Sunday, March 24, 2013

Finally getting some track laid.....

 This is the "end of the line" at Troy, Me.  There will be a turntable here and a two stall stone engine house.  The Sheepscot railway will head both north to Kingsmill and south to the docks located at Sheepscot.
 You can see here that I'm playing around with different track locations to find a good mix of necessary trackwork for prototype operation as well as enough room for structures and some scenic elements that will help define Troy as a junction point on the railway, similar to the town of Strong on the SR&RL.
 Forney #5 sits on on the two stalls at the stone enginehouse.  You can see below that I'm  using hollow core doors as the base of the railroad support structure. There is a sheet of 1/2" black house sheathing on top of the door.  The Micro Engineering flextrack I'm using will be installed on N scale cork roadbed to raise it up just a bit above grade.
It's been a couple of months since my last post.  Now that the holidays are over and my remodeling has slowed down a bit I've found some time to work on my Sheepscot Railway.  I'm following a plan by noted English modeler Iain Rice. Iain has a great way of capturing the look and flavor of the railroads he researches and then models. In his Sheepscot plan he captures two very interesting and photogenic Maine 2' railroad yards. His plan does a nice job of replicating the yard and junction at Strong, Me. on the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes RR. and also the lower yard on the Waterville, Wisscasset and Farmington Railway at Wiscasset. Combining these two very busy places on their respective roads allows me to model some of the best the Maine 2' railroads have to offer modelers like myself. Strong Me. was a very busy place where the line from Kingfield joined the SR&RL mainline. Trains moved up and down the Kingfield line several times a day, that and the regular Sandy River traffic offers a lot of prototype operation here.  The lower yard at Wiscassett on the WW&F was a very photographic place to view the little narrow gauge line that ended it's line on a series of docks stretching out and onto the Sheepscot river.  This is the spot where coastal schooners would tie up and load lumber cut at sawmills on the Wiscassett line. There was also a creamery located on the docks that would receive insulated boxcars carrying milk from the farms up along the line. Wiscassett offers me the ability to model a large dock area with different structures built up on the wharfs and a place to build a model of one of the coastal sailing ships that regularly tied up at Wiscasset.

I took some photos of the track I've laid this week in the yard at Strong.  On my line, I'm going to model the yard at Strong but vary it slightly and rename it as Troy, Me. another small Maine town my brother lives in.  I think the name Troy will serve nicely as a stand in for the Strong yard.  I'm doing this because I'm not really modeling the Sandy River RR or the WW&F per say, but rather modeling my own little Maine railway that "could have been".  Changing the names of towns like Strong to Troy keeps the "flavor" but gives me the modeling license I need to build my rr the way I want to.

Saturday, December 22, 2012





Dec. 22  I wonder how many folks are commenting about the Mayan "end of the world" scenario! Well, I'm glad I'm still able to hang out here on earth for a couple of more years! ;^)




Started moving stuff around in the train room.  I'm going to need a ton of small shelving units to slide under the layout to hold all the "stuff" that doesn't end up "on top" of the layout.

The sloping ceilings really cut into the space I have available and I'm wondering if I should build the layout at a lower height (chairs with rollers height vs standing height). This would significantly expand the available floor space but might be a bit to goofy for visitors who would be looking at a lot of rooftops instead of straight on at the models.

More research is needed.......(finally figured out how to post a photo! yeah)


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Well the house remodel is progressing well.....only a major room to complete now.  The den will need a new raised floor and a complete sheet rock job, walls and ceiling. The good news I've had time to spent in the ROG (room over garage) and have been cleaning it out of the stuff the last owner left behind. I've measured it up and even with the sloping ceiling I will have about 20'x18' to build my next layout.

I've decided on modeling the Maine 2' lines, but will use 30" gauge track so I can use the large amount of On30 equipments I've been accumulating over the last 10 years.  I really like the Sheepscot plan that Iian Rice published several years ago. It features layout design elements similar to trackage found at Wiscassett, Me and also a nice rendering of one of the smaller SR&RL yards. The plan is for a 15'x10' space, so I will have no problem fitting it in.

I will see if I can post a copy of Iian's plan, but you can simply google Iian Rice Sheepscot On30 trackplan and it should come up.

If I go with this plan I will have some extra space in the center of the room for two additional switching areas that will each be 2'x15' or so. That will allow me to model other areas of the Maine narrow gauge scene that will add a ton more operation to the Sheepscot line.  Perhaps a logging area similar to the SR&RL's line to Kingston and possibly a bit of the slate mines up in Monson.  I don't mind mixing the prototype roads because each of the little Maine rr's had very interesting rolling stock and served different industries.

I'm excited to be able to get started on my new railway.......hopefully I can begin by getting my workshop up and running in the next week or so.


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Let's get this party started.....

October, 2012

I'm in an interesting period of my life.  I've sold my last home and I'm remodeling my new home.
The remodel is taking a lot more time than I had thought it would and consequently has put me in a position where I have little time for modeling the "little" railways I enjoy so much.

I'm keeping up on my reading and pulling out some of my Maine 2' books to see if my interest will take me there.

I'm excited about what the future holds for me.......the new home comes complete with a detached two car garage with a large finished room above the bays. Plenty of space for a new layout of decent size when I get the house finished.  Just don't know when I'll have the time to begin the new layout.