The New Great Eastern Railway

[rogertra]

After almost two years of living in the new house, construction of the new Great Eastern Railway has finally begun.

Photos taken about 90 minutes ago.






Give me about five years and there'll be scenery here.

[Desertdweller]

Roger,

It looks like you are off to a good start.  A model railroad is only as good as its benchwork, and yours looks sturdy.

Looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Les

[jonathan]

Congratulations!

Can't wait to see progress photos over the next 5 years... 

Regards,

Jonathan

[WoundedBear]

Glad to see you're up and away with the layout and look forward to seeing future photos.

That bare room can sure seem daunting at times. I have been spending most of my time with structures and hope next winter sees some scenery.

How much space have you got to play with, Roger?

Sid

[Ken G Price]

Wow, that is going to be a very nice train room.
Just think what you could do with N scale in there.

I wish I had been able to have a space like yours.

[rogertra]

Sid.

I have 10 x 29 feet at present and, if I can build a four foot opening in a load bearing wall, I can expand into another 12 x 20 foot space.  However, at present, the plan is for a 29 foot long yard and station along one wall with staging along the other.

Ken.

I'd though about N scale but given my poor eyesight, I'm blind in the left eye and don't see too well out of the other, N scale is just too much of a challenge.

Developments.

I've been sick for the past few days so no real work was done on the railway other than covering the currently built 24 foot of benchwork with 3/4" birch plywood,

Playtime!

I temp. laid 21 feet of flex track, temp. connected up the DCC, put a sound equipped 2-6-0 on the track and spent and enjoyable few minutes "playing trains".

Convinced SWMBO to come down into the basement.  Heather has mobility issues and going up and down stairs is a major hassle so she hasn't been down in the basement since before I started the drywalling process.  She stood in front of the benchwork, I gave her the throttle, asked her to press the headlight button, then the bell button, give two short blasts on the whistle button and open the throttle.  She then spent ten minutes running that engine back and forth along that 21 feet of track with a big smile on her face.

It may seem a minor victory to most people on this list but in our house that was a big moment. 

She was so impressed.

She also like how the room looked, even though the drywall isn't going to be painted as it will be hidden behind the backdrop.

She said she now knows what to buy me for Xmas and B/days for the next several years, sound decoders and this for the guy who has never been impressed with sound.  :-)

Stay tuned for more developments.  Hope to have the whole 29 feet of benchwork for the yard finished in a day or so and then I can start laying the permanent track. 

[Ken G Price]

I have seen the photos of your older layout and was immensely impressed.
How much of the buildings, bridges, and other items will make it to this one?

[rogertra]

I have seen the photos of your older layout and was immensely impressed.
How much of the buildings, bridges, and other items will make it to this one?

Ken.

Thanks for the compliment re the old GER.

All of the buildings and bridges, trees etc. were saved.  Many but not all the buildings will be used in this development of the GER.  For example, at the moment  there's no place for the scratch built enginehouse that was in Berger Yard and some of the larger industries from Granville Junction may not be used on the section under construction as it's supposed to be a more rural commuter town Vs the industrial town that was Granville Junction. 

I am planning to use the larger through truss bridge that used to span the Fox River.  I'm hoping to use it on one of the approaches to the new through staging where I plan a river crossing with the Main Track on the through truss bridge and a "foreign"line diverging from the Main Track, just before the river and crossing on something older, perhaps a trestle.  The "foreign" line would be either the D&H/CV connection or the D&H, depending of whether the bridge goes on the east or west side of the yard.

As way of an update, all the benchwork for the 29 foot four and a half inch wall that will be come the major yard is completed and decked with 3/4" birch plywood.  Tomorrow, I plan to cover it all with 1/2" Donaconna board, a Canadian equivilant of Homasote. 

[rrbob]

Loves your old layout too. 
How about posting the plan for the new layout?
And if you want to make a simple change to your
Bachmann 2-8-0's:  cut off the "antler" marker lights
and replace them with regular ones. Improves the
look. At least to me it does.
Bob D.

[rogertra]

Loves your old layout too. 
How about posting the plan for the new layout?
And if you want to make a simple change to your
Bachmann 2-8-0's:  cut off the "antler" marker lights
and replace them with regular ones. Improves the
look. At least to me it does.
Bob D.

Hi Bob.

Plan of the new GER will be posted in the not to distant future.

Thanks for the tip re the class lights, I'll definitely change them when get to haul them out of storage.

[rogertra]

Progress at the west end has ground to a halt until I can get some more RH switches.

While I await the RH switches, I'm going to start on the east end of the yard and the approaches to the roundhouse.  This will probably tomorrow now as I've just knocked back half a bottle of Mouton Cadet Rouge and don't think it's a good idea to be messing around with a jig saw right now.   

I am going to install the turntable and roundhouse from the old GER as a single unit. Therefore, I need to jig saw out an opening in the 3/4" plywood to accommodate the base of the old roundhose and turntable.

In the meantime, I've installed enough track at the west end to at least start playi..... err, testing the trackwork that I've laid.  I've added some temporary track to give me a little yard and industrial track so I can at least run my only DCC and sound equipped locomotives, two Bachmann Al co 2-6-0s.  I'm a very recent adopter of sound and while I'm still not happy with the sound quality, I must admit that it does add greatly to the experience of running the railroad.

BTW, that little sucker can pull.  Mine will 16 cars of assorted types and weights on level track, that's pretty impressive.

That's all for now.

[rogertra]

Progress to date: -

View of test track design for the eastern entrance to yard with pencilled area to the right showing the location of roundhouse and TT from old GER.  The old GER roundhouse and turntable was saved as a unit and will be reused in this location and expanded, hopefully, to a six stall roundhouse.



View of yard from the west showing how it will connect to eastern end of yard. The main track will eventually curve to the right along the wall while a branch line will diverge to the left of the main and proceed through the far wall into reverse loop staging.



Location of industrial area. It will extend to the building in the far distance, by the window and to the wall along the right hand side.

The main track will eventually curve to the left, in front of the window, as the railroad expands.