Sharpie marker ($2.00, Walmart) has an ideal dimple for this
task. It’s further useful for driving toothpicks [1000 count, $5.00,
Walmart] to pin foam layers together, driving straight pins or rail
nails through track tie holes to secure track, and it even doubles
as a handy dandy drafting tool for laying out curves on the foam!
You can use your utility knife or scissors to cut the cork, so you
won’t need any more tools to do this work.
Track
We could very happily model a “NoTrack” railroad at this point
(see this spoof article in the April 2010, Model Railroader), but I do
believe most people prefer to have rails! Flex track ultimately offers
the most bang for the buck without hand laying, so it would do
well to start learning how to use it as early as possible. We'll stick to
Atlas track for this layout: it's widely available and inexpensive. From
what I’m able to locate, track runs around $5.00 for a 3' length.
My room, with its 44 feet of run, will need at minimum 15 pieces of
flex, minus whatever length where we use a switch. We'll desire at
least three switches, which will give us a spur and a passing siding.
Atlas switches are available for $15.00 each, and while they're not
Description
Cost Quantity Sub Total
Flex track, Atlas
$5.00
15 $75.00
Switches, Atlas
$15.00
3 $45.00
Zuron railcutters
$15.00
1 $15.00
Rail Joiners
$2.99
1 $2.99
Track Nails
$2.99
1 $2.99
Needle File
$2.99
1 $2.99
Previous Expenditures
$292.00
Expenditures to this point:
$435.97
Table 4: Trackwork expenditures.
Third Place Layout for $500 -
MRH-Jul 2013
