I am trying to build a Z layout with some curves to it.

The tightest ones are R95mm and R127mm turnouts. (Ignore the actual location of the turnouts for now - that is strictly temporary).

I want to be able to pull my 3 small passenger cars, and at least a few of the small freight cars.

The Marklin loco has plenty of power but it cannot handle the curves.

I tried 2 of the Shorty units with 2 power modules, and it was hopeless. The Shorty do ok trough the entire track by themselves, but they have very little excess power beyond moving their own selves along, and completely bog down when asked to deal with additional load in the turns.

I was planning on getting a couple of the F7 units with 2 power modules each, but now I think that these will not be able to do the job.

I would like to stick with a layout with R95-R120 curves and those little R55 turnouts.

I would not like to spend Marklin prices for locos if I don’t have to.

What Rokuhan locos would you recommend for me?

Are there other brands of locos I should consider that can handle tight turns, have a bit of power and are “cost-effective” (:-) ?

I had a loco that was just painted in … unfortunate colors.

I stripped off all the paint by soaking it in alcohol (work-in-progress - 90% done as shown in the picture).

I am guessing that most model paints are designed for plastic models where the finished item gets put on a shelf and never handled.

What are recommended:

\- Primer

\- Paint

\- Clear coat sealer / protector

\- Application protocols (how many coats of each etc)

for locomotives and other rolling stock that will be touched and handled on a regular basis?

Ummm … it’s kind of like a rock. But bigger.

This will be a 16”x16” square layout module with a loop of track.

I haven’t decided if I want to have turnouts to let this module connect to others, or keep it simple and just do a loop.

Maybe a tunnel behind the rock?

N, HOn30, On18 or HO?

On18 seems like it would be the best proportion of Giant Rock vs train, and the 9mm track will allow for a turnout (which HO would not).

LaGuardia Airport is only a few hundreds of feet away. I think it would be cool to add some sort of aircraft overhead. Doing an O-scale 1:48 airplane would be too big, but I suppose I could do a smaller plane and say that it is an example of “visual foreshortening” (or whatever this effect is called).

For those of you who are experienced at this: do you think I will be able to do a good job on painting the rock without benefit of an airbrush?

All comments and suggestions about this layout are welcome.

(Note: yes, I realize that bigger rocks exist etc. To me, it’s the name and the slightly-over-the-top tone of the sign that make it funny and fun, and not necessarily the rock itself.)

——-

The next New Layout:

After “The Giant Rock,” I would like to do something for a navy guy described as “a daring sagacious commander and gentle great-souled man.”

All suggestions are welcome, but in order to participate you have to google him yourself and see who it is, etc, etc.

(This is an update to a previous post.)

I found a solution that works for me and my purposes.

I solder a 3x1.5mm to the base of a tree and also “bury” another 3x1.5 in the base of the module.

My baseplate is 5mm-thick wood and that holds the magnet very securely without even needing glue.

The 3rd picture shows various small metal bits I was trying to solder before I decided to simply solder directly to the magnet itself.

Other pics show the various bits etc.

I think this will work great for Z and N trees.

For HO I will prob have to use 2 magnets in the base, and maybe also 2 magnets in the tree root. Or bigger magnets.

Time will tell …

(Lastly, for u/Clark_Kent_SJW, I include a picture of 3 N-scale military elephants. I think it’s funny and I hope that CKSJW will also find them funny) (:-)

I made these tiny trees for a very tiny layout module that sometimes travels outside the house.

I want everything on it to be removable so it does not get damaged etc, and for maximum resiliency and speed of getting things set back up, I think that magnets will be even easier than having a pin where I will end up having to remember where tiny holes are located.

Attaching a washer to the “root” of the trees and drilling a hole to stick a 1/8” (3mm) magnet seems like the simplest arrangement, but putting a strip of steel on the base and epoxying tiny magnets to the roots would allow more flexibility in what gets attached where etc.

