New York Central/Conrail Toledo Division Free-moN Layout

[btrain]

Had a great time at Altoona N Scale Weekend with the Free-moN layout and seeing all the goodies vendors had to offer. I brought up the Styrker loop. The next show it will be at, this loop and will have scenery and structures added. I was happy to see the PSXX-AR reverser had done its job well and didn't give me any problems.

Here's a photo of the loop for anyone curious about building a Free-moN one with the inner radius being 22", the minimum curve allowed in the standard. Along with an idea for its train capacity. Also, the good news is that all of this can fit into the trunk of a Toyota Corolla.

[seusscaboose]

i just noticed your WYE is built to have a straight through bypass...   iwill you eventually drop that track in?

[btrain]

i just noticed your WYE is built to have a straight through bypass...   iwill you eventually drop that track in?

Yep, that track will be put in before the next showing for the loop. Here's the track plan for the loop. The outer loop will act as a turnaround with a three to two track module, which is shown at the bottom left corner of the plan. The inner loop can be used for that as well, but also acts as a siding or staging for trains if the 3 to 2 is attached to a single track module at the bottom end of it.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[btrain]

I know that I shouldn’t play with my trains on the floor, since stepping on a tank car has to be on par with feeling the pinch of a Lego during a midnight trip to the refrigerator.

All kidding aside, I wanted to get a good look at how Berea interlocking would look in real life. So I printed off the eastern part of the AnyRail file and put buildings and rolling stock on it. I had to compress the interlocking by half, but both eastern and western halves will be 7’ 10” when combined. I was pretty satisfied with how everything looked.

The track layout is based around 1980, before Conrail tore up the eastbound Big Four main by the depot. It doesn’t depict NYC days, since that would be a madhouse of switches and double crossovers, which would blow my track budget out of the water.

For those interested in the structures, BE tower is made by Yelton Models, and the depot is by Leopard Architectural Models. Both are beautifully rendered.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[DirtyD79]

I remember there was an article in January1995 Model Railroader where some dude was building either an O or S scale version of that station out of plaster. I think nowadays it's a restaurant.

[seusscaboose]

I’m liking it