My 1st layout, an humble 23" X 11" one

[Biased turkey]

At 60 I finally completed my 1st layout.
Living in an apartment, an having discovered Carl Arendt website, an N scale micro-layout was the perfect choice.
http://www.carendt.us/

I wanted my layout to use Peco flextrack and to include a  sectorplate, a cassette ( to connect with "the rest of the world" ), a brewery,  a malt silo, a teamtrack, a depot,  an overpass, a micro-hill and a tunnel.
Here is the result:

Jacques

[wm3798]

Nicely done.   There's a lot going on there in that little scene.  I'd like to see the whole track plan, including the sector plate and yard cassette.

Lee

[Nato]

  It looks very good. Like Lee posted, alot going on there. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[3rdrail]

You've got nothing to be ashamed of there. It is looking very good so far. But unless Canadian industrial areas are a helluva lot neater than those in the USA (they aren't), you need to trash things up more, maybe even add a little graffiti to walls. Make the scene even busier.

[ñiao]

Mhhhmmmm, Molson!

Nice traffic flowing! Could be a bit dirtier.

Can we see more of it?

[Biased turkey]

Thank you Lee, Nato ( Nate ) and 3rdrail ( ??? ) for taking some of your valuable time to reply, for the suggestions and for the positive criticisms.

About the sectorplate: Here is a picture ( and the whole plan ).
The sector plate was made by soldering 2 Atlas segment tracks. The pivot is an 1/8"  headphone jack ( part of it ) glued to the track with epoxy.
The 1/8"" plug is fixed , using epoxy, in a hole drilled on the baseboard.


The cassette was not in the original plan, but after submitting my layout to the yahoo small-layout-design group, Prof Klyzlr ( wisely ) suggested that adding a cassette would improve the operations by connecting my layout with the rest of the world.


So I removed the bumper from the lower left track ( where the teamtrack and the unloading platform are located ) and added the cassette , connected to the baseboard using 2 wooden dowels.



To 3rdrail, I agree, my industrial layout looks too clean.
Weathering and littering will be the last step. Now I can operate the layout, the rest will be "cosmetic" improvement.
At least the depot is weathered and the boxcars looks dirty.

Right now, I almost finished converting the layout to an Xtrkcad file.The train simulation runs nicely.

Jacques




 

[CoalPorter]

That is a very impressive small layout.
Thanks for introducing me to the concepts of sector plates and cassettes,
I can say I learned something today. 

[shay6]

Jacques,

I really dig your microlayout.  I'm especially intrigued by your staging cassette attachment/alignment method - nice addition to the plan.  Is the cassette powered as well or strictly the domain of the 0-5-0 switcher?

Jeff

[ñiao]

That plan looks great.

How do you move the sector plate? I wanted to build one also, but am wondering if you can use a tortoise for the switching.

[up1950s]

Cool little layout , also makes a super diorama .

[SirTainly]

Nice work. I agree Carl Arendt's site is excellent for those micro layouts.

[Biased turkey]

Thank you CoalPorter, Jeff ( shay6 ) , ñiao, Richie (up1950s) , SirTainly ( I hope I didn't forget anyone here ) for taking some of your valuable time to reply and for the suggestions.
Both sectorplate and cassette are connected to the DC supply by Molex connectors ( one is visible on the last picture ).
One "must have" is to use Peco Electrofrog ( In my opinion, an absolute requirement for a switching layout ) , so there must be a  slight gap on the rails between the sectorplate  and the cassette when they are connected to the main layout.
 ( that's a lot of precise filing  but it's worth it ).
The cassette is moved manually , with a little practice I can align it without any problem.
The #1 goal is reliability so I soldered all the railjoiners I'm a ( retired ) electronic technician so that part wasn't too difficult.
Talking about dioramas, that's what brought me back to model railroad: 5 years ago, my mom ( 89 now ) visited our family in Belgium and brought me back a small HO Marklin steam engine so I decided to give it a place it deserves . I purchased the Woodland Scenics diorama kit ( I highly recommend it ) and got my feet wet with scenery.
Here is a picture:


Jacques

[ñiao]

Funny, I have a similar shot of the Class 80 (Roco) and the G-car (Piko):

[Rowan]

A very nice layout , and I like what you have done with Märklin and the diorama kit, nice one as well  ñiao .

 

[ñiao]

Thanks for the comment, Rowan.

The Märklin Class 80 Biased Turkey showed here was my first engine in 1970. I'm afraid it got lost somehow, somewhen  :'(
Although I gave away most of my German N-stuff when switching to US-"prototype", I still keep the Roco model as a reminder on my happy childhood.