[Federico]

With the Tomix cleaning car. It works very well

 

[DanielC]

With the Tomix cleaning car. It works very well

Is that a self propel car? I have to use 2 locomotives to pull a Roco track cleaning car.

 

[BigEd]

Nope, you to pull it. I have an Atlas one that was made by Tomix. Love these!

 

[MARKW61]

With the Tomix cleaning car. It works very well

I was looking at getting one of those you just convinced me to buy it! 👍🏻

 

[Federico]

This is the cleaning car I have. It is a complete kit with a wheel cleaning track, special alcohol, and many accessories. You can use it as a vacuum or to clean the tracks. I have seen it in several colors. I also saw one branded as Atlas; it was precisely the same. The only issue I see is that it is DC. I know it can be converted to DCC, but I haven't done it. I just changed my tracks from DCC to DC when I needed it over a DCC track.

 

[Burbank Rob]

Hi

I am new to the group, just want to share a video of my N scale layout, I use only Kato Unitrack and the majority of my trains are Kato, with a few Atlas and Tomix.

A video is here

Comments and suggestions are welcome

I'm impressed. That spiral is so cool!

 

[Federico]

Back to the new layout. Progress continues in the South section. It is interesting to play with the difference in the height of the three sub-levels and between the height of the foam and the plywood base of 3 mm.
I had to plan the bridges of the 3rd and 4th levels to decide where I could use foam and where I should use plywood to be able to anchor the bridges. I will include the design of the bridges in my next post.

 

[Federico]

This is my design for the two long bridges of the layout. The first one will be a Cable-Stayed bridge with three columns. I have built a few of these in previous layouts and know how to do it well. The track will be 20 cm high.
The other one will be a suspension bridge with a track height of 30 cm. I have wanted to build one of these for a long time, but I have never done it. My main doubt is how to connect the vertical cables from the main cable to the track’s board. I am sure I will figure it out.

 

[Federico]

Progress continues on the layout. In the meantime, I acquired Kato’s Union Pacific Big Boy with the excursion train. You can watch the video of this great train running with my other steam loco train, the Southern Pacific Daylight Express.
These are the only steam locos I have; I like this and will probably start building a collection of steam locos for my layout.
These locos are very delicate; therefore, before running these on my layout, I installed a 4 cm transparent barrier to avoid any accidents with the locos and cars. Several times, I have had locos going to the floor. When this happened, I spent too much time putting the locos back together, and if a piece was broken, finding the replacement on the internet or directly from Kato USA was difficult. I want to avoid this; therefore, I will only run these locos when the layout protection is 100% ready.

 

[Federico]

Although I need to create the different levels for the South section, I wanted to test the configuration for the third yard and ensure the parking length is enough for some of the trains I plan to park on this part of the layout.
Initially, I planned to have six parking spaces, but I could only fit five in the test. I think this is okay; I prefer to ensure the length is enough for trains with five or six long passenger cars. I also needed to test the configuration to decide the angle of the cut I needed to do on the foam for the different levels; each yard will be on its level, and the height difference will be 1.5 inches.

 

[DanielC]

It is hard to park passenger trains. My longest siding is also only 5 cars. The sixth car will block other routes. Many Kato sets are 8 cars.

But modeling freight trains are even longer. My longest route is about 1 scale mile. Longest freight trains can be 40-60 cars.

 

[Federico]

The progress on the layout continues with the creation of the different levels for the South section. It is a slow process, as I have to measure everything two or three times before cutting the wood pieces I need and putting them in the right place.
I am not in a hurry, and I prefer to enjoy the building process; I really enjoy the woodwork part of the layout.

 

[Federico]

More progress in the South part of the layout. The three levels are done, and the difference in heights looks fine. I will use Woodland Scenics raisers to get from one level to the others.
The mix between plywood and foam also looks interesting.
I am happy with the progress, some times I get worried I will finish too fast, I enjoy this part of the layout process.

 

[Federico]

I haven't posted for a while; I have been busy with work, traveling, and family responsibilities. However, I have made progress in the last few weeks.
I continued to create the different levels of the South and West sections, and I reached the last corner of the layout.
I am using the flexibility of Kato tracks. I have built and rebuilt the track several times. This is what I really like about Kato tracks: You can test everything and even run test trains before you make the final decisions for your layout.

 

[GGNinNScale]

View attachment 641291

This is the cleaning car I have. It is a complete kit with a wheel cleaning track, special alcohol, and many accessories. You can use it as a vacuum or to clean the tracks. I have seen it in several colors. I also saw one branded as Atlas; it was precisely the same. The only issue I see is that it is DC. I know it can be converted to DCC, but I haven't done it. I just changed my tracks from DCC to DC when I needed it over a DCC track.

There are several threads here, and on other sites, that discuss adding a decoder to the TOMIX cleaning car. I use a CMX cleaning car pushed by one or two diesels depending on the grades.

 

[Federico]

There is more progress to report.
I found the Tomix double bridge. I had searched for it for more than two years in one of the weirdest but nicest model train stores I have been to. It is called Red Caboose, the only train store in Manhattan. I always go there when I have a business trip to New York.
The owner's first impression is that he is a bit grumpy, but when you start talking with him, you realize that he knows a lot about model trains and is a nice person. He has many old trains and hard-to-find items; however, you must spend a good time in the store to find them. The store has so many things that you don’t see these items on your first look.
I have been looking for this bridge because it is more than double the length of the Kato trains.
I designed the corner of the layout for this bridge. It allows me to remove the train and enter if I need to get to the corner of the layout, and it also looks very good.
I am thinking of building a river or lake around the bridge, so it makes more sense to have it in this location on the layout.

 

[Federico]

This is a good time to post a general picture of how the model train layout is going. The main woodwork is almost done. The West section has good progress, with some parts already painted and trains running. I am working on the different heights of the South section, and the East section still needs a lot of work to do.
This progress is after 3 or 4 months of starting the layout; I am thrilled and proud of trying things I have never done in previous layouts.

 

[Federico]

Although it's not precisely train-related, I needed two additional things for my train room: a good chair with wheels to sit on while I work on and operate the layout and an organizer for all the spare track and other model train-related things. I also wanted this one with wheels so I could move it easily depending on the part of the layout I needed to work on.
I spent too much time researching options on the internet before finally selecting the options you see in the pictures. The time was well spent, and the chair and the organizer worked perfectly for my layout.

 

[Federico]

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been working on the layout. I will share a few videos in the next few days with my updates. This is the first video from a few months ago, when I had almost completed the West, South, and East sections of the layout and had trains already running. One thing I don't have right now is a name for my layout. I see people here always have a title for their layouts, but because I am not modeling any place, I don't know what to use. I am from Colombia, and I live in Houston. I have trains for any part of the world. I am thinking of something along the lines of Houston International Rail or something similar. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[Federico]

I should have posted this video before the previous one. In this one, you can see the construction process of the layout much better.