Side-Tracked

The other day, as my wife and I were rearranging some furniture in the living room, she made the comment that it might be fun to put a small train display on a side table where she normally displays some potted plants. She had in mind my Lockwood & San Emigdio On30 diorama, which she's watched me work on the last several months -- but of course, the suggestion got me thinking in other directions.

Since the purpose, at least in part, will be to entertain the grandkids when they come to visit, it makes sense to have a continuous lap. Since the tabletop is only about 25 by 54 inches, that limits me to a 10 or maybe 11 inch radius, a bit more if I overlap the tabletop a few inches. I'm thinking On30, so that's too tight for any of the equipment I currently own.

There are some people doing wonderful work in On30 building mini- and micro-layouts with these kinds of curves and smaller, using the Bachmann 0-4-0 and 0-4-2 Porters, Davenport gas-mechanicals, and other small switchers, with shorty cars. This is mostly caricature modelling, reminiscent of Big Thunder Mountain at the Disney theme parks -- some of the pioneers of this style, like John Olsen, were Disney employees. But it's a lot of fun.

So now I'm thinking about building a mini-layout in On30. The layout itself won't cost that much (probably) but if I go down this road, I'm going to have to pick up one of the little Bachmann engines and at least a few cars. Darn it all!

Here are a couple of track plans. The first, a true 2 x 4 footer, is the current leading contender. Mountain at left; the blue is a creek, giving me an excuse to build a low trestle. Grey squares are buildings. If I built this, I'd probably repurpose the ore bin and cabin from the diorama, then convert the diorama to an H.O. display.

There's a still a chance I might stretch this a bit, to 54 inches, which would exactly match the size of the table my wife has offered. Here's a version of that:

I did also play around with some larger designs, up to 28x64 inches. It's pushing the limits of what I can get away with in the living room, but would allow for a lot more operation -- maybe even two trains. This would be more of a medium-term project, probably not something that would be done by Christmas (others may work faster, but I have a pretty good sense of my own pace of work and the amount of time I have available in the next three months).

Another variation, 28 x 56, with a passing siding on the curve. The inner track is 10 inch radius, outer track is 12 inch. A concern here is track spacing on the curved passing track. Most of it is 3 inches, but that may not be enough.

Addendum: Welp, I pulled the trigger on an 0-4-2, so I guess I'm doing this. At the moment I'm leaning toward the 2x4 plan, figuring I can get the track, basic scenery, and a couple of buildings done for the holidays, then move on to building the H.O. shelf layout after the first of the year. I was toying with the idea of hand-laying the track, but I just also ordered a couple of Peco small-radius switches (I'll need at least one more, maybe two or three) so I'm pretty much committed to going the flex track route. The good news is it will only take me a couple of days to get at least the basic loop in place and be able to start running trains.