My N Scale railroad is being built in an L shaped basement, measuring 33 ft long, 11 feet wide on the top of the L, and 25 feet on the base of the L. The railroad is a fictional bridge route between an east coast port city, and an Appalachian industrial area. It will feature a Chessie / CSX flavor. The layout is both point to point between major yards, but also has allows for continuous running with an around the room loop. Track is mainly atlas code 83 flex, atlas and peco turnouts. I have experimented with laying code 55 rail on wooden ties, and built a few turnouts from scratch. Turnouts are manually thrown, using small Radio Shack toggle switches for ground throws. The layout currently has over 300 feet of mainline track, mainly single track with several areas double tracked. Passing sidings are approximately 7 ft in length, which accommodates around 17 60 foot freight cars and 2 locomotives.
My operational concept features two large industrial areas, a port city, and an Appalachian industrial city . The area around the port city is sill under design. I The port will feature a coal loader where coal is shipped overseas, an intermodal yard, automotive factory, and some refinery and dock facilities. I look to keep an operator busy just switching this area.. The western terminal is also still in the planning stages, but I envision a steel mill of some sort, other heavy industry, grain, and lots of generic factory type buildings which will be serviced by the local yard.
The layout is wired for DCC, using a Digitrax Empire Builder II. I had origionally planned on wiring both DC and DCC, but after a month of DCC operations, I tore out all the block wiring and have not looked back. I would never again build a model railroad if I had stay with conventional DC.
Summit - SD40-2 and C44-9 climbing the long grade at Summit, WV
CSX caboose crossing Ridley Falls Viaduct
SD50 crossing Ridley Falls Viaduct
SP Run thru coming down grade near Viaduct Junction
Overview of the Layout Under Construction
Windoze Media Player
Video Low Res Maryland and Ohio Freight (1 Meg file)
