Two new layouts

  I have a little something new for this post, but we will get to that with the second layout.  First, I returned to the basic cloverleaf for this one, but attempted to add a few twists to the idea.

The idea here was to create the cloverleaf and have the track split to go over and under the cross track.  Simply enough.  The twist was going to be creating a cross over through the middle of the cloverleaf involving the ground level paths.  Unfortunately the bridge supports made that an impossibility.  I may have to revisit this idea and put the elevated path outside the ground level, thus removing the bridge supports as an obstacle to my design.  Anyway, with the middle crossover not working, it was time to head in a different direction.

So if crossing the tracks in the middle didn't work, then I would have to create reversing routes along the outside part of the cloverleaf.  The first route was pretty easy.  The second route took a lot more planning.

When I do create these layouts, they tend to dominate the living room and inevitably disaster is bound to strike.  This particular disaster (the wife tornado) only caused minor damage.

 Oh well, easily repaired.  And on the the next layout and something not seen in previous layouts...


...SCENERY.  Yes, that's right layouts now have scenery.  First we have:

The White House - LEGO Architecture edition.  I have always loved LEGO's and so being able to add LEGO structures to the layout makes everything even more enjoyable.  The White House is not the only LEGO Architecture piece to join the party.  I also added the Willis (Sears) Tower

Since it is in Chicago, it had to go next to the elevated section of this layout.  This layout is based on placing two sets of splits at right angles to each other and then running the tracks over and around each other to bring them back.

A good view of the splits that started this design

So that's it for now but there is more coming soon.  Look for a post about how to nicely place all these pieces into a box for easy storage.

Conductor Crim

Friends with Trains

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to visit some friends from college for the weekend.  They had a three year old son who loves trains.  So Saturday morning we took some time to play with trains.  The design wasn't the biggest deal.  It was more fun to run our trains around the track and occasionally crash into each other and have a nice wreck.

Kyper busily driving his train around our layout

Looking rather pleased with the layout

The suspension bridge over two tracks

The long straightaway coming out of the crossover.

Some small creativity, stacking on engine on top of the other.

As you can see, we had fun with the trains that morning.  Look for more creative designs from my own collection coming soon and a short bit on how to pack all this stuff up nice and neat.

THE BIG LAYOUT

I know I have been talking about it for awhile now and here it is - the Big layout with every piece that I currently own used in the design.  It was quite a challenge so I thought that I would photo document the process so that you can see how the layout evolved and how I got to the final creation.  To start, I used the figure 8 with oval:

I decided to use the intersection here instead of a bridge through the middle so that I could use the bridges for other uses like going over the figure 8:

As I was thinking through the layout, I was debating between creating largely independent layouts on either side of the figure 8 and connecting them with a single lane or making it one fully integrated layout.  Eventually I decided to go with the fully integrated layout.  Now it was a matter  of figuring out where to go with that idea.  Originally I thought about two bridges running parallel to the current bridge, but that presented a few too many issues so I switched to a longer bridge running perpendicular to the current bridge.  The short bridge actually goes up two levels and the long bridge actually goes over the curves, back down and the up over the middle and under the short bridge:

I spent a lot of time deciding which way to take the curve on the right end of the bridge and eventually settled on the right turn instead of the left curve as shown above.  The next step was connecting  one end of the short bridge to one end of the long bridge.  I decided to work on the left side of the layout and originally went with a loop that splits, crosses itself and then came back together:

This eventually changed, but more on that later.  The next development was a bridge crossing over the oval and the long bridge (hence the reason I didn't leave it up across the entire length):

Originally I simply connected the right side of this bridge to the long bridge at the top of the above photo.  This left me with two simply loops on that side of the figure 8 and so I decided that I could one of my splits and switch it so that the loops actually interact with each other:

Much more interesting, don't you think.  At this point, it was time to move to the other side of the figure 8 and work that side.  I still had a pair of splits left and several bridges so there was some serious creativity required.  The first part was a track that looped over itself:

At this point, my creativity started to suffer as I had a huge amount of curves left and very few straight pieces, not to mention that last set of splits.  Eventually I did manage to make it work:

I still had a few ideas with the split and bridges going across other tracks.  Throw in a few chicanes to eat up some curves and we had a complete layout.  Due to the size, it was hard to capture the entire track in one photo, but here it is:

So there it is in all of it's large massive glory - what do you think?  Leave your comments below.

