Hi Guys, thought I had better start this thread as I am new to the site and coming back into railway modeling after a long absence.
Intro
Basically this is what I have in mind. A Modular Continental style HOe Rack Railway with an end to end operation, running up a mountain side with a terminus station at both ends, a small town station at the bottom and a summit station at the top, in between space permitting will be passing loops with water stops(thats for the locos on the way up and not the passingers LOL) and hopefully a half way station with a passing loop too.
Ideas
These came from seeing picture of various alpine railways in the net and of course The Snowdon Mountain Railway in North Wales.
Dreams meet reality.
Fist off all space or the lack of it, I think the answer will be to build a bookcase baseboard and have the track climb from shelf to shelf, the whole thing will need to be made out of plywood and be modular for transportation. to make it interesting the landscape will change with altitude, town and meadows on the lower levels , tree line , grass & rocks , then the snow line begins with the summit station at the top etc
Rolling stock
Well guess what, nobody and I mean nobody seems to do what I want !!!!!
So I will have to come to a compromise here, the rack rail stays!!!! It looks like I will be using Flieshman N gauge Rack track, as their the only ones making it.
Locos
By far my biggest headache, this is where my modeling licence come to play, So OK I cant have a 0-4--2T Rack Steam Loco as seen on the BRB, so next best option , well after looking my favorite is Roco's 0-6-8 Private narrow gauge Loco. Ok its not racked and its valve gear is all wrong for mountain work, but it will have to do for now. I might raise the body up at the rear to give the right impression
and at least it has nice valve gear on it,
I cant seem to post a pic of it on here
Carriages
After looking at whats running for real and whats available for us modellers I think its going to be some sort of open ended carriage, it need to have plenty of windows, Bemo do some nice stuff in HOm but of course it looks like I am going to have to go for older coaching stock, either use fleishman , Roco, or Bemo, I haven't made my mind up yet.
Track
This will ascend the mountain side and use a series of tight S bends , the curves will be level and the inclines will be on the straight lengths, with a few minor twists etc to make it interesting.
I think the if I get it right each climbing section should be inter chageable , even if it means having the curves in separate bookcase ends that slot into the middle sections like this I-I
The scenery buildings etc will be straight forward and I will cross that bridge later when I have to,
This is just an Idea at the moment, but I will probably start getting the plywood, and some track soon,
The Roco Loco will have to wait until next month as its not cheap, they never are! LOL
as for power and control, I'm not sure what to do, I want to keep things simple , but do I need DCC on this layout, I would like to eventually run several locos up and down it , but I think it might be nicer just to use insulfrog points and isolate sections
Well guys what do you think?
any ideas suggestions?
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