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My N scale adventure begins

26K views 404 replies 27 participants last post by  afboundguy 
#1 ·
Many of you have seen my thread "considering N scale". Well the adventure begins! Our location gives me 30" wide and 30' long with a tunnel through the wall into an adjacent room. The other room is just enough room to turn the train around in.

This will also be "kid friendly" and my 7yo seems to be calling the shots! We aren't going for a specific location or railway. Right now we just have a JNR Hayabusa bullet train and are strongly considering a fantasy, jurassic park style location with typical forest, a caretakers village and maybe a "tourist town".

...yep... dinosaurs. Many here might look down on this idea, but it's our railroad..
So, our rules. And it keeps the kids interested, fosters imagination and interest in the sciences. And it's fun!

All that said, we have a good collection of kato unitrack and have laid down a foamboard foundation. I need to finalize the track plan and start on the topography.



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#37 ·
Thanks for ask the bridge ideas. I've got a flat trailer on the way to experiment with ($5 eBay find).

In the meantime, InGen had contacted with Conrail for shipping logistics. While InGen will maintain its own small fleet for on island use, Conrail will provide freight logistics to and from the island.

The main reasoning here in the real, is that it's much cheaper to use these Conrail trailers that come with the piggybacks than it is to buy the piggyback and undecorated trailer separately. I have 2 -9s that are undecorated and will get jurassic park livery, they may get a Conrail logo as well. I'd live to find a pair or trio of matching modern diesels to handle the freight to and from island as well.

More to follow as I get more done hopefully this week. I've gotten started on securing the track down to the foam and the inclines sorted. Door shims and stops of corroplast make the transition from the higher levels. Contractor door shims are an almost perfect 2% grade or 1.25deg.


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#38 ·
My 3d printed jeeps turned out to be a bit small. These are closer to 180 scale at a smudge over .75". I was hoping to have a fleet of these being delivered on an open autorack, but they are just too small I think. Paint turned out ok...ish. maybe some liquid tape to help sharpen the lines. The surface is a bit rough though, so it's going to be a challenge. Thoughts?


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#39 ·
Hah a few hours today to play with the layout, so I finally got the rest (more or less) of the sculptamold down. Turned out fairly well I think, well see when I get the rest of the landscaping down. The edges of the lake will get gravel along with the "shelf" at the edge of the river. It's not perfect, but I think it will turn out well. You can see the shim stock I used for the grade. That actually worked pretty well and has a nice smooth transition to the different levels.

On the sculptamold, HOT water and a paint blade on the drill worked to keep it fairly smooth.

I've only got about a week left before I head out of country for a few months, I'd love to get grass and water in before then, but I still need to do the road first. Primary goal is getting the track hooked back up so my son can play with it while I'm gone, and I have some cars to do coupler conversions so he can use them.



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#41 ·
Slow progress... honey do list keeps getting in the way! I'm just about ready to put in the gravel road, built the approaches and smoothed it aside bumpy areas with drywall hole filler, goes on nice and smooth and takes paint well.

I got this guy painted in prep for the lake. He needs to go in before water is poured. This is my first real paint work with the airbrush. I'm getting the hang of it.. could be better. Olive green base with iridescent silver mixed with blue-green for the back. Good old testers for the white and black details using a toothpick. Inside the mouth was a mix of red and black that actually looks a bit like rust red, but I think it works. All colors except black and white are Vallejo.

The first custom loco is about done as well, just need decals.



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#42 ·
First loco is painted and logo'd. I wanted to add more detail, numbers, conrail, etc, but I think the decals I have may be too old. I can't get them to transfer. They will eventually fall apart, but will not slide off the backing. Tried using water and micro-set. They are old leftover HO scale sheets I got from ebay or here, I don't recall. So I'm going to need new decals.



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#50 ·
Found some clear acrylic spheres to make the little gyrospheres. I'll need to fashion a seat of some kind, but it should work.




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#51 ·
Been a while, so I guess it's time for an update. Honestly hasn't gotten a lot done other than cleaning up some track work and getting things running smoothly. My foam had an odd warping issue that was giving me fits. some extra glue and heavy books seem to have fixed it. And a few spots of track that had too much glue and didn't settle flat.

I got the 24 car consist to run reliably around the loop a good dozen or so times (1:30 for a full loop at max throttle, closer to 2:30 at more realistic speeds... although it's not super fast at full throttle). That's using only 2 locos to get up the grade. And I believe I can back down the weight on some of the autoracks (those NEED weight added to track reliably, total weight of around 1.75oz seems to do it). You can still see the painted loco lights flickering, that's the one with fog snot. I need to remove that and maybe try the lead or trailing axle instead of the center one.

Hopeful I'll be ready to move on to scenery next. I tried a bit of static grass and it didn't seem to work too well. This is with a cheap Amazon battery powered applicator... so that may be the issue?
Tapatalk Cloud - Downlaoad File 20211118_162054~4.mp4

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#53 ·
The trackwork is good and the double header consist runs reliably with 25 cars, a good share of them autoracks. I've run it up to about 30 minutes non stop with no issues on multiple occasions (havn't had a chance to go much longer than that) But I've found putting a helper at the tail causes issues with occasional derailments. I get the same problem when trying to back into a siding. Is this just something I'll have to live with? Or is there a way to get better performance when pushing? The trouble spots tend to be backing through the turnouts into a siding and at the bottom of a hill. With the hill it will generally derail when the last third is starting to exit the slope. My guess, the engines up front are starting to lose momentum and slow, but the rear engine is still on the slope and pushing faster. There is a turn not to far after the grade so the derailment tends to happen there. It navigates perfectly will all the power up front (1, 2 or 3 locos).

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#54 ·
Hi! I just wanted to say I happened by this forum and thread by accident Googling scale scenery for a layout I'm trying to start, and wanted to say I love your ideas! I too am going to attempt a Jurassic Park and industries as well! Not quite as large as your project, but I'm certainly going to be taking some inspirations from yours, especially the 1/144 scale dinos you found!

How has your layout progressed?
 
#55 ·
Glad you find it useful! I hadn't updated this thread in a while, but there has not been a ton of progress. I'm stalling on doing grass because I've never done it before and don't want to screw it up! Am well that and life.

I've been testing with gravel roads and painting dinos and structures.

The big guy is close, but not done yet. I plan to do a wash and then some dry brushing. Also need to do a transparent skin tone to bring out the under belly.

I've also started some war gaming structures that will work as observation outposts. These will monitor the railroad as well as serve as a science station to monitor dinos on the more wild side of the island, which is what I'm depicting.


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#59 ·
Are you going to do static grass, or regular old grass? And are you HO or N (I can't remember)?

I found that lawn grass in N scale isn't really worth doing static grass unless you want field length grass. The smallest static grass I've found is 2mm. That's a little over 1 foot scale length. I find it sits too high for my liking. I think for HO scale, the 2MM static grass would be about 7 inches at scale, which is much better for lawn length. For N scale, I really prefer the old standby "mixed Green fine turf" from Woodland Scenic. I add in some "Earth color" turf for areas with crappy grass, and use the green blend by itself for nicer grassy areas.

I do use the 2mm and some 4mm static grass for fields... Like I said, 2mm static grass is a foot tall in N scale.
 
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