I’m going to have to come up with a name for the new little railroad, I guess. In any case, here’s a track plan:

HOn30 Portable Layout Track Plan

There are a few things that you’ll notice right off the bat.

First, there are no passing sidings or run-arounds. Which is okay since all the sidings face the same way. There’s still fun to be had operating the little railroad, as the area inside the loops to the right is a full-fledged Inglenook and there are two additional destinations for goods.

I’ll start fleshing out the where the structures and scenery go soon, but generally speaking, the right half of the layout will be a gritty, urban/industrial area featuring the RDA Dulaney Iron Works kit along with a couple of Downtown Deco Addams Avenue kits. The area in the upper left will be a bit more rural, and the siding will serve an RDA Easton Mill building.

I also have a couple of tiny stations, and plan to have a total of three on the layout. That will offer plenty of opportunity for a short passenger train to get in the way of freight operations. Or, I may simply decide that this is a “one horse road” and run a single train. Even so, this still opens up the possibility for two folks to play trains — one as engineer and the other as brakeman/conductor.

In any event, I think this could do a good job of meeting pretty much all the criteria I set out last week. Since I have so many of the structures, I can still keep costs down, leaving the bulk of the expense in the track and trains.

This is almost getting to the point where this project will need its own web site.

In the mean time …

In our last episode, I was rambling on about the virtues of the Gage Vest Pocket Railway, a sprawling farm/estate railway built in the early ’20′s. Were HOn30 my only scale, I might be able to pull that off. But in a 30′x60′ space, the result would likely be less than optimal.

If we look back to my original criteria for this project, we will see that this layout is supposed to be as inexpensive as possible, and that means using as much “on hand” material as possible. This quickly became a bit of a problem, because frankly, the only farm building I have on hand is a small barn. It’s an excellent barn, mind you. But still…

What I do have on hand are a few gritty industrial-type structures: the Dulaney Iron Works made by Railway Design Associates, and a couple of the Addams Avenue kits from Downtown Deco.

Dulaney Iron Works

Addams Avenue Pt2

Addams Avenue Pt3

Not much like farmland, but very much more like a gritty industrial area. I’ve also found a shop online that has a few other RDA kits still on hand at prices that are reasonable, should I decide a little additional grit is required.

Track planning is underway, and I’m finding the limited space planning to be astoundingly challenging. While I’ve headed down a path of an oval with spurs here and there, I’m really wanting to try to figure a folded dogbone into the space. I know that the track will fit, as I’ve done that in the past in N-scale, but wedging in the HO building spaces are the problem. I do have a picture in my head, and maybe I’ll try to bring you a sketch of that in the near future.

For now, I have to get back to the On30 pike, though, as Corinna is due to debut in two weeks!

After talking with Kevin about some of my ideas for the HOn30 pike, and we’ve decided to plow on, full speed ahead. At the same time, we’ll be plowing on, full speed ahead on our regularly scheduled On30 projects. “What the heck,” we figure. Model railroading is supposed to be fun, despite the fact that Model Railroader magazine removed it from their masthead several years back. What’s up with that, anyway?

Anyway, while reading a page on Carl Arendt’s Small Layout Scrapbook, I stumbled across a really neat idea for a layout — a private estate railway, set in New York. An article, which you can view here, appeared on the railroad in the December, 1923 issue of Popular Science.

While the prototype was a 2-mile-long point-to-point layout, I still think it might make an interesting basis for the little portable HOn30 line we’re going to start building. There are, however, certain features I wanted to include on the layout that are lacking in this prototype — specifically, some sort of wharf scene. Even so, this looks like a really fun little theme for a “macro” layout.

I have an hour drive to work, which for me is a dangerous thing, because it gives me a lot of time for my mind to wander. What I’m now thinking is that layout(s) should be built as quickly and easily and cheaply and nicely as possible. At the same time, portability is a primary goal.

This morning’s thoughts are:

• That there are three sections to build 30″x60″ layout. (my first N-gauge layout was this size, and I think it would be a good size for HOn30, too).
• Should allow reasonable operation as well as “roundy-round”
• Operations for two
• 360 degree viewing
• Each section is about 20″x30″ and is built into a “brief case” that holds/protects/carries the layout and has a small drawer or drawers for supplies such as the trains, wire connections, tools, other loose bits. EVERYTHING necessary should be able to fit into the layout cases (except, possibly, DCC system*).
• Height of cases is limited such that the cases can fit across the back of a 2010 Hyundai Elantra Touring and still have room for camera or overnight bags and other stuff, preferably without folding down the back seats.
• Rolling stock not limited to MinitrainS offerings. Should be little 4- or 8-wheel boxcars, flats and gons, and little passenger cars, too.
• Setup should involve next to nothing – put cases on table, remove lids, click together, play trains.
• Structures, scenery items live on the layout.
• Structures mostly card stock or other quick/easy/cheap bashes.
• Construction concurrent with On30 layout.
• Track could be simple as Atlas N-Gauge snap track (with joints soldered) with most of the ties buried.
• Except for cases, all foam construction

So, with all those thoughts to chew on, I leave you to your morning coffee…