Beginning some scenery

View from the front for once...

It's been a long slog slaving over a hot soldering iron of late, but now that the mechanics are in reasonable shape it feels like time to start growing some scenery...

All layouts are exercises in compromise, and this one especially so as it tries to fit several kilometres of climbing and winding track into the size of a door.  Mechanically it all fits and it runs, but in terms of the layouts overall effectiveness, the rubber hits the road when the scenery goes in.

For here we find out if the various features 'fit and work' as we'd hoped.

The first thing I need to do is to add some bases for things like rivers and roads that are had to add level and flat after the hills start growing.

Here we see a simple flat white card base for the Reuss river as it passes under the 'upper' and 'lower' (where that wagon is) Wattinger bridges. The famous Wattinger curve lies just beyond, and in the distancee, the tracks go under a plinth-like table structure which is where the landmark Wassen Church will sit:

At this stage, I decided to paint the rails brown as it's easier to do this before they get enveloped in tunnels and cuttings:

A piece of unpainted track in the background for comparison...

I used some Tamiya acrylic brown that was lying around and a fine brush. In past lives, I've sprayed automotive primer from a can, and although this is fast, it tends to be quite red in colour ...and gets everywhere...

Weekus Horribilis

Its been a frustrating week here in New Zedland.

Following on from the last post, I think I might have been a bit optimistic in some of my approaches in the storage yard lately without testing them thoroughly before committing. Z scale can be finicky and while I had no problems on the main line, I can't have this yard being a point of frustration, because that quickly takes the fun out of things.

So I did replace that point which banished the electrical gremlins, but then found that trains were struggling while exiting it reliably because immediately after the point there was a join to Peco flex which has a slightly larger rail profile. And all on a curve. And on a hill - a hill that was steeper than I realised, so trains were struggling out of the yard, putting even more stress on couplers and tiny wheels as they attempted to negotiate the obstacles.

As such, I have today rationalised the yard storage tracks somewhat. Made more difficult by me having soldered a lot of the track together... I also somewhat wisely added a new section of "baseboard' to ensure the left third of the yard - from the Muhle tunnel portal on to where the locos are here - descends to the flat in a far more gradual and smooth manner.

In the process, I have lost a siding (FYI pushing Z scale stuff around curves through points doesn't work as well as it worked running downhill on the mainline) and have regrettably lost some siding length as well, but now all the points are easy to get to,  have reasonable transitions and most importantly, it all seems to work well now. I have one more siding to finish connecting and then the soldering iron will be out in action again (sigh).

Yardstick

With the layout back in one piece, its probably as good a time as any to tackle the yard.

After a bit of fiddling and experimentation, I'm going to end up with storage for at least 4-6 trains down there, depending on how you count things, plus between 1-3 up top. Plus one each way on the mains if things get really hectic.

Also, every track is well over the length of my 'test train' of 12 hoppers and two locos, with three of the storage tracks being about 50% longer - far more than the current loco fleet can haul.  Not bad for a layout of less square area than a door!

The schematic for the downstairs yard looks something like this:

As can be seen, two of the sidings are single-ended - so trains will back in or out.

Now for some baby steps... As I'm using straight DC power at this stage, I'll need to electrically isolate the sidings and only have them energised when I want them active - or else all 10 trains will move at once. I don't have any isolating rail joiners, but luckily a passing Jokertrekker let me borrow his Dremel and a cut-off wheel. My old 110 volt one having been donated to a model railway club when I left the US.

Cuts were made across rails mid-section thus (the plastic 'ballast' keeps everything together):

And then track was soldered at the rail joiners into sections:

And then everything started to come into place quite quickly:

She's lookin' good, Vern.

Hopefully workable at least, and probably with a little room for expansion. I'm a little short of track at the moment - as the intended clandestine meetup with my dealer of such items didn't work out a few weeks ago - so I'll be one loop short for a while.

In the meantime I have the track nearest the edge to connect up and some soldering of power feeds and the like to keep me busy.

Bugger

So... I've soldered up some flex and pinned down a single level helix on the right side. This would gain me another 5cm of height between the middle and top levels of track if a train could climb it, which is seeming a bit unlikely given the tight radius. I tried to minimise the clearance needed between levels (for a loco with its pantograph up to pass under the upper level of track’s foamboard base) by using flex rather than sectional rack with its plastic ‘ballast’ base.

Judges , the envelope please…

Well, that pretty much proves that its not possible in this iteration.

I might be able to increase the ‘run’ of track - either by increasing radius or widening the circle into an oval without impeding the Meienreuss gorge - but I’m not sure how many cm of extra run that will give me.

I might also be able to reduce the vertical climb that I have built into my setup: 

• By some miscalculation, I have 5mm of air above the panto that can be dispensed with immediately
• I might be able to thin the track baseboard on the small segment that is directly over the lower track by replacing the foamboard with plasticard reinforced from above
• The raised panto height is a bit high on the locos, and (I intended to fix this anyway) 

So if I can reduce the height by 12-15mm, and increase the run by 10cm, that might make enough of a difference to the grade such that can be surmounted

Reality used to be a friend of mine

The Sunshine pump: Salespeople will often become so caught up in a deal that they become blinkered to reality when everyone else in the room can see that it just aint gonna happen.

I've had a few days away from the layout but have laid more track following my first gradient experiments a few weeks ago. I like how the flextrack has been looking and thought I'd try running a  train today to see how it looked with something actually on it.