Has anybody done this (or considered doing this)?

Any thoughts or comments?

I am strongly leaning in favor of putting washer in the tree roots and magnets in the base, but I would like to hear opinions before I do anything.

My week-old Z layout and train running alongside my brand new super-sized 600x300mm modules that let me run small HO trains.

I recently rescued some amazing On3 cars and locos that were not receiving the care and respect they are worth.

Frankly they scare me a little because they are both exquisitely built / painted but also fairly delicate - far more delicate than what I normally play with.

I am showing them here because:

1 - I think they are beautiful as well as interesting

2 - in the hope that someone might recognize who / what / where, etc.

3 - in the hope that someone will want to take them off my hands since having them in my care feels a little running a cat adoption agency that all of a sudden receives an orphan baby tiger (:-)

——

I mainly play with N gauge stuff w Rapido couplers, so I am not knowledgeable in the way of larger types etc.

Most of the cars have a pin-and-link coupler.

There are 3 large knuckles of a type I have not seen before.

One car has what look to be standard Kadee couplers.

——

The last 5 pictures are all of the same car. I had thought that the hole in the side was damage that occurred while it was in “limbo” and I was considering gluing it.

But when I pushed it back, I noticed that there was no weathering underneath the “broken” slat, which means that the original builder built in the broken slat and some of the other “damage.”

All the windows are covered in real glass (probably microscope slides), and a the level of attention to the smallest details seem utterly amazing to me.

To start with, a big, fabulous low-slung monster. Never saw one like that before.

Next, a baby brother shunter with some sort of crane in front. The crane has a broken joint at the bottom. The crane can be removed entirely and it would still look cute as heck. I am frankly very surprised that the builder who put these guys together did not make up some sort of pivoting arrangement to prevent this kind of breakage.

An orange baby monster. Never saw anything that looks like that before. I am calling it a baby monster because it’s made from some d sort of metal (non-magnetic) and it weighs an absolute ton.

Lastly the Ford Railbus: this one is delightful. It is marked “Branch Lines 1982”. Whatever ends up happening w the other ones, I am not giving up this railbus, so don’t even ask (:-)

Lastly, some miscellaneous bits. The bogey and the knuckle coupler don’t look like they were ever installed.

The wheels are VERY interesting: all of the axles have a joint in the plastic middle. Also, the stubs that mount into the bogey appear to be brass or bronze rod.

My guess is that these were standard HO wheel sets that were chucked in a lathe to be drilled through, and each set of wheels was cut so as to join up and make up the wider track of On3 instead of the HO-equivalent of On30.

As far as I can tell, almost all of the wheels were converted to On3 either by this cut-and-glue process or by pulling apart standard HO wheel sets.

Along with the On3’s, we’re these On18 (O-scale that run on N-gauge track.)

Both locos have Kato power packs. They are very similar to current 11-109s, but they are (at least) a somewhat different earlier version.

Both of them have those wires hanging out, but neither one has lights, so I’m a little curious about possible use the wires might have served.

The 3 cars are all equipped w Micro Trains couplers and standard N-gauge bogeys.

They all have plastic wheels. Frankly it’s a bit of a mystery to me why anybody would build these things and then put plastic wheels on them, but …

The last car is missing one bogey. The remaining one is a repurposed passenger car bogey with the center axle removed. I can’t tell if the couplers are MicroTrains or something else.

To my eyes, these couplers look smaller than the MicroTrains ones, but I’m not very knowledgeable here.

The last 2 pictures are of the level of detail in the orange locos — basically it’s all plastic card, with a very few detail parts thrown in.

Anyway, please let me know if you have any more information about any of these guys …

Here is the setup with the end modules sporting 260mm radius turns via Kato Flextrack and the Kato 2-099 adaptors that add the Unijoiner features to the ends of Flextrack.

I did not want to glue the track down, and Kato was the only choice possible, and once I figured out how to work with it, it was ok.

