Hello everyone,
I've been a lurker here for a few months now, but this is my first post. I have been pretty active over at nscale.net, but since I have seen a lot of good tips andd excellent layouts here, I thought that I would share my build progress so far with the hope of getting some good feedback from the members of this community!
Some background on my railroad:
Copper Canyon is my freelanced railroad set somewhere out west in the early 20th century. It is in N scale. My inspiration, or gateway to the hobby has been my interest in scale modeling. I am mostly looking forward to the scenery and scratchbuilding efforts on my layout.. which I am getting close to being able to do. To me, the trains are just a means of tying everything all together and making the diorama come to life. I discovered Ken Wodek's western theme railroad in the Nov/Dec issue of N Scale Magazine and I was hooked since then.
This is my first layout. I have learned a TON since I began in mid Februrary and I continue to improve every day. I don't have much time to work on the layout since I have 3 little kids at home, but when I do have time I thoroughly enjoy it!
Here are some pictures of the progress I have made so far. I hope to get some feedback from you guys and hopefully avoid the major mistakes. Thanks for reading!
Trackplan. The track is kept to a minimum to allow me scenic opportunities. So far I have used c55 flex track and Peco electrofrog turnouts.
The highlighted sections are pieces that I have laid, wired and tested so far. 2% grade along the back. The layout is on casters which allows me to pull it away from the wall for construction, derailments and cleaning.
The back of the layout will be exposed under mountains that will allow me to access the hidden track.
2" foam base on an open frame.
All of my whopping 4 turnouts are mounted on a wood piece for mounting and to make it a little easier to pull up in the event I need to fix or replace them. I am using tortoise motors and they are controlled either DCC or my control panel.
I still have some finishing touches to do on the panel. 2/4 turnouts are wired up and functional at the moment. Still waiting on a Wabbit DCC decoder for the other two. The reverse loop you see in the back is controlled by a digitrax AR1 auto reverser. Having the turnouts DCC controlled allows me to auto throw the reverse loop turnout from trigger rails.
The area in the front left of this picture will be the river docks area.
