N-TRACK
UNION-PACIFIC STEAM
See how I am building my own N-scale railroad.
From design, layout and
building of the railroad.
| .....UPDATE 15 MARCH 2008..... | ||
| .....MAKING TREES..... | ||
...Starting is difficult...As many of you model-railroaders know, is finding a good layout a challenge on it's own. The many aspects of model railroading have the tendency to pop up at unexpected moments, I will name a few, but the list is endless. (well, almost) - What scale will I use H0 or G maybe N or even Z?(some scale formats within model railroading) - Which brand am I going to use Marklin, Fleischmann, Bachmann, Kato or Athearn? (to name just a few) - Am I sticking to DC or AC (marklin)? - Will I be building proto-typical or will I be building my own ideas? (or a mix of both of them) - Shall I keep to one railroad-company or several companies? (some countries are easy, holland has only one, the US however got several), and which country? - Will I be going analog or am I going digital? - And which era has got my interest? These are only a few, but when you keep digging, you will find a lot more of these questions. A little history behind the "thought".When I was about 7 or 8 my father had layed-out a large track through the living-room,he placed a large steam-engine on the track and behind it he placed several freight-cars. (in my mind it seemed a hundred) I was astonished when I saw that great engine come to live and run the iron rail. Years later I found out that it was an American steam-engine and freight-cars, they where made by an Italian manufacter named "RivaRossi ( this engine is a mallet 2-8-8-2, now 32 yrs old and is still running smoothly) This was when I met my first American Iron Horse, lateron (I guess at age of 10) I got a 0-4-0 from the Baltimore and Ohio, but I had to take it apart because of ..... and lost some parts during several years, so I cannot rebuilt it anymore. Highschool-time was a very quiet time concerning model-railroad, but the dream was still there. At the age of...30, I started building my first model-railroad. It was a german railroad with steam-engines (I have got a weak spot for those great engines) I never finished it because: A. my ideas of how to built it kept changing. B. my knowledge of how to build it kept changing. C. I got married and we had two boys. (great, awesome, wow and again wow) So this train came to a grinding halt, end of the line, until......... It was the year 2005 when the dream started to come to life again. I found on te Internet a dutch site (the PH&LF RailRoad Association) and they were runnin' american trains, everything was AMERICAN ! After reading on there forum and following some links from there site, I found some interresting sites... "online-shops" ! So the problem of how am I going to get US engines to my front-door wasn't there anymore. I didn't start bying right away, I started visiting sites and more sites and more.............. Until... febr or march 2006 when I did my first buy on Ebay. And in that time I decided on the scale, which railroad, which era and offcourse DCC or not. I decided on N-scale and the Union Pacific in the transisional-era and YES ..DCC. Why N-scale... simple we haven't got that much room and I did n-scale before. Why the Union Pacific ... well the mallet was a big steam=engine and I had searched the internet and I came across some great engines "Challenger's", Turbines and least of all the "Bigboys" and the Union Pacific build together with the Central Pacific "the first transcontinental railroad". How is the progress?.Not so good, it is slowely going forward and I have some rough layout-drawings which I will try to get on the website.Further more I have to re-arrange the attick before I can start building. .....UPDATE 4 MAY 2007.....The re-arranging of the attick is not going very well, I am only half-way! Due to the building-company (it is a rental-house) who decided to replace the heating for a new one and placing a central air-filtration. But the bright side is: I can save on heating, so I have a little more money to spend. (yeah, I wish) About the layouts or rather layout, I have been messing to much with them so I have to straithen them out first. Also I have come up with the idea to make them again with the computer. What I also did was become a subscriber to the Model Railroader, which has online lots of info I decided also to use Peco code 55 track which is with it's track height more proto-typical. And I did buy some more on Ebay, on the page Rollin' stock you can see the pictures I took of it. But after a few buys I found out that there are more types of couplers in the US then there are here in Holland. Here there is mainly one coupler in N-scale, the Rapido-coupler, in the US however they have more than one coupler, one of those is the knuckle coupler and I find these couplers looking alot better then those rapido-ones So I had to get some replacements couplers and install them. |
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Within the knuckle-couplers there is still some variation, but I am not going to find out. When you are looking for freight-cars with the right couplers I found out that there are only a few brands to keep your eye on. mainly "Atlas, Athearn and Micro trains" are the brands to watch, certainly the last one is outstanding. (I had never seen freight-cars with opening doors in N-scale!!) .....UPDATE 21 NOVEMBER 2007.....I have started construction of my railroad, finally! So far I have built two sections (there will be six finally), I am building in sections because if I am going to move out I need to get it of the attick. and there isn't that much space to get a full model-railroad through. Here are some pictures: |
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| yes I know it looks messy. | ||
.....MAKING TREES.....I once read on the internet that with all sorts of material from your garden you can make trees for your RailRoad. So everyday when I walked throu the garden, I was looking for dead branches or whatever I could use. It was December when I saw in the garden of my neighbour an Hortensia that had bloomed months ago. It had a nice pine shaped flower which was dead offcourse and was easy to harvest. So I asked the neighbour if I could cut them off. (no problem offcourse :-) After I had cut them off I let them dry for a few days on the central-heating. Then I trimmed and shaped them a bit to my liking. It is very easy to do this, so anybody can do it. |
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| Here a picture straight from the plant. | Here I trimmed it a bit. | |
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I put fine-Leaf foliage by Busch (can be any brand) in a small empty bucket The foliage by Busch is available in four different colors and costs nomore than 2,50 euro per package. Then I stuck a "tree" in a peace of foam, and applied some white gleu (scenic cement) I used the "tree" with the foam as a lid for the bucket and started shaking and presto, a tree was born And if you keep this up for a while you end up with a whole forrest. |
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.....UPDATE 15 MARCH 2008.....I have been busy for a few months on the first section and the first half of the second section. I will tell you how I did this and try to place some pictures with the story. - When I have the time I will explain how I built the train-table, but for now you have to do with the pictures above. - I glued two peaces of wood together to form the base for the track, then I screwed that in place and there is a slight elevation in the track. After the glue had dried I glued the trackbed in place, I use an EPDM foam which I bought at work. - I didn't nail the track down but I glued it with acrylic caulk. (read it on a US-forum) I divided the caulk evenly over the foam as wide as the track, 10 to 15mm is enough, Then I pushed the flex-track in the caulk and let it dry for a day. - I used fine mesh to create the landscape and shaped it to the form I desired. - rock formations I casted and colored with the help of Woodland Scenics material. (look at the Links page) - To cover the mesh I used something different, I used (papydur) instead of plaster, It is a kind of paper mess. The result is just as hard but less fragiel and much lighter than plaster.(paper has fibers) - After it had dried (thats the only down-side it takes 1 or 2 days to dry) I colored it with woodland earth colors. - I also used something different to make earth or sand, I will explain. A few years back I was ripping out the rug upstairs and found a layer of fine dust underneath, This was probable from the backside of the rug which was gone to dust. (it was an old rug from the former occupants) And because I am collecting a lot of weird things that I come across for my railroad I put this also aside. So now it comes in handy :-) - Then I went further with the scenery, grass, turf and little rocks. - Time to ballast, (Ballast is the rock used to hold real railroad ties in place) I will explain how to do this lateron. - I also painted and weathered the track with powders. - After I did all of that I started planting trees, drill a hole, stick a tree in it and glue it to the landscape also bushes and other scenery, the telephone-poles are coming soon. - This is about how it went down with some minor changes in the order every now and then. And in the meantime I am learning all sort of new things. - Underneath you find some pictures of the result and I am pleased with the result. |
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