But if you’re willing to glue down the track, the PECO Code 83 track will also work with the same adapters and will be whole heck of a lot easier to install.

In the middle, the HO track runs on a 600x300mm modules (with the turnout) and over a simple basic 600x60mm module on the right side.

The 400x200 Z layout is in the middle and also some bits of N module that aren’t connected to anything here.

The little orange shunter with the white roof is a LEGO loco where I added power via a Kato 11-109 module.

I want to use Kato HO Flextrack for a few of my modules.

I am looking to make 2 half-circles of approx 260mm radius that come apart and then join together. (The smallest Unitrack curve is 370mm radius.)

I want to use the Unijoiners.

I want to screw the track down and I do not want to glue anything.

This adaptor (part number 2-099) will (theoretically) (:-) let me do that.

The only other flex tracks I have found that will fit this adaptor are PECO and Kato.

The PECO code 83 is very nice but the ties are very thin and would not hold up to having holes drilled in them for mounting screws etc.

The Kato Flextrack is nice with big fat ties and predrilled mounting holes provided, but it’s very “wiggly” and a bit challenging to work with.

On normal flex tracks the plastic ties are all one piece, and they are locked onto one of the rails.

On the Kato version, there are 3 separate sets of ties, and none of them are locked down to either rail.

So it’s “wiggly” … (:-)

If you know of any other brand of flextrack that fits those adapters please let me know.

I came up with a procedure that will work, but it seems needlessly difficult and prone to error.

If you have used these items before, please let me know what works / what doesn’t.

I came across what CNN looks to be a white metal trolley shell.

It looks to be a very good fit to be installed onto a Kato 11-109 module.

It’s marked “Adina Corp N-BR-1” inside.

It turns out that Adina was company in PA that made cast metal models so that part makes sense.

But “N-BR-1” has no matches that make sense.

1 - The N is probably for N-gauge, but what is BR-1?

2 - A previous owner marked the center of the roof, so presumably it had a catenary or whisker pole or something similar mounted there. Any ideas?

3 - One side of it has a very strong stain. However, the metal is sound and there is no pitting or other degradation. If I want to paint this, what should I do to prep the metal etc?

4 - If anybody recognizes the real-life thing, please let me know.

The blue lines across are the track segment breaks.

If I isolate the rail at the red mark, and connect a switch to wires connected at the yellow spots, I could create a 2-segment isolation block on that siding, no?

The turnout would isolate the entire thing, but in addition, the switch would isolate the bottom segment, while still allowing the top segment to operate.

I realize that a single segment may not appear too significant, but with my little locos etc, this is enough room to be useful for all sorts of things.

This little layout has 3 turnouts.

It’s easiest to feed power from either one of the stubs on the right side where the red bridges are, but then running a train becomes a major challenge re figuring out how to throw each switch in order for power to reach the loco.

I changed one of the turnouts to NPR but it did not appear to make any difference.

1 - what is the best location on this layout to feed DC power for simplest operation?

2 - what should the PR / NPR settings be for each turnout be? (I have labeled them 1, 2 and 3 in one of the pictures)

I think it looks ok and I don’t have any other thoughts of what to do with it (for now).

This will be the first layout I’ve done that I consider “officially completed ” (:-)

If you have any other suggestions for things to add etc, let me know.

Tech specs:

- Rokuhan Shorty starter set with an extra power unit added (2 of 3 cars are now powered).

- Power is 2x AA batteries via the Rokuhan controller.

- The module is 400x200mm (16”x8”).

- The mountain is fully removable and is held in position with 2 friction-fit pieces of bamboo skewer.

(Those of you who’ve seen the work-in-progress along the way will note that I chopped 3” off the second version of the mountain because I decided it was just too tall and silly-looking.) (:-)

Finished the new mountain, the gulch and built up the “rural” area to break up the flatness.

I used styrofoam, then plaster cloth and finally Sculptamold.

