The Kayton Short Line - 3
shipping loaded 40’ and 50’ insulated box cars of product. As
such it has three car spots at its three doors for the box cars
and reefers, and a silo spot for the tank cars and covered hop-
pers. It is treated as the “important” customer.
The next track is the inbound/outbound staging track that links
with the mythical town of Santel.
Track 2
has two car spots, for the local scrap metal merchant
and coal dealer. It has a bit of spare space and comes in handy
for holding cars during switching moves.
Track 3
is a good long straight line, with two car spots for local
manufacturers located at the far end, and another three car
spots for a grain elevator, making a total of five. Because grain
traffic is seasonal, sometimes there is a bit of empty space to
spot cars here too.
Track 4
is the local team track and doubles as the lead for the
runaround. It is deliberately sized to accommodate only a loco
and two 50 foot cars, which means a bit of an enjoyable prob-
lem if there is a car spotted there.
Track 5
has five car spots, spaced a little bit apart so that cars
need to be uncoupled to be spotted to their locations. Here
I have a freight forwarding agency, a furniture company and
second small general freight company. Again, there is a little
excess capacity to spot cars during moves.
Locos and rolling stock
Our local version of eBay, called TradeMe, had a DC Bachmann
Alco S2. These are nice little items with their can motors and,
given a good DC power pack, should work well. However, like
most other people with the $500 layout, I would urge you to
splash out a little more and buy a bottom end DCC system and
DCC loco. I use a Digitrax Zephyr and Bachmann Alco S4 with
DCC and sound and she purrs along nicely. I bought the S4 from
TradeMe for a mere $70 New Zealand. But I won’t include that
here as it was very much the exception and they normally go
for more than double that.
I have bought all my rolling stock off TradeMe and set a limit
of $10 to $12 per car. I don’t buy them unless they have Kadee
couplers fitted and preferably with metal wheels. For eight
cars and a loco the total cost would be $171 at the most. With
eight cars it would take 15 to 20 minutes to switch the layout
but now I can be enjoyably lost for over an hour shuffling cars
around with 19 cars. A loco and 19 cars would be $303.
I have specified a new MRC DC throttle and power pack. Like
track work, the quality of the throttle has a great impact on the
enjoyment of the layout and I have used an MRC DC dual throt-
tle in the past and was very pleased with it. The unit specified is
not the cheapest so you could shave a few dollars there as well.
Table One – Rolling stock and power pack
Item
No Source
Cost
Bachman Alco S2 Switcher
1
TradeMe
$75.00 (NZD)
Assorted Freight Cars (max
$12 ea)
8
TradeMe
$96.00 (NZD)
DC Power pack and throttle
MRC AA370 Railpower
1
Trainworld.com $47.99 (NZD)
Total
$218.99 (NZD)
MRH-Aug 2014
