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Having taken down my old track a few months ago, I am settling in on something a little more more extensive as a replacement. Having been inspired by so much great work posted on the board, I think I'm just about ready to get started. This will be built from all the Artin track I have accumulated, including most of the borders, which are not shown in the diagram. The track will have the seams filled and will be painted as well, with copper tape applied over the rails. The room space I have to work with is about 12' across and 10' deep.
This new track will be known as the Schweizering - set in the alps - and has three distinct parts. At the right, the track heads up a hill and through a barbican city gate (inspired to a degree by L. Cerante's beautiful example) into a Swiss town dating from the medieval era. Through the town, it heads back through a turn and down to run below the ancient city walls, then under the bridge at the barbican and around toward the new portion of the track, located at the rear of the layout. In contrast to the city, this portion will be very modern in appearance, anchored by a large pit/grandstand/tower structure. Working pits would be nice - but I'd have to route-and-rig something from scratch, and I'm just not ready for that right now.
The left side of the track will be more open space, with trees and where the alpine terrain is more in evidence - with a short tunnel and some substantial rock work. This portion will gradually rise up a foot or more toward the "esses" at the bottom of the diagram, then back down toward the center of the "U" - across the table and then back up into the city again. On the hilly (left) side, I am also tempted to model a cable-car and platforms - running up to the high end of the track. It will probably be a static example, though, since I haven't figured out the rigging yet - and unless I had it on a delay and timer, would probably be too distracting going back-and-forth very often.
Rather than try and place drivers at the inside of the "U" where they would just block each others' view, I decided just to "hang" the drivers station and the control PC from a steel support pole (already there) placed back far enough to give a good view of the track while still allowing drivers to move forward for marshalling. I'll run the cabling and wire-work either up and down across the ceiling or in a cable channel across the floor. The monitors for race control will be mounted just under the track surface, at the bottom of the "U" - and tilted slightly upwards - where I think they will fall into the drivers view a little better than if I was to hang them from the ceiling.
I'm sure during the course of this project I'll have a lot of questions - and any advice is welcome. Many of the tracks here certainly set a high standard, and it will be fun to see how this turns out. Of course, I could have fit a little more track in the space, but I wanted plenty of room for scenery. I know I'll need help with the lap timing and other technical aspects, such as wiring - I had run this 2-lane setup before with the big 4-lane Artin power pack and Parma 25-ohm controllers, but will probably upgrade to something more robust this time around.
Here is kinda what I'm thinking for the city's Barbican Gate....
Most of my cars are LeMans, GT and other endurance types. Of course, The Schweizering is all a fantasy track, since last I read, they still don't allow auto racing in Switzerland...
This new track will be known as the Schweizering - set in the alps - and has three distinct parts. At the right, the track heads up a hill and through a barbican city gate (inspired to a degree by L. Cerante's beautiful example) into a Swiss town dating from the medieval era. Through the town, it heads back through a turn and down to run below the ancient city walls, then under the bridge at the barbican and around toward the new portion of the track, located at the rear of the layout. In contrast to the city, this portion will be very modern in appearance, anchored by a large pit/grandstand/tower structure. Working pits would be nice - but I'd have to route-and-rig something from scratch, and I'm just not ready for that right now.
The left side of the track will be more open space, with trees and where the alpine terrain is more in evidence - with a short tunnel and some substantial rock work. This portion will gradually rise up a foot or more toward the "esses" at the bottom of the diagram, then back down toward the center of the "U" - across the table and then back up into the city again. On the hilly (left) side, I am also tempted to model a cable-car and platforms - running up to the high end of the track. It will probably be a static example, though, since I haven't figured out the rigging yet - and unless I had it on a delay and timer, would probably be too distracting going back-and-forth very often.
Rather than try and place drivers at the inside of the "U" where they would just block each others' view, I decided just to "hang" the drivers station and the control PC from a steel support pole (already there) placed back far enough to give a good view of the track while still allowing drivers to move forward for marshalling. I'll run the cabling and wire-work either up and down across the ceiling or in a cable channel across the floor. The monitors for race control will be mounted just under the track surface, at the bottom of the "U" - and tilted slightly upwards - where I think they will fall into the drivers view a little better than if I was to hang them from the ceiling.
I'm sure during the course of this project I'll have a lot of questions - and any advice is welcome. Many of the tracks here certainly set a high standard, and it will be fun to see how this turns out. Of course, I could have fit a little more track in the space, but I wanted plenty of room for scenery. I know I'll need help with the lap timing and other technical aspects, such as wiring - I had run this 2-lane setup before with the big 4-lane Artin power pack and Parma 25-ohm controllers, but will probably upgrade to something more robust this time around.

Here is kinda what I'm thinking for the city's Barbican Gate....

Most of my cars are LeMans, GT and other endurance types. Of course, The Schweizering is all a fantasy track, since last I read, they still don't allow auto racing in Switzerland...
