Quote:
Originally Posted by Ped
That's really cool. You should post your train set up on here.
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Thanks!
It's an N-Scale modular layout that's about the size of a pool table when packed away. The frame is built like an aircraft carrier hangar though, which contains the three expansion modules for the majority of time when I'm not running it in the full configuration.
Like a lot of local model railroaders I model what I know, which is the prairies-to-mountains transition.
I decided to model fall because the colours are more interesting to me and it was less common back when I got started on the layout. I had also moved from Ontario not long before so took some liberties in mixing in a larger proportion of red in the deciduous trees. All the trees on the layout are scratch-built, there are over 1200 of them.
The mountains are inspired by real ones; the one in the middle is a mini-Rundle and the range in the back is inspired by some of my favourite ridges in the national parks. One thing I like about the hobby is how it can lead you on all these little interesting sidequests, like spending a few hours pouring over topographical maps of the rockies before committing to a design.
Running at scale speed, it takes a train nearly 10 minutes to do a full loop of the full layout.
Sometimes opportunities to scratch-build arise, like with these half-depth grain elevators. The constraints imposed by minimum turning radii left me with insufficient space at the edge of the prairie module to use a commercially available kit, so I bought some balsa and specialized polystyrene sheets and made my own, inspired by the town where my wife's family had their farm.
In the years since completing the layout itself I have undertaken a series of projects to customize rolling stock, like my modern coal gondola unit train with individually hand-crafted loads and heavy weathering to reflect the condition of the cars as seen ~2015-2020 timeframe. That was another side-quest of sorts... it's surprisingly hard to find pictures and video of loaded coal cars from above but this one guy posted a ~10 minute video to youtube a decade ago of an entire coal train going past a spot on the line where the coal gets sprayed with water (the sprayers themselves are clever in that they stop/start the cascade of water in reference to the train's speed so they don't waste any between cars). When I think back to my first model railroad several decades ago pre-internet... it really is amazing what that connectivity has done to help people raise their game.
Passenger operations can be fun, but lighting is tricky. Battery-powered systems can be finnicky when they run out, and track-powered systems can be plagued with flicker. In the years before Rapido came out with a prototypical "The Canadian" set I built capacitor-equipped circuits to improve the performance of these Kato units.
Speaking of passenger ops, the Royal Canadian Pacific is one of my personal favourites. Here's a crack at it using Microtrains rolling stock:
I am a fan of Canadian Pacific almost as much as I'm a fan of the Flames, so one-off customs have included things like this take on CP 2816. Visually it's not a perfect model but electrically there was a huge challenge under the hood, fixing the poor inherent performance of a Model Power engine by mating it to a Bachmann tender with better pickup, and then creating the pseudo-decals necessary to make it pass as the real thing.
Another CP custom I did was to hand-paint this rendition of CP 6644.
I also have a handpainted and weathered version of the CP "Arid Regions" tribute locomotive.
Maintenance of way equipment can be fun to work on too, as they can have all sorts of odd ball cars.
The CP Holiday Train was probably my most ambitious such custom project ever. I have wanted to do that for many years but it took a while for the miniaturization of the fibre optics to reach a level where I could tackle it affordably. Between the 0.28mm drill bits I went through and the ~250 feet of 0.25mm diameter fibre it took before I got five working cars, sourcing the materials inexpensively was key. To the best of my knowledge nobody has implemented this in N scale before anywhere, so it feels kinda cool having such a unique model.
For people who found this post interesting, you and the kids in your life (young or young at heart) might really enjoy
Supertrain, which happens every year in April -
[UPDATE: in 2025 it'll be at the olympic oval!]. Despite my layout being partially modular I don't exhibit there but the clubs that do are really phenomenal. I have a particular soft spot for the UK-themed layouts as they're so different than all of us prairie/foothills/mountains modellers. Another local model railroading landmark is
Iron Horse Park in Airdrie; the sweet spot there I'd say is taking kids in your life ages 4-8 for a ride on miniature trains you can sit on.
