In the Fall of 2006, I purchased a “Woodland Scenics” model railroad kit called “Scenic Ridge”. This kit is N-Scale (they also have 2 HO-Scale kits). The kit has many, many components in it, but basically can be put into two categories: Various foam pieces and landscaping materials such as grasses, rocks, and bushes. The layout, when completed, will be 3 feet by 6 feet in size.
After receiving the kit in the mail (a huge box, about 3 feet by 4 feet by about 6 inches deep), I organized the materials on a table top, and set up the base platform onto a second table top. Since I live in a townhouse in MN, I don’t have a basement, and the garage is very cold in the winter, so I’m assembling this in my spare bedroom.
The first stage of assembling the foam pieces went very quickly – the kit contains a great instruction guide, detailing how to create the layout in a step by step fashion. It probably only took me a couple of weeks or a month to finish this part.
Once you set up the various foam piece,s you then have to lay the track – this is where I fell down. I had also purchased the “track pack” from Atlas, which is a separate model railroads manufacturer working in conjunction with Woodland Scenics. I vacillated between using the track pack or going with “flex track”, and this delayed the project quite a bit. Once I decided to go with the track pack (which, by the way, is sections of track, ranging from 1/2 inch to 6 inches, straights, and various curve radius sections as well), I started laying the track, and completed about 1/2 of it, before putting the project aside for various reasons.
I came back to the project a few years later, in about 2010, I believe, completing the track work inside the various tunnels, and mocking up the tunnel sections. It was around this time that I came across a picture of Victoria Falls in Africa which inspired me to change the layout from the design on the box, to include a “falls”, in place of a section where Woodland Scenics had placed a factory building. I also, at this time, moved one of their bridges which had been placed by them to be over a second track, to be nearer and “over” the falls area. [See the pictures – it’ll help you visualize this].
Then, after coming up with this idea, i again put the project aside, after mocking it up with the various ‘stuffed paper pillows’ which are used to build the various mountain/hill sides.
Sometimes later, about the spring of 2012, I was cleaning out the garage and taking stuff to the local dump – on the way to the dump, we passed a gravel pit, which then inspired me to add one of these to the layout, in place of Woodland Scenic’s “town” area (usually composed of about 10-15 buildings). Problem was, the gravel pit needed to be dug out – it couldn’t be flush with the current scenery. So, I cut a hold in the “bottom” of the layout, and extended the “height” of the scenery (downwards) by about 4 inches. [again, see the photo’s to visualize this].
I then found one structure kit – from Walthers – which is basically a round tower – which has a conveyor belt leading to the top of the tower. The tower is used to fill up rolling stock such as gondola’s, etc. After I bought this structure kit, I came across a structure previously built by another MRR hobbyist, on ebay. This was a gravel processing plant, taking the dug-up pieces of rock, and grinding them into gravel. This will probably replace the simple round tower.
Again, I’m stuck on completing the other 33-50% of the track that still needs to be laid. I’m not sure why I’m procrastinating – but to me, this is the hardest part – you see – since each section of track needs to be securely attached to the next section – both from an electrical standpoint – the train get’s its power from the track – and it also has to be laid such that the joints are matched correctly – otherwise your train will derail. I know, once I get the track completely finished, I know, I’ll have much more fun, creating the actual landscaping scenery, and it will go a whole lot faster. The goal, is to have it completed by the end of this summer, before Fall classes start.
Ok, more later.
Post script: Around the time, I got my kit, and started working on it, I became so enthused that I mentioned this to my former colleague TLA, knowing he had a HO setup when he was a kid, and thought he would be interested in doing a kit/layout such as this with his young son at the time (I guess his son was around 12). Anyway, it happened that TLA thought it would was a great idea for them to do as a father and son project. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say they probably completed the layout in less than six months – going to have to ask him, next time I see him. His layout turned out pretty well, but I think I would be able to do a better job on the landscaping…we’ll see.
