Roofs and already a modification to the plan

     I decided on making my own platform galvanized roof, well at least try. I used foam board which I sliced open and then inserted a piece of balsa to form the angle. To create the galvanized portion of the roof, I made notches and then rapped a sewing thread in each notch.

      As you can see from the picture, I will be building from scratch, a storage warehouse in a "L" shape and building a freight building from a kit. There will be a road leading to the warehouse and running in back of it to the freight building.

     I decided to move the passenger yard from inside the circle to the outside (bottom). In the center of the track, I will be building a little town so that the passenger train will circle the town. I will need to plan for that town later.

Concrete and more concrete

      I've build four platforms for my box car yard. A piece of wood was covered with foam board and balsa wood and the painted grey to look like concrete. Three of the platforms will have roofs with lights and of course more weathering.

     The concrete flooring of the container yard is now semi finish. I will be adding some weathering to the concrete and some black and yellow stripes.

Construction continues

      I've started working on the passenger lines, there will be two levels to it. I've also planned what the town would look like. My plan for the passenger line is to have it running continuously. On specific days, the regular passenger train will be parked at the top left and the old passenger cars with the steam locomotive will come out. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a Canadian Pacific Steam locomotive.

     It's so easy to spend money on the internet. I purchased more rolling stock, even cars that I'll only need in 3-5 years from now to be use in phase II or III.

     Got my first house done for my little village. I'll be doing the roofs of all houses at the same time later.

Progress on the container yard

     In the crane kit, a concrete flooring with tracks came with it, but I didn't like the look of it. I decided to use my tracks, so I cut the track in two and used it instead. Even though the crane is a stand still, I can still push it back and forth easier.

     As shown on the picture, I will be putting a cement slab between the tracks and it will be enclosed by a steel 10' fence. On the right end side will be the loading on truck beds.

     I've search the internet for some type of yard lights and haven't found any yet. I'm also thinking of putting two red flashing lights on top of the crane....... just thinking for now.

Structures are being build.

      Received a few more Canadian Pacific freight cars this week. I also received my passenger train station, my crane for the container yard and a little shack. 

   

     

      It's been a few years, ok, over 40 years since I did a model kit, it brought back memories. So I took a bit of time off the rails to build my kits.

     The painting and the weathering will be done much later. First I'll watch a few videos, find a few pictures and the I'll need to practice before applying it on the kits.

     

The plan is on the tables

     The SCARM program gives us the opportunity to print the plan 1 to 1. This meant about 120 pages to be printed and taped together. It makes it easier to install your tracks. On the print out, I also have all the elevations marked.

     Every now and then, I would take a break and search the internet for how to do things. More often I would find the answer, but sometimes it was so confusing. I never wanted to bother people on forums as I thought my questions would be minimal. But now I know better after making mistakes, besides, most of the people on the forums are very helpful.

     My first mistake was to glue the turnouts. I thought I was doing everything right as per some videos I saw on YouTube. So I'll need to unglue all my turnouts because I want to install tortoise switches.

    I also did buy a few things for my layout. I bought a crane for my container area, a few more freight cars and the train station for the passenger train.

It's a start

     Work as started on the tables. In my phase I, ten tables need to be build. The main reason for building so many tables is that if ever I need to move my layout, I just need to cut the tracks at the table joint, undo the legs and separate the tables. 

     Unfortunately, the nearest hobby shop is one hour drive, so I started searching for a good online store. I did find two that are very well known, plenty of stock at good prices. All I have to watch for is the shipping fees and duty since I'm in Canada.

     I finally did my first purchase, three freight cars, A freight locomotive and a yard locomotive. The yard loco is an Atlas Alco S2 and the freight loco is a Bowser Alco C630M with Tsunami sound, fantastic sound.

     I also bought Atlas Flex track that come in lengths of 36" and a few Peco turnouts, but unfortunately, the track connectors are back order.

     It's happening, it's getting very interesting, can't wait to get a loco running.

A plan would be very helpful

     I downloaded a free train design software called SCARM (Simple Computer Aided  Railway Modeller) and started designing something that I would like on the space I had decided on. Instead of starting with something small such as a 4' x 8', I decided on a long term plan of 12' x 35' which I separated into 3 phases.

     After playing around with this software for over 3 weeks, I finally achieved something that I liked. The picture on the right shows phase I. The green tracks are for the passenger train which will be on the two highest level and the blue track will be my freight on the two lower levels. There's about 12" in height difference.

     What I liked about this software was being able to see my design in 3D. The orange building will be the box car yard and the blue boxes will be my container yard. Up on top will be the passenger train station.

I know that my plan will see changes, but the main idea is pretty much settled.

First step is to analyse the area

     I surveyed the available area which I will be using for my layout. I then designed the layout of the tables. I wanted small size tables so that if ever I needed to move my layout, it would be easy. I also made sure that I had no more than 30 inches of reach anywhere around the layout. The one thing that was important for me was to have the maximum possible area for my layout.

     The area on the top right is presently used for office, which later can be added to my layout. The top left area is a room which I'll be using as a working area and then added to my layout ........ always think big.

     I then needed to inform myself on this hobby since I had many questions. I joined a few forums on train modeling, watched many videos, did lots of searches on materials, trains, and everything associated with this hobby. In one of the forums, four questions needed to be answered. 

1. Did I want to just run trains or be able to work train yards, I wanted both.
2. Did I want passenger trains or freight, I wanted both.
3. What era did I want to portrait, I decided on the 1960's
4. What company did I want to run, I opted for Canadian Pacific

      My final decision is as follow, it will be Canadian Pacific in the 1960's and I'll be running both passenger and freight. The passenger train will be a continuous run while the freight will have 7-8 yards which I'll need to operate.

A bit of history first

     I'm totally new at this hobby and anything to do with trains. Prior to October 2014, I had ridden on a train when I was 2 years old when the family moved, that's about +50 years ago and I've walked on the tracks like most kids have done when I was about 5 years old. In October 2014, I had my second and third train ride, a ride that I'm old enough to remember. One was to the Grand Canyon from Williams and the other was from Verde, both in Arizona.

     In July 2014 we moved into a new house with extra room to spare, basically, the entire basement is extra room. This gave me the opportunity to start a new hobby, HO train modeling. So on August 2014 the hobby started.