The new track set

I have finally had some time to play with the new track set and it adds a lot to what I can do with my layouts.  Originally I could simply do a basic figure 8 with a bridge going across the middle (or a basic oval):

Now I can do a figure 8 with an oval and I have an intersection in the middle instead of a bridge over the track:

Not much different, but the straight-curve split makes some things easier that the v-split could not handle as well.  The other addition is the ability to reverse the train directions with 2 MM and 2 FF pieces:

You can clearly see the FF piece up at the top that allows this loop that can reverse a train on the main track.  I have not yet used it in design, but rest assured that I will.

With the basics explained, it's time to move to more complex designs.  The first layout was more experimenting with what I had and did not use every new piece.  I was playing with putting all of my new switchers close to each other.  Not the best layout as trains became stuck in certain loops:

You can see the new bridge piece and the pile of unused pieces in this layout.  The bridge system with the new pieces is not quite as good as the IKEA set.  The elevating pieces require a support unlike the IKEA set.  The support blocks are also not as stable.  The flanges on the sides that hold the track or another block in place are not as high and so it is easier for tracks to slip off.  On the plus side, it is easier to place the blocks at odd angles as the next design will show:

The base of this design is the figure 8.  I added the Y-split to create the overlapping elevated sections.  Near the top, you can see the one support between tracks that is not exactly under the elevated track.  With the IKEA set, this would not have been possible.  This layout does use the entire 100-piece addition.  If you look back at the Christmas post, you can see the various pieces that I acquired.  One of the other nice additions is the set of tighter curves.  The U-turn at the top of the design is much tighter than the curves in the figure 8 part.  This will make it possible to turn in a smaller space and possibly fit more layout into an overall smaller space.

Now that you have been introduced to the new pieces, I expect some design suggestions from my readers.  I will be revisiting the cloverleaf designs with some new twists and some new figure 8 combinations.  Obviously, I need to tackle the "use every piece layout."  That will be a very serious undertaking.  Hopefully I will get started on that sometime in the next few weeks.  Until then, I challenge you to find you inner child and have some creative fun.

Conductor Crim

A 3-year old at work

A while back, I posted that designs by a 3-year old would be coming soon and today they are here.  A few months ago a friend of our stopped by with her son T.  He loves trains, alot (similar to a certain blogger who might or might not be writing this).  Anyway, I brought out the train set to entertain both T and myself.  Together we had some good fun.  Most of the work is his with minimal assistance from me. 

My only contributions to the layout were the bridge over the track and large U-turn, other than that, everything was placed by T.  I don't have pictures of it, but he had some fun with the bridge pieces you see in the bottom picture.  At one point he had two pieces properly connected and then he added another piece the the end, but upside down.  Unfortunately we ran out of time before completing the layout.  It was still a lot of fun.

Coming this weekend - new designs with the new pieces.  I recently added the 100-piece set I had been looking at around Christmas and now I have it and I have several new ideas/concepts.  I can tell you now that there will be a major challenge in using every piece I have, but there will be a very dedicated effort to use every last piece.

It's coming!

If you check back a few posts, I mentioned missing out on a nice expansion to my train set from Amazon because it was out of stock.  Well, it is now in stock and headed for my place.  Obviously that mean I need to work on some new designs once it gets here, so be looking for some fun new stuff including the ability to reverse directions.

no new design?

Okay, so some of you are probably wondering why there hasn't been a post in over a month.  To be honest there are two key factors:
1) lack of inspiration - I haven't been inspired much lately to work on various designs, although I did work on one, which leads me to the second factor
2) cannot find camera cable - We got a new camera for Christmas and i cannot find the proper cable to connect it to my computer.  I'm not sure if I am just missing it or what, but hopefully I will find it soon.

Once I do find it I will be bringing you my latest design as well as the creative genius of an actual 3 year old.