I decided having that mountain pass up on level 1 was sorta wasting a lotta of good space, so I did some swapping around and moved stuff on Level 1 to Level 2 and vice versa. I think it’s really starting to come together now and giving me the best use of the space.

My 2nd batch of shelf standards and brackets arrived over the weekend so I’ll be finishing that up over the next week or so. My stupid power-drill is dying on me so I may have to replace that first before I can do any futher work.

My Challenger finally arrived yesterday from Tony’s, so I thought I’d give it a spin on the old Scenic Ridge layout sitting in the garage.

When I first opened the box, I noticed a little arm was loose, connecting to the front right cyclinder. The pin was still in the box, so I put that back in. No biggie I thought at first. Well, that was just the foreshadow of what was about to happen.

The sounds are pretty cool and good (little loud though). It ran great on the layout…. for about 10 mins. In the middle of the filming, the arms on the right front axle popped off. You can see the arm hanging off as it rounds the corner near the end of the video before it jumps the track.

I haven’t really given it a good look over yet to see if it’s just something that can be popped back in. Major bummer that an engine this expensive by Athearn is having these kinds of problems not 20 mins out of the box.

Here’s the video though of the Challenger making its brief appearance on the Scenic Ridge layout:

There’s also this version:

Hi-Def Quality .m4v video (116MB)
(Requires Quicktime 7. Apple TV compatible):

I used some funds I made by selling off some HO items I had to purchase the recently released Athearn 4-6-6-4 Challenge equipped with DCC/Sound. I ordered it online from Tony’s Trains, and it should ship out this week.

Can’t wait to get it!

Here’s the latest plans for the layout.

I tweaked up the upper level a bit, and gave the lower level an overhaul. Staging was re-split into two different yards to avoid most of the shuffling a single lond yard required. The backdrop on the level will be a sort of split backdrop. The far back with be a full length sky backdrop, and then in front of staging will be a shorter maybe 4-6″ backdrop just give some illusion of a backdrop and help hide staging. I’ll have to mock this up once the benchwork is in place.

The benchwork was also expanded to 15″ to match the upper level to fit scenery, buildings, etc… Haven’t decided for sure if I want to the simulate an interchange on this level or just make another industry. I like the look of a diamond crossing so I may keep it just for show.

I also decided to go with Code 55 track. I like the prototypical look of it over code 80, and I know I’ll probably kick myself for not going with code 55 right off the bat. So I’m making the switch.

I have about 40 pieces of code 80 flextrack I’ll have to toss up on ebay to sell and replace with code 55.

In my daydreaming at work I’ve been thinking about this layout plan some more (nothing new there ) Being a more permanent type of layout I hope to last me a long time, I want to make the most of the space I’m going be using.

So I’ve been thinking about that staging level. First I would extend the whole the level to be 15″ deep (same as the main). then I would take outter-most mainline and turn it into a 2nd main level with scenery and a backdrop about 5″ from the edge. Behind the backdrop would remain the staging tracks.

Not only does these extend my mainline run, it still gives me ample staging tracks. Seems like a waste to have that *entire* second level be nothing but hidden staging you know.

Of course, I would have to figure out a way to still give me some kind of access back to the staging tracks if a derail occurs. hmm.

I’ll play around with the track planning software tonight (of course I didn’t my laptop to work today, doh!) and see what I can come up with.

Here’s a rough sketch of how I’m thinking the layout will go.

1/2 playwood will be secured directly to brackets at 16″ spacing. This should provide adequate support and prevent and sagging from occuring. At most, only 4″of plywood will overhang a bracket, so that shouldn’t pose a problem either.

Staging got dropped a lot, giving me about 7-9″ of clearance under the main level. I’m not sure how long the front valance will be either, but I drew it in as 12″. this would probably be secured using glue and “L” brackets attached to the underside of the mainlevel.

Or rather, longer standards.

After playing around with design methods for the benchwork, and to give adequate clearance between the main level and the staging, as well as a decent viewing size for the main level I’ve decided I need longer standards. So 25 more 16.5″ standards and joiners will be ordered soon. This will give me 33″ of standard to play with. More than enough to make everything happy.

Revised the staging yard a bit. Extended it from to 5 to 10″ and basically made 3 really long staging tracks on each leg of the run-around.

I’m debating on adding some switches in there to help shuffle trains around. I’ll see what I can fit once construction begins on it. I do plan on breaking each staging track into 2, maybe 3, staging blocks (and maybe transpoding even) to help with parking trains without visually seeing the tracks.

My 25 standards arrived the other day and I got a few on the wall so far.

Layout height will be about 50-55″, so it’ll be at eyelevel. Staging (lower black bracket) has just enough clearance to reside under the main level. Main level will have 10 inches of space between levels (8″ to bottom of upper shelf bracket).

At first I thought it may not be a lot of room, but 10″ in n-scale should actually be a good spacing. Plus it saves me from having to make them hills/mountains really tall

I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.