Somewhat surprisingly, despite the electrical effort clearly being expended, I couldn't lift my train out of the yard. Sure I was using some temporary track down in the yard, and some different wagons, but I was perturbed by the sight of two locos slipping to a standstill with a relatively short train.

Fearing the wagons were heavier and less free running, I put on the 'control train' from the last experiment - the 12 hopper cars. Same result.

It's possible that I cheated a little with the grades on the gentle curve leading up to Wattinger - as its not much of a curve I might have allowed it to get a little steeper, but the measurements didn't seem any steeper than the curved sections. It's also possible that the Peco Streamline track isn't as sticky as the Rokuhan curves - maybe the railhead profile or metal is different.

Whatever the reason, there's no point in having a layout that trains won't run on, so some time was spent today on a grade flattening exercise both on the lower level and on the middle level big Meienreuss bridge.

Sigh. Better now than later, and reasonably easily adjusted with the foamboard. Today cost me a few cm in grade separation between levels, so as you might note from the attachments, the semi-banished right hand hidden spiral between the middle and top levels is back under investigation...

From up on high

I didn't post this pic on Flickr because the sun wouldn’t come out for me, but here is a view from above the Wattinger bridge looking across the valley at some of the things I’m trying to approximate. On the top level, a covered steel train behind an Re 4/4 and Re 6/6 is approaching The Command Post knob. On the lower level, a plastic fantastic ICN tilting train, also going downhill, has emerged from the tunnel, crossed the Wattinger bridge and is following the Reuss river downstream. 

You can see the incredible height differences between the levels, which is a major struggle to replicate on a 1.9m long layout!

Storage Wars

As I get bored easily, I like to swap out one consist for another when playing trains, which will require a small storage yard to hold trains that are waiting to come ‘on stage’. Now that the lower level ‘benchwork’ has been plated over, I’ve been fiddling around with my 8 points to see what sort of hidden storage yard might be possible, noting: 

• Two (ideally left handers) are committed to the passing loop ‘up top’ 
• As for train length, the 12 car coal train plus two locos is 80cm long, and this seems to be about the limit for these locos. However the newer Y25 bogies ‘seem’ to run more freely, plus longer container wagons, some being two-unit articulated jobs with three bogies, might allow longer trains to be run. 
• Passing tracks are usually more functional than dead-end sidings that you have to push things in and out of
• A transfer table is probably impractical here. 
• Points are often the weak link where the most derailments and electrical issues occur. I’ve no idea how good these Micro Trains things are, or how they’ll hold up over time.

The above gives me two 100cm and one 140mm ‘departure' tracks at the bottom, and another 60cm track on the ‘arrival’ track which could potentially be longer or skipped altogether - two trains could queue up on that long arrival track. The ‘up top' track is about 120cm long, so that could be an issue if longer trains prove feasible. It could be extended, but this would further reduce the visible track on the already shortened upper level by The Command Post.

The points are fairly well spaced apart from the two at bottom right that are next to each other, and all are pretty accessible for hidden trackwork.

Beyond a spark - track planning

My initial thoughts for a layout were based around whether a reasonable representation of Wassen could be built on a door-sized piece of real estate. Obviously this would have to be done in Z scale (or smaller!) to work, and given the size constraint, serious compromises would have to be made to realise this without looking too toylike -  one of my issues with Z scale layouts I've seen in briefcases, guitar cases and pizza boxes. 

The plus of sticking to this size is that it would be a one-piece layout (module track joins between multiple tracks at different levels sounds like a recipe for disaster) which would be fairly portable and could potentially fit in a station wagon or van.

Downsides of Z scale itself are that there's only limited models available (no Re 6/6 and no modern container wagons for example), and having never really done anything in the scale before, I imagine its daunting working in such a small scale with its fiddly details and need for super smooth track work to prevent future problems.

So one could do N or one could upscale the layout size, but then the portability would be lost. So lets see what could fit onto a door in Z.

The real Wassen looks like this:

A pure, scaled-down Wassen would be more than 10 metres long so as with all semi-prototypical modeling, selective compression comes into play. The 'signature scenes' I’d like to include would be…

• Wattinger Curve and bridge
• The big Middle Meienreuss bridge with third level bridge behind
• Wassen Church and a smattering of Wassen village
• The ‘Command Post’ on the upper level
• The ‘other’ upper Wattinger bridge could easily be included
• The curved approach to the Muhle tunnel might be possible too.

Although the A2 Motorway is a large visual component cutting through the real scene, in my fantasy Wassen I feel it would dominate such a small layout and take up too much space so will be excluded/merged with the local road.

My rough concept mocked up in trackplanning software (badly, and of course for a layout plan, over-optimistically) is thus:

Basically three levels of double-track are linked by hidden spirals to gain additional height for increased visual separation of the levels. 

An uphill train would emerge at the Muhle tunnel traveling ‘left', where the track comes out of hiding, curves under the Wassen church, runs alongside the Reuss river to the Wattinger curve and bridges, re-emerges heading ‘right' on the middle level to cross the big bridge, curves into the tunnel there, re-emerges facing ‘left’ briefly between tunnels in the background to cross the upper bridge, then pass the command post on the upper level before vanishing for good.

Then the track has to get back down to ground zero to start again…. Somehow…!

p.s.  I've probably mis-spelled all the locations and obviously mis-pronounce them too. Apologies!