Introductions

[SD70ACe]

Hi all! My name is Brian and I'm an alcoholic.... Sorry, wrong forum... Anywho, I am a 27 year old college student from Colorado and I have just gotten back into the hobby after a decade long break. I am a former corrections officer and US Army veteran. My interests in the hobby are mostly BNSF lines and I love just about anything coal or intermodal! Right now I am working with limited space because my two small children take up more room than I thought they would so I am confined to one of the extra bedrooms. At least I have my own space though! Anyway, the layout I am working on is a 4x8 modified version of the Salt Lake Route out of this year's Model Railroader magazine. I joined this site because I was told that you guys are a bunch of asshats and I had to see what that was all about!  ;D  I am hoping to meet a lot of you along the way and get some good info while I'm at it!

[93cram]

Welcome Brian, from an also very recent member
Out of curiosity, what could your version of the Salt Lake Route look like ? 

Marc

[SD70ACe]

Well Marc, here are a video (starring my 3 year old engineer) of the work in progress...

Please forgive the room it's in. I had to fight my girlfriend for the storage room instead of the garage for my trains. In January I will be getting the spare bedroom once I kick my friend out. He has been here too long and it's time his lazy a$$ got his own place so I can have a proper train room. Anyway, I took this a while back and the stuff piled on the table is holding down the cardboard I glued down to raise the scenery to track height. I'm not going to have a divider or anything like the original Salt Lake Route. I will gladly take more video and post pics on here when I learn how if anyone is interested.

[93cram]

Thx for the video Brian,

Love how the small guy is proudly running his train 
But for God sake, have some space along your curve in the foreground, you don't want your beautiful double stacks
and engine to drop down onto the floor  ;D
Just my opinion, but a divider isn't mandatory if you can have structures, or trees and hedges which can play nearly the same role.
I'm often amazed at the amount of vegetation (hedges) that grows along modern mainlines in some areas.

[93cram]

Brian,

Just a small pic to illustrate my point about hedges :



Marc

[SD70ACe]

Definitely! I will have plenty of greenery on there. And I also plan on having a Plexiglas "wall" around it to keep trains on the table and little fingers off. I also had an Athearn Big Boy on there and if you had sound on that's what was making all the racket. I am thinking about posting up a progress thread and documenting the build if there would be interest in it. My plan for the scenery should work out quite nicely for a scenery break without having a divider. 

[Bsklarski]

Brian,

You can also get some small clamps and clamp on a 6" or longer section of scenery along that edge. This way you can get the impression of a larger layout, and have a buffer. When it comes time to work on the layout, move it, whatever, you can simply unclamp the section and move it aside Just my 2 cents.

Brian

[SD70ACe]

Holy crap that's a good idea!! Thanks for the input!

[S Class]

G'day all, I'm Tony a less than well known forum drifter from the south east of Australia (Melbourne and the Valley to be precise) I'm a combination freelance American and Free lance Australian Modeler in N and when I am mr rich I might even throw some British outline in to stir the pot.
my current project which I'll create a build thread for is the Orchid and Exchange Sidings a modular shelf layout set in the V/line Tangerine Era of the former Victorian Railways, I look forward to earning my headwear made of buttocks and sharing my progress with you.

[James Costello]

G'day Tony - nice to have another Aussie on board.

[sixpakpop]

Hi all! Name is Jim, but everyone calls me 'Pop', at least to my face. Been in and out of the hobby for a long time. How long you ask? Long enough to get the Rapido GG-1s when they were new!
Collector/runner with a temporary layout and the emphasis on running. That means track layed out but not fastened down.
Been a lurker for awhile and figured it's time to jump in. Watch the splash!
Hope to have some useful input and greatly admire the work being done. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Well, thanks to you guys I must be a old burro, not an old dog!

[wm3798]

Welcome to the fold, everyone!
Lee

[johnhale]

Ok here goes,
My name is John Hale. I modeled in HO scale in southern Maryland in the early 90's after the military brought me to the Baltimore-Washington area. I made the switch to N scale around 1993 when I got married and moved into an apartment. I modeled the Southern but switched to the New Haven after a trip to New York and falling in love with the McGinnis paint scheme. I modeled using Peco Code 55 in 1993. I built a layout, but had to dismantle it when we moved again in 1995. Layout was torn apart, and everything was boxed up. I forgot about the hobby almost completely due to things going on in my life.

Fast forward to October of 2010, my wife is going through some storage and asks me about keeping my N-Scale equipment. The next day I picked up a copy of MR, and N Scale Magazine. I joined several online forums and started figuring out how I could build a new layout. A few weeks later, I was working on benchwork. I have been keeping track of my progress at http://mymodelrailroadsite.com.

I recently joined BANTRAK because the club environment will let me feed off the others in the group for inspiration and motivation. I helped the group set up for the Turf Valley show and the B&O museum show. I have spent some time talking to Ed Kapuscinski, Martin Myers (mmyers), and Eric Payne (seusscaboose), and several other BANTRAK members who are also members here.

They suggested I come over and get involved here.

[93cram]

Welcome John,

Glad to see someone else getting back to model railroading 

Marc

[kalbert]

Hello!

I've been a reader here for a while, and a member on some other forums (some may recognize me). It's interesting how the atmosphere from one forum to the other is so different even though the members are often the same!

I'm not quite 30, and live along the Chicago & Northwestern "Alco Line" (now Dakota Minnesota and Eastern) in southern MN with my wife and our dog. To date I've started several layouts, but barely even started gluing track down before changing my mind. Right now I'm starting over with a small switching layout inspired by the C&NW and DM&E and based on Byron Henderson's San Jose Shelf Switcher (http://www.layoutvision.com/gallery/id25.html).

-Kyle