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Geez! That is stunning!!!
Thib's Track
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Thib,
That is an awesome track. Folks, don't think he is bragging, he's just DANG happy to have what he's got. That will be one ICREDIBLE project! This is what a basement is made for!!
Awesome! I wonder where driver stations will be...
-M
That is an awesome track. Folks, don't think he is bragging, he's just DANG happy to have what he's got. That will be one ICREDIBLE project! This is what a basement is made for!!
Awesome! I wonder where driver stations will be...
-M
Hey, thanks a lot guys.
Spa - you know you're welcome to pop in any time!
1Eye101 - Although I tend to tinker with it, I do have a lot of the scenic elements pretty well thought out - bridge here, mountains there, etc. There is no location that I know of that has all of the types of things I'm throwing in so what I don't have (and wish I did) is the general location of this little fantasy land.
Maltese - The drivers will be in the lower right hand corner. It should be comfortable for 4 which is the max for Pro-X. If I end up with Digital132 the max would go up to 6, which I think would be a bit tight.
See ya,
Pete
Spa - you know you're welcome to pop in any time!
1Eye101 - Although I tend to tinker with it, I do have a lot of the scenic elements pretty well thought out - bridge here, mountains there, etc. There is no location that I know of that has all of the types of things I'm throwing in so what I don't have (and wish I did) is the general location of this little fantasy land.
Maltese - The drivers will be in the lower right hand corner. It should be comfortable for 4 which is the max for Pro-X. If I end up with Digital132 the max would go up to 6, which I think would be a bit tight.
See ya,
Pete
QUOTE (thib @ 8 Mar 2007, 18:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Actually I do like Pro-X - it's just the thought of re-purchasing all of the lane changers to upgrade that has me a little miffed.
Pete
Pete, have you thought about doing a routed digital? Given all that beautiful benchwork, somehow I suspect you'll eventually be disappointed that you didn't do a routed track. I know that this is the one regret that I have with my own track... Bill
Pete
Pete, have you thought about doing a routed digital? Given all that beautiful benchwork, somehow I suspect you'll eventually be disappointed that you didn't do a routed track. I know that this is the one regret that I have with my own track... Bill
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In the model rr world this is a very large layout(generally club size and maintained by 8+ members)...Chances are your maintenance will not be near this as a model rr has some very meticulous things that a slot track does not.....then again, maybe there is more in common than at first glance...Example, we now have turnouts (lane changers) They do not last forever and will require maintenance or replacement I can gaurantee it!! I can tell you from experience the things that will be required in maintenance although not necessarily on a daily basis. Nuch depends on your individual situation.
#1 - basic dust accumulation - Mini vacuum attachments are helpful here
#2 - Scenery repair (nature of the game when fast cars leave the track
#3 - lane changers - in a perfect world these would last forever.......can you find me a perfect world?
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(consider buying some spares now to have on hand. Lane changers may be able to be repaired at the bench, but a spare will keep a race weekend from being ruined)
#4 - cleaning rail - how many feet of track was that?? 200+ x 2 lanes......Thats a football field and a third o rub clean before the big race!!
#5 - changing the light bulbs.......If you have lights, you will replace bulbs here and there
There are a hundred other little jobs to be done around a layout and they all add up.
Owning a Big layout is no differant than Owning a BIG House.....The Bigger the house, the larger the cleaning staff
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Now add to this maintaining your fleet of cars and you begin to see what I mean.........granted, it may not be as large a job as a model rr..........But, you are not 8 guys either
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I still want to see you build this though, and I'll bet when its finished, you will find help from those who want to race on it..........If you cant get it outa their wallets, Maybe you can get it in maintenance labor
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QUOTE (thib @ 20 Dec 2006, 12:54) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi Tileguy,
Thanks for the well wishes.
I'm a little puzzled by your maintenance projection/warning though. 30 hours a week - that's well over 4 hours + a day. I don't know diddly about maintaining a railroad but I can't imagine anything even remotely close to that being neccessary for basic maintenance of this layout.
Please clue me in.
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#1 - basic dust accumulation - Mini vacuum attachments are helpful here
#2 - Scenery repair (nature of the game when fast cars leave the track
#3 - lane changers - in a perfect world these would last forever.......can you find me a perfect world?
#4 - cleaning rail - how many feet of track was that?? 200+ x 2 lanes......Thats a football field and a third o rub clean before the big race!!
#5 - changing the light bulbs.......If you have lights, you will replace bulbs here and there
There are a hundred other little jobs to be done around a layout and they all add up.
Owning a Big layout is no differant than Owning a BIG House.....The Bigger the house, the larger the cleaning staff
Now add to this maintaining your fleet of cars and you begin to see what I mean.........granted, it may not be as large a job as a model rr..........But, you are not 8 guys either
I still want to see you build this though, and I'll bet when its finished, you will find help from those who want to race on it..........If you cant get it outa their wallets, Maybe you can get it in maintenance labor
QUOTE (thib @ 20 Dec 2006, 12:54) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi Tileguy,
Thanks for the well wishes.
I'm a little puzzled by your maintenance projection/warning though. 30 hours a week - that's well over 4 hours + a day. I don't know diddly about maintaining a railroad but I can't imagine anything even remotely close to that being neccessary for basic maintenance of this layout.
Please clue me in.
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Thib,
It looks like we are guaranteed months of entertainment if you keep us informed of your progress on the track, and I have