After building the first steam locomotive for the narrow gauge division of the Augusta & New Arcadia as well as painting the first passenger car, it seemed about time to build a bit of a future HOn30 layout.
The inspiration for the narrow gauge section of the railroad comes from among others the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad as well as the Eastern Broad Top.
At first, I purchased a pine shelf measuring 20 x 120 cm or about 8″ x 48″. I have planned many such projects previously, and most were never completed. This time, I wanted to actually finish the module, so the size should be kept down.
My first thought was a single mainline, but it felt like a lot of work for very little track on the module.
So I decided to add a second level which would be visually separated from each other. This would also provide room for a siding and a small industry, perhaps a mine?
After deciding on a track layout, I added a support frame underneath the shelf to make it into a very stable, but also quite heavy, module.
After a bit of experimenting, I added the second level, cut from 6mm plywood, supported by posts made of the leftover material from the frame. Even though I only used four support posts, the upper level seems very stable.
I also used som N-scale trackbed from Woodland Scenics to dampen the sound of the trains. It also gave me a clear indication how much terrain would be possible to add.
I had an old N-scale bridge from when I was dabbling in that scale, and decided it could be used on HO-scale as well with a few alterations. The support pillars are from a N-scale Kibri kit – the stonework seems to fit HO perfectly as well.
The layout for the upper level was shaped in trackbed as well, and I now had a clear picture of where the tracks would be. The bridge is not yet glued on, but the pillars are in place.
Then I started cutting up some rock walls made of hard foam from Noch and test fitting them on the module. So far, everythings still looks rather clean and organised.
–but after a while, all the cutting left the module quite a mess. But so far, I have fitted rock walls in almost half of the module and shaping them to fit the bridge supports. I also decided to add a small road crossing the tracks under the bridge as well, so I would be able to photograph road vehicles on the module as well.
The next steps will be finishing the rock walls in the whole length of the module and then smoothing the contours with a thick plaster mix and adding loose stones. Fortunately, my summer holiday has just begun 🙂
Epoch 