Erewhon extension

I've finally started the final extension for the town of Erewhon  (nowhere backwards). To date Erewhon has been a temporary staging module with three tracks and a turntable. It is turning into a more permanent section built into the shelving unit that sits next to the layout.

It features a long passing track and four yard tracks as well as short caboose track, turntable with three locomotive tracks off the turntable.

The plan is to model it as a snow bound scene but I'm unsure how snowy as of yet.there will be some low relief buildings along the backdrop.

The intention is for it to operate like a very basic yard or like an operating staging yard where all equipment can remain on the layout and won't require handling.

The railroad

The Thoroughfare Gap Railroad connects the settlements of Teresaton and Cass with Erewhon (staging) which goes on to interchange with the Union Pacific transcontinental mainline. I haven't settled on an exact locale for the meeting point which does give me some modelling license. I've found it easier to not pick an exact location as it allows to me model scenes that I want to include. 

The layout started life 9 years ago as a 1200x2000mm (4x6.5 feet) table layout which focused on rugged, arid canyon scenery. To begin with it was more of a rail fanning layout with some switching interest at the end of the line. I also enjoy the bush and mountains, so when I discovered the desire to operate my railroad in a more realistic point to point manner I found the space to build an extension around the walls, essentially using the table layout as a double sided peninsula. The extension models both a deciduous and redwood forest in seperate scenery areas and includes a logging area and sawmill as well as the small town of Cass. Presently the trains travel out onto a temporary staging area representing Erewhon (nowhere spelt backwards). I plan to build a more permanent section that would model some of Erewhon and I'm interested in exploring making all of part of this a snow scene.

Two lumberjacks pose the stump of a recently felled redwood. 

The line coming into Teresaton. A cattle drive approaches the coral.

Teresaton's main street

The first extension, the logging area and redwood forest before the forest.

The Thoroughfare Gap Railroad

Currently the layout has been eight years in  the making, and has grown from a 4x7 foot design to a point to point style that travels  around two of the garage walls. I've learnt a lot in that time and certainly the vision for the layout has continued to evolve.  As they say,it is never finished. 

I started this railroad in my mid 20s after having been away from model railroading since my early teens. A lot had changed, access to information on the Internet for one, and online shopping meant accessing ho equipment of American prototypes was a whole lot easier and faster (I live in New Zealand). DCC and on board sound we're the norm and there were a lot more TOC19 (turn of the 19th century) themed products available.

I was bitten by the early rail bug when I was younger, my father was interested in the history of the American Civil War and the Old West and passed his fascination of this time period on to me. He paints 25mm war gaming figures and has painted all the figures for my layout and some of the structures.

My first steam locomotive was a Bachmann 4-4-0 model of 119 I received for Christmas as a child, a model I still owned until just recently. The roster now stands at five operating steam locomotives plus Thomas the tank engine for the kids.

I've recently converted the layout to DCC using a Sprog and an old laptop and have equipped all the locomotives with tsunami sound decoders. This has been an exciting addition and has seemingly expanded the operating potential of the layout. The layout is small and being able to run two locomotives easily on the same track without tricky block control has meant I can fit in more train movements.

The real benefit I've seen of converting to DCC is when visitors come to the layout. Most of my visitors are not model railroaders and are intrigued to see the "train set" as they call it. Being able to hand them a smart phone throttle, give them a few pointers and away they go really engages them. Before hand they had to understand the blocks and power districts of the DC block control, now they just run. The controls are simple and straightforward. I will through the switches for them to begin with but most pick it up in five minutes or so and I can leave them to it and start to run to other train movements. It seems to me that a smart phone is something we are all familiar with, and all the buttons actually say what they do, there is no guessing what F11 does as you might with a specialist DCC throttle.

I held out against DCC as long as I could. I've been trying to building this layout on a budget using what I had and for a large part that has been a successful paradigm. But when I purchased the two sound value new tooled 4-4-0's by Bachmann I new I had to do something. When they arrived the chuffing was out of sync (you'd wonder why that couldn't be set right at the factory) and I starting looking for another layout owner with DCC to change the CVs for me. I could only find a train store 40 mins down the road that offered DCC installs. I then found the Sprog, and figured for NZ$100 I could do all my own programming (which was good seeing as I had more decoders on the way for my other engines). I already had some old smart phone handsets and the old house laptop had also been superseded by a desktop machine so it could be relegated to the layout room.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I wish I had converted sooner!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog about the construction of my freelance HO scale model railroad set somewhere in the American West. This is the first layout I have attempted by myself and so far it  has been seven and a half years in the making. I work a job and have a young family so sometimes progress can be slow. I'll try and post something on here once a month that shows the progress on the layout