Trinimosa Branch Progress

I don't know if anyone is interested, but I thought I would post some shots of my vast undertaking. I haven't been able to get as much done as I'd like, but I have just not had the time in the last few months due to family issues. I have about two thirds of the mainline done and powered and about half the yard area. The construction is MTL flex with Marklin turnouts on corkboard sheet roadbed on Woodland scenics elevations and risers with a base of 2" pink foam on 15' x 5' of tables. The pics are in the gallery titled "Building the Trinimosa Branch".

Nice work Todd. Your layout has everything, but to me, the most important part is the yard. Its nice to be able keep the trains in the yard, and not remove them after your runing sessions. Switching the yard can be very entertaining also.

Todd, I agree with John. This layout looks great. It shows the capabilities of Z scale. Cheers, Jim CCRR:cheer:

Todd,

Ditto. This layout has tremendous potential. You have done a great job. Look forward to seeing the progress photos.

Thanks,
JC

Hey Todd

I really like your layout... It's big, and thats what i love to see in Z scale... Big layouts or modules, that allow for lots of to scale scenery and epic long trains..

Very nice under taking you have there, and i'll be very interested to watch your progress..

What are the demansions of this layout??

Tony B...
Wasatch Z ClubB)

Tony,

I had the space so I used it. The tables were from an 18 foot by 5 foot slot car track that I took down a couple of years ago. Instead of building benchwork, I left off one of the 3 foot sections which gave me the 15' x 5' space. The layout is actually cut into three parts so that I can move it if I ever have to.

I wanted a big layout so I could run big trains around broad curves, and be able to do switching and operations at the various industries along the Branch. To me, Z scale is just like any other scale of model railroading and I wanted to do all the things in Z that other folks do in the other scales. I love the small railroads that all the incredibly talented people in Z scale create, and I will in the future build a small, portable railroad for shows and such, but I think we Z scalers get pigeonholed by people in other scales as only being in Z to build small railroads. With the exceptions of some differences in physics and the somewhat thin selection of equipment, Z scale is just like all the other scales.. just so much more cool...

Anyway, that's how I see it. I think we need more big railroads in Z. Hey, it just takes exponentially more time, money and hair to pull out to build a big railroad than a small one, so why not???

Todd,

Your are so right about large Z layouts.... And by the way "holy @#%" that is a nice sized layout!!!! 15x5 should give you plenty of room to build a Z scale layout that would ocupy an entire basement in HO... Hat's off to you my man.....

My layout is acutaly my club modules that go on the road. When i started our local Z club with a buddy a few years ago, we came up with a way to have out modules double as our home layouts. So my modules live in my hobby room for most of the year, and get broken down and loaded up for a couple of local shows. When setup in my hobby room, its a "L" shape that is 21'ft long by 20" wide. And like you, i and my club members prefer to run long trains through prototypical and to scale scenry. We atempting to build the UP's double track Overland Main Line from the Utah/Wyoming border through to Odgen, Utah. If your unfamiliar with it, it's a very active line, and UP's main route to North Platte from the norther west coast ports. My section of the line if from the Wyoming boarder thru to the town of Echo via picturesque sandstone Echo Canyon.

with 15x5'ft your going to have a ton of room for scenry.... Where is your line located??? What era are you planning??? Are you basing off a prototype or freelanceing???

Tony B...
Wasatch Z ClubB)

Tony,
The era is the 1960's, the road itself is reality freelanced in that the area is the Alamosa, La Veta, Walsenburg, Trinidad routes of the DRGW. This was actually three subdivisions of the DRGW, but I wanted to have a geographic area that has the industries I want to model, and could, maybe, possibly, theoretically, have had some of the equipment available in Z running on it. The choice here is based more on the equipment and roadnames available in Z scale than anything else. Since I wanted a coal mine and a lumber mill as industries, this area of the DRGW had both at one time. The yard and town next to it will be Alamosa, CO, but I won't even be thinking about trying to model the narrow gauge interchange. There also was the Gramps refinery in Alamosa, which got narrow gauge tank cars of crude from from Chama, NM, but in my world, they will be getting standard guage tank cars from there and Farmington, NM. In this area, I can have DRGW, SP, ATSF and even UP locomotives and trains running via imaginary trackage rights and such. And since steam ran in this area until the late 60's, I might even re-letter a couple of Marklin Mikes to DRGW to pull some locals. So its sort of based on reality in Z kind of way. Sinces this is going to be the high plateau areas of CO, not much radical rock formations and that sort of stuff, but lots of trees and the Rio Grande River.

That's the plan, now just got to get it done.

Todd

Very interresting project, Todd, congratulations! Could you just bring us a track plan here, and could you give us the characteristics, such as curve radii, max slope, type of power(DC or DCC), max train lenght, max run lenght, etc...

But I do agree, we need more huge layouts.

Dom, buiding a small layout

Dom,

Sorry about the late response, but here are the stats you requested. My track plan is pencil on graph paper, so no joy in posting it, but it is a folded dogbone with basically two levels.
- 18" minimum curves in a couple of places, otherwise 21" and 24"
- 2% grade courtesy of Woodland Scenics elevations
- DC power, two cabs (still trying to figure out what kind) and a third tethered Varipulse throttle on the other side of the layout for switching, 32 blocks, four staging yard blocks on a rotary switch.
- My best estimate is 75 feet of mainline with four 4-5 foot passing sidings, a six track main yard, four industrial switching areas

The track for the mainline, passing sidings and the main yard is laid, need to wire up three more blocks to have it all powered. Right now it is all jumpered in on one Marklin power pack at the terminal blocks, control panel to be built as next big phase of the project.

FYI

Todd

Hi Todd

Your layout sounds great. How is it working with foam, both the 2" pink base and the WS risers and elevations?

Working with foam is great, a little messy sometimes, but still much better than wood, jigsaws and plaster coated paper strips. Its light, its easy to cut and carve, and very stable. I have it resting on a wood table that I had already made for a slot car track, but it would be pretty easy to put the foam on a 1 x 3 or 1x4 lightweight frame.

The trick with the elevations is to put a little space between them so as not to leave a bump where two of them meet. I learned this the hard way, and had to do some carving to get rid of the bump, which in z scale was about 2 some odd scale feet. I use lightweight spackling compound from Red Devil to do little bits of patching and smoothing of the roadbed before laying the cork. It dries quickly and sands nicely.

Weldbond glue is the stuff to use to hold the pieces of foam together. It is the wonder stuff with foam, let it dry for 24 hours and you can't pry the pieces apart with a chisel. Low temp hot glue is good too, but more expensive, I only use it in places where I need something to set and stick immediately.

Hope this helps, Todd

Thanks Todd. I'm sure we're all looking forward to hearing about your progress.