Large Scale Central

The Pembroke & Cheltenham High Desert Railroad: Planning

General Discussion
#21

THAT is the DEFINITION of oxidation, not corrosion.

My reference sources are dictionaries and scientific texts, besides my scientific training. You can call it corrosion till the cows come home.

(By the way is all the anodized aluminum in your house corroded? (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)By your definition it is.)

Anyway, lets give it a rest, I cannot get you to cop to the distinction between corrosion and oxidation, and you will never convince me or Websters or Encyclopedia Britannica of your making them the same.

Greg

p.s. I have to call TOC and tell him all his aluminum rail is corroded and I can’t come and run trains this year until it’s fixed.

#22

@Mitch. FYI, The thermal expansion of aluminum rail is huge compared to the Stainless, you will have to engineer for the expansion and contraction with your wide temperature swings.

I too live in the high desert of NM @ 5400 ft. with wide temp swings for day/night in the summer.

#23

Some photos from this morning of the space I have to work with:

From the northwest corner of the backyard, looking across the lawn and up the hill:

I plan to put a return loop right there in the foreground, removing a chunk of that lawn that is difficult to mow anyway.

The hill:

From the top of the hill looking down (west):

#24

Funny, the hill does not look 7 feet higher, but we know it is. How do you have a septic field higher than the house? Is there a pump? Our family has a septic system and it’s all gravity and carefully laid out to use gravity.

Greg

#25

The septic field is 20 feet underground, according to the original owner.

#26

Welcome Mitch !

#27

Ahh, ok that makes sense, but wow what a lot of work to put it 20 feet down, is the hill something he would have to have put back? Wonder why he had to put 20 feet of dirt back…

Thanks for answering, just did not make sense at first.

Greg

#28

If the septic tank is 20 feet underground, couldnt you just move some of the dirt from the high area to the lower area to “kill” a lot of the height diifference issues? Looks like you have pretty easy access for a small tractor to come in and move the dirt around without collapsing any of the septic field. Peeling off a couple of feet and moving it to the low side would give you a better chance of making the most of your area.

#29

Took the words out of my mouth! That’s why I asked if you had to put back the hill… clearly a bunch of soil had to be removed to make a septic system “field”, they could not have trenched 20 feet down…

Greg

#30

The desert will present you with a number of challenges.

I am on the other end of your desert. We are on the California end!

Make sure your buildings are well tied down!

Welcome aboard!

#31

i wish i wouldn’t get two copies of my notes part of the time!

#32

I’m having second thoughts about 1:32 scale; it’s so hard to find rolling stock in that scale. 1/29 seems a lot more common. And it’s only 10% different from 1:32, so with 1/29 a standard gauge track is only six scale inches narrower than it ought to be. I guess that isn’t much of a difference.

I’m anal enough I want everything to be one scale.

Another question about switches: I will have at least two loops where the switch has to be one way for the train to enter the loop, and then has to be switched the other way as the train loops around and comes back over the switch. I’d like that to be done automatically. I read about magnetically activated switches; are you guys using those?

#33

I use a simple spring switch to either; hold and allow pass through or a flop over setting that changes the direction of travel. The only caveat is light leading trucks need extra weight to move the points vs the points moving the truck!

DCC guys have an automatic throw, but I’m not the one to talk about it.

Look to USA trains as they are still active and ebay for used Aristo.

Caution: USA has some 1:24 scale cars in their American series and billboard reefers.

So Did Aristo with their Classic line.

Good Luck,

#34

The mechanical part of the switch is pretty easy, and you will be more concerned with track power changing polarity.

No matter what you are doing, there are simple solutions, I wouldn’t worry about that yet. You need to work out the grades and track plan. Changing electronics and power is much easier than ripping up a layout because the grades and curves do not work.

Any more thoughts on the grading of the lot?

Greg

#35

I use a spring switch also, in fact I use 2 of them, since mine is a single track mainline with a reverse loop at each end.

Yes, get the major track planning done first. The details can be worked out as you go. But it aint no fun ripping up track to fix a basic design…oversight.

#36

Well, I have a lot to do. I can work on the layout but I don’t think I’ll start doing anything on the ground until my shop is built, or at least the retaining walls for the shop. I fear that putting in the retaining walls will mean cutting back into the hill quite a way and disrupting any track already laid down. If I can find the cash I’d like to get started on that this year when it warms up.

I think I’ve figured out how to get up the hill (two loops). I still need to lay out the road at the top of the hill. Not sure what I want to do up there.

#37

Three and a half years later . . .

Sold my Hidden Valley house with the big hilly lot a year ago (at a tidy profit, thanks to Reno’s insane housing market) and am now living in a very tiny house on a very tiny lot in Midtown. My five-year plan is to build a home on ten or forty acres up in the mountains near Virginia City, maybe embellishing it with a railroad (it’s hella rocky up there); but in the meantime I’m working on a scheme to put in a very simple layout here on my very tiny lot, just to sorta learn the ropes.

How tiny is my lot? It’s 0.15 acres with just enough room in the front yard for a single 20 foot diameter loop, and not a hell of a lot more room in the backyard between the freestanding garage and the planned casita.

Oh, and I had to change the name of the railroad to the Kohlepp & Toiyabe.