Luckily, we weren't using our basement for anything. The first thing I had to do was finish off two walls and run a lot more electricity down there! Once that was done, I could finally begin building the table for my layout.

You can see - it takes up quite a bit of room! The train is an "0" gauge and requires a Great Deal of space to build anything more fantastic than a circle. I, of course, have Big Plans! I want my train set up to look very "real". Someday.
(Ha!Ha! Melli now wishes she'd bought me a little "N" guage train!)

This section is going to have mountains and an elevated track. Possibly a bridge too. Someday.

And this area is going to be my train yard. I'm already working on the Engine House. None of this track is layed permanently. It's just down right now so I can play with my train! Big changes are coming!

I decided before anything else, I needed an engine house. Our basement is pretty dusty and I don't want the engine to get ruined sitting out -- and besides that, engine houses are just cool!

     
I built the whole house from scratch. I wanted everything as close to "scale" as I could get it, but let me tell you, 1/4" scale is small! My boards for the building are close, but the shingles I made for the roof are probably about twice the size they should be.

But... when ya make 1600 individual shingles by hand... I guess that will do! Go ahead...call me crazy! Melli does all the time!

Here I'm starting to work out the details for my elevated track. I've discovered that I can't go as steep as I'd like to because my engine doesn't have enough power to pull the train UP a very steep incline. This sucks! Melli thinks I should just go ahead and build it the way I want and then add more engines... but I haven't decided yet. Engine's are the 'spensive parts!

Here is part of my train yard, and you can see my engine house. I've added some switches and a little more track too.

It doesn't have any problems on the downhill side of the track. (of course, I've knocked several inches off the height at this point!)

Yea... Downhill works just fine. But on the up hill, the wheels still start to spin. Grrr...

Well... I've been working on my railroad... And I discovered that it's kinda noisy when it runs! A little too much vibration. So, I'm in the process of laying cork under my track to give it some "kush". I've also started laying some of my "home-spun" railroad ties! Here - take a look.

Just plain ol' track

New & Improved track!
Notice all those nice handmade ties!

Notice the pile of ties still waiting to be painted!!! I have no idea how many hundred of these I'm going to need...

No train set-up would be complete without a mountain to run through. Mine is going to have two!

I started with the framework.

And added some plaster of paris.

     
The rocks are made separately and added on.

A closer look at the rocks.

     
The Portals were my design and made by scratch one little board at a time!

Melli says only God can make a mountain... but I think I'm doing a pretty good job here!

The next step will be to add more rocks and then the paint and the trees! This might take awhile... trees grow pretty slow, ya know?

Ride the rail to page

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