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Coal Cars - 9
The Mt. Coffin & Columbia River
Continued ...
14. Photo of the layout under construction, with the
wiring tucked in a channel cut in the foam that will go
behind the fascia (not installed in this photo). Looks
like we need a couple hundred more fir trees!
14
coffee-table-top layout, the only area available for a DCC panel—the
far left—was needed for the detachable staging (that never got built).
I tried Great Stuff to foam the mountains together: but I would not
use Great Stuff again. Caulk, though it takes longer, is easier (after
drying) to work with. Great Stuff is more airy and it files/shapes quite
a bit differently from the foam.
I used cork roadbed on this layout for the main with the rest of the
track attached with caulk directly to the foam. The compact layout
design forced me to learn how to hand lay both multiple-turnout fix-
tures (largest had 4 consecutive curved turnouts all built as one unit)
15. Close-up shot of the layout, with the large out-of-
scale "catapult" turnout ground throws very apparent in
the scene.
15
as well as a 3-way turnout. The sharp curves and short locos neces-
sitated powering the frogs which I did by installing slide switches on
styrene sections secured under—and actuated by—the throw bar.
One challenge was the N-scale ground throws: they're a bit big, and
the camera makes them seem even bigger. I call them my "catapults".
I really wish Caboose Industries would make some real N-scale
ground throws (their "N Scale Ground throws" are still too big for
HO), but they don't. Darn physics.
So it's a trade-off: I and my kids really like flipping them with our fin-
gers, and I can ignore the hugeness, but they sure do look enormous
in photo close-ups. As I get more and more into more "realistic" look-
ing layouts, and especially photography (a very recent interest), I'm
becoming more and more aware of those scaling issues and totally
appreciate getting called out on them.
MRH-Mar 2013
