The layout has slowly expanded into four areas in its 4th home. I run a double track mainline that has a lower and upper level, plus a short middle section, for a total length of some 300 feet. A full lower and upper loop run takes about 7 minutes. The main room is 12.5 x 28. From there it goes through a wall on one end of the room to an area about 5'x5' at the bottom of the stairs, perfect for a harbor scene. Going through the wall on the other side of the harbor brings you to one of two helixes. The north 6'x6' helix hosts a ski slope. At the other end of the main room the layout also goes through the wall to access a staging yard, a coal mine, and a second helix (8'x4') which hosts a limestone quarry that I just began building last summer.
This year I have added a new table that offers visitors a chance to try their switching skills on either the Inglenook Switching Puzzle, or John Allen’s Time Saver Switching Puzzle. In as few moves as possible, the yard switcher has to collect 5 of 8 specific freight cars in a specific order. The random initial arrangement offers thousands of variations to enjoy!
Scale / Gauge
HO
Size of Layout
24x28
Prototype
Boston & Maine
Location Modeled
Eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and Maine
Era
mid-1950's
Style of Track Plan
Linear along the basement walls
Length of Main Line
300'
Layout Height
Lower 37, Mid 42, Upper 53"
Benchwork
L girder
Roadbed Material
Cork
Track Manufacturer
Walthers
Turnouts
Atlas
Minimum Main Line Radius
18"
Maximum Grade
3 %
Scenery Techniques
1/2" pink Styrofoam on top of 1/2" plywood; Hydrocal impregnated gauze over cardboard grid. Ground cover NE dirt, ground foam, weeds, shrubs, etc.
% Scenery Complete
80 %
Backdrop
painted walls progressively darker blue sky with clouds
Control System
DCC - Digitrax
Car Forwarding System
Car Cards
Operating Group
Intown group
Direction Comment
Enter through the garage, left through laundry room, downstairs into basement.
