(See the April 8th blog entry for the beginning of this project.)
This project was dedicated to the mentors from my early model railroading days: Ed Evans and Wayne Zeigler. My first 8’x12’ HO layout was built using lumber from Mr. Zeigler’s old house fence.
Ed Evans was my Westville Methodist Church Sunday School teacher. His lessons and guidance ranged far beyond model railroading. He did made the mistake of bringing an old Athearn rubber-band powered, 5 stripe, Pennsy RR diesel to Sunday School class one day whereupon he was hounded (mostly by me) to start a model railroad club in the Church basement. He would also take us on tours to visit other model railroads in the area and launched us (or at least me) into the wonderful world of model railroading. (That was the beginning of the HO Gateway Model Railroad Club which still exists today in Brooklawn, NJ.)
So, paying it forward, to these 2 gentlemen this display layout is dedicated.
I should copyright this track plan since I’ve been using variations of it for 50 years since I first sketched it out on 6,000 mostly discarded sheets of paper. A 4’x8’ version of it was featured in the Sept/Oct 2012 issue of N Scale Magazine (tongue in cheek: “The “Perfect” 4’x8’ Trackplan”). It was also used in the layouts I built for each of my adult children’s Christmas layouts. (They used Atlas Snap & Flex track and fit on 27”x48” frames.)
Since I had a pile of unused Bachmann E-Z track laying around I decided to use it for the E-Z RR display. I could only squeeze it onto a 32x60 frame. I used 1x2 wood and 7/16 plywood to cut down the weight and removed unneeded portions in the cookie-cutter approach. Glued cardboard strips supported shopping bags and Hydrocal soaked paper towels formed the hills. Woodland Scenics materials and evemodel_usa fir trees added the finishing touches.
It is wired to run 2 DC trains in opposite directions on the 2 independent track segments using a single DC power pack. I imagine you could squeeze in a short 3rd train with DCC attention.
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| Ed Evans on a Sunday School "Field Trip" in 1959 |
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| The center mild edge curve was left out |