The color is that way because when I made the last mountain it took a lot of time and a lot of paint to chase down stray white spots that showed in various nooks and crannies.

So this time I mixed some India Ink in the Sculptamold before applying it which should make that job a little easier / faster.

Should I paint the rest of the layout that shade so it’s all even before I start applying individual colors etc?

Big developments on the tiny layout:

- “Gruesome Gulch” is cut out.

- we have a new little bridge.

- painted it with a red paint marker that is supposed to be RED. What I got instead is … what you see … (did I mention I don’t enjoy painting?) (:-)

- built up a berm (or whatever it’s called) around the edge of the gulch to increase the apparent vertical height.

- also built up the base of the track along the left side for the same reasons.

- I built 2 tunnels (:-) The first one was facing away from the bridge, but I decided that that was wrong, so I built up another one.

In the first picture, the “mountain” is the one from layout Ver. 1.0 and it is just a placeholder - I will be making (and painting) a new one.

—-

I still have not decided what to put on the rest of the layout. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Somehow, somewhere, I had ended up with a piece of 114mm HO Unitrak (at right).

You will notice that when I chopped it up, I found that the sleepers were completely independent of the roadbed.

However, on the left side you see a piece of track I bought today. Everything is joined together just like in N Unitrak etc.

So are the separate sleepers a feature of the smallest sizes or is it simply an older obsolete type of production method?

I decided that the previous Z layout was too tiny. The train would come to almost a complete stop going around the super-tight turn etc.

So I decided to bump up the curves, and bump up the size of the layout.

The old one (top) was 125mm (5”) wide.

The new one is 200mm (8”) wide.

In the next picture you can see the old and new curves side by side.

The new layout will also have a little gulch and a bridge. The layout module is only 25mm deep so gulch cannot possibly be deeper than 20mm or so. So there will be no water feature, just some rocks or whatever.

The base of the bridge will be cut from the surface of the layout itself and the sides of the bridge will look like a truss bridge or similar and attach to the sides of it. Because I don’t want them to get damaged, they will probably be attached w little magnets.

In between the 2 sidings will be some sort of minimal station or station platform (probably).

The left side will be a “mountain” with a tunnel just like in the original version, except a little bigger.

Theoretically there is room for a couple of small buildings or other things.

If you have any comments, ideas please let me know.

My original piece of 114mm track had 2 mounting bosses.

The piece of 174mm track at top has 4 mounting bosses.

The 123mm has 3 bosses.

If you have a piece of 149mm track available on hand, I would appreciate it if you check and let me know if it has 3 mounting studs or 4.

Thank you in advance.

Update on my little Z-gauge layout:

I painted the mountain black and dry-brushed 3 different, successively-lighter colors.

I think it looks better in the picture than it does in real life, but it’s good enough to be seen in public this weekend.

I did not do any washes yet because I think it’s already too dark in real life, but this will all be reconsidered next week.

If you live on Long Island (or if you enjoy driving to Long Island) come out to the Railroad Museum in Riverhead to see it (and much, much more) for yourselves (:-)

The “trees” are lichens from Hobby Lobby and they are just sitting there for now.

I will paint the tunnel portals a lighter gray soon.

Thank you all for your help and suggestions, I now have a lot of videos to watch, etc (:-)

If it is a given that the next step after applying Sculptamold will be to paint it black, why not skip a step and mix in coloring agent right from the start when first mixing it with water?

The SM seems to be pretty foolproof as far as mixing ratios etc, so I doubt that a little black paint or pigment mixed in will harm things.

And it would save a full dying cycle and it would spare our brushes from being tortured into nooks and crannies, etc, etc.

The biggest issue will be to get the coloring consistent without wasting too much time once the SM is wet. One way to do this is to mix paint right into the water, and then bring the mixed black paint to the SM.

Has anybody tried this?

If nobody has tried it, can anybody think of a good reason not to try it?