Mostlytechnic's Basement Train Layout

[mostlytechnic]

basement by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

So, here's the current plans for our basement layout. I've got the shelves set up that are being the "legs" of the table. This weekend I hope to build the surface and start laying track...

The buildings and road on the left probably won't be at all like that. I think the road plates are just too big for the space available, so I'll probably go with a tiled or brick built road much smaller. Actually, at first it'll be construction paper till we settle on a layout :)

The blue area will be several inches lower than the rest of the table. I plan to make stone/concrete looking bridge supports for the track over the water to keep it level. The height change itself will have a brick-built cliff face and possibly a dock or something.

I originally was going to have the water area be 4x4', but that made the back corner too hard to reach. With this smaller water, I can just about reach the back corner without needing a stool or anything. I'll definitely put end of line buffers on those two sidings around the chemical plant to help reduce the need to reach back to the corner :)

Here's what I envision going in as far as buildings and scenery...

The back right corner will be a MOC Chemical plant. With a disaster going on of course... I've started gathering some trans neon green parts to have a terrible leak of some sort, and I've got several security guards (from the Super Heroes Two-Face Escape) and Haz-Mat guys to go in that scene.

Eventually in the back left I want to make a tunnel through a hill, and put windmills on top of the hill. I've already got one windmill motorized, and it has outputs to drive two more off the one motor. That'll look sweet :)

I've got FB and GE to go in here somewhere, plus tons of parts to moc up some other buildings. We'll just see how it grows...

Trains: I have EN, Maersk, a couple of the yellow cargo train, assorted cars (both original and MOC), and have a bunch of the 3180 Octan tanker truck that I'll turn into a string of tanker cars to have at the chemical plant.

Any thoughts / ideas / suggestions? Any way you'd lay it out differently?

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Great layout!

[GHDpro]

  On 3/23/2012 at 12:24 PM, mostlytechnic said:

Any thoughts / ideas / suggestions? Any way you'd lay it out differently?

I think some of the switches for the points may be to close to the track and trains (such as Emerald Knight) may hit them. You might want to test that if possible.

Otherwise nice layout.

[mostlytechnic]

  On 3/24/2012 at 1:33 PM, GHDpro said:

I think some of the switches for the points may be to close to the track and trains (such as Emerald Knight) may hit them. You might want to test that if possible.

Otherwise nice layout.

Thanks, hadn't thought about that. Nothing's going to be stuck down for quite a while, so if there is any problem, I'll just redesign that area a bit (add some flex sections as needed to space the points out probably...)

[mostlytechnic]

Finally got some wood cut over the weekend. Here's the current status:

Just the shelving by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

Yes, the basement is a disaster. Wife has a photo studio down there and it hasn't been cleaned in a while, so there's props piled everywhere. The shelving units I'm using are perfect - 3 feet high, 2x4 feet in size. Lots of space for storing Lego.

The first table section by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

The first section of the table is done. It's 4x8, and yes, it's built way overkill. That's 2x8 boards for the sides, and there's a crossbeam down the center to support the plywood too. You can walk on this thing. But it's the height I wanted and I don't have to worry about anything sagging, that's for sure!

Grass! by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

I added the other 4x4 unit in the corner and planted grass. I'm loving the cheap fake grass - a 4x12 piece was like $20 at the hardware store. Can't beat that! There's supposed to be another section coming forward (on the shelf toward the camera, where the car wash and space center are currently sitting). However, I was a moron and cut the boards wrong. And since I was assembling this at 10pm, I doubt the kids or neighbors want the power tools coming back out. So hopefully tonight I can correct that and get the table done.

Track laid by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

I HAD to go ahead and lay out the track, right? I modified it a bit since the "water" section isn't there, but otherwise, it's close to done. Seems pretty good. Now just gotta deal with a few points that are sticking. And didn't someone make a mod to the crossover track so that you can set it to run in parallel? I need that!

The track layout (for now) by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

A better view of the track. Still some more to lay, but I needed to get to bed.

Same Video on Flickr of trains

Of course, the mandatory video. Due to the late hour, I forgot to turn more lights on so it's pretty crappy quality. I'll shoot something better later. But current trains are:

1. Emerald night, that's running really bad. Very jerky. That's fresh batteries, so not sure why. It has sat on a shelf for a few months though. I'll mess with it when I have time. But it's pulling an assortment of cars - the standard EN passenger car, a moc based on the Toy Story train, then a couple official TS train cars, then a couple more mocs using up spare parts from the TS train set (doesn't every passenger train need a car full of dynamite?), and finally the TS caboose and a moc double-size TS caboose.

2. Now the freight flies by. Maersk loco in the front, followed by the 7939 yellow loco with double motors. These are pulling the two stock Maersk cars, a bunch of stock 7939 cars, a larger Octan car based on the 3180 tanker truck, a crappy version of the TTX container cars holding the yellow containers from 7939 (seriously, don't even look at these cars. They're made of random part, just trying some things out, and I tossed them on the tracks to see how they'd run), and at the end, another 7939 yellow loco. Without that, the train kept separating various places. With it, it only tried to separate after one of the Maersk cars, which I think has a bad magnet in the coupler, since I've ALWAYS had things separate there. A 1x2 tile fixes that though.

So there you have it, how I spent my Sunday evening :) Now I need to fix the boards so I can add the water section and start building the bridge over the water. I suspect it might be a while before that's fully operational.

Edited March 26, 2012 by mostlytechnic

[mostlytechnic]

I was able to get the last section of the table built last night, but no photos yet. Gotta pick up more blue baseplates today! I thought I had more than I do.

[funkdis]

Wondering how this layout is going, particularly the water/cliff side of things.