCER interurban station in New Westminster. It's still standing, I've been in it and around it quite a bit. It's a Salvation Army Thrift Store now. The train station is to the right.
This is the rail station before the interurban building was built, the interurban station would be directly behind the train station in this shot. This station is also still standing and I've eaten dinner in it when it was a restaurant in it's final years. It's now a pub. This station was built in 1899.
In it's final years as The Keg restaurant, the BCER interurban station would be on the left.
To the left of both of these buildings, the ground gets higher. The whole city is built on a hillside and this is the lowest part. This is why I want to build on two levels. It lets me model the hillside and have lots of buildings going up the hill.
There was a big fire in the city in 1898 and the street behind the area I'm (incredibly loosely) modeling is up this hill a little and is now at the second story level on some of the buildings that survived the fire. I've been in the basements of a couple of the surviving buildings and you can see the bricked-up doorways and windows in what used to be the first floor.
40' reefer car and some tunnel portals arrived. Moving forward.
This is one of the Tomytec chassis. It ends up around $30-35 US. From Ebay.
While not an exact replica of any locomotive, Kato's Pocket Line has an electric shunter with 2 cars for about $30 US. The motorized chassis underneath the engine is usually $23 by itself. I'm very close to buying one for myself.
In reply to Appleseed :
I've been looking at that very Pocket Line set on Amazon, just for fun.
My Brill Trolley arrived at my shipping address today, I'll be picking it up sometime next week along with a single bay locomotive shed from Faller.
The nice part about being in Canada is that a lot of our early building design influence came from Britain so I can use some of the really nice European structures without them looking out of place.
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