Saturday, February 18, 2012

All good thing come to an end.

The decision to dismantle the layout came about for a couple reasons:
We are moving to a new home with a finished basement. While the layout was planned and constructed to be moveable, the new space isn’t near the same size or shape.
From the very beginning this layout was planned as a chainsaw layout, it probably lasted longer than it should have. The only reason it lasted so long was because the track work ran flawlessly.

The good and the bad:
Bench work, track work and my DCC system all worked better than expected and where a great learning experience that I can carry on to the next layout. I’d use hardboard for the backdrop next time so I could curve the corners, other than that I’d give all of that a B+ grade.

From a design standpoint it was ok but the duck under proved to be a problem. Not so much for me but for older guest operators. The track plan met the goals of representing Columbia, Mo. In the mid ‘60’s but because I uncovered more accurate track charts after I had the track work done it always bothered me. I’d give the overall plan a C.

Atlas, Athearn, Proto200, Digitrax, Tsunami, and NCE. All of these companies products I give high marks too. My locomotives from these manufactures ran excellent with little to no tweaking and I was able to install decoders/sound decoders with no problems and once I started using JMRI to program them it was a snap to get them just how I liked them. I’d give the electronics side of the layout an A. The only product I was ever disappointed in was some MRC sound decoders. While MRC was more than happy to keep repairing or sending replacements I grew tired of it. The MRC’s are the only decoders I ever had fail. I can only assume that the newer ones are better.

Modeling Columbia, Mo. In the mid 1960’s. This ended up being more of a problem than I had thought it would be. My goal was to make a reasonable accurate representation. The problem with that was to do this right would have taken more scratch building than I really had the time to do. And representing a time period before I was born just didn’t work either. I felt like I was creating more of a caricature than an accurate model. While I was just getting started with the details, it would of ended up more generic mid-west in the 60-70’s than Columbia, Mo. In 1964. I’d give myself a C- on that.

Will I model the Wabash again? Not sure of that. Like many I currently have the more modern era bug. I have a pretty substantial investment Wabash motive power and 60’s time period rolling stock so we’ll have to see. I salvaged all the structures, details, and turnout from the layout. We’ll just have to get settled into the new place and see what’s next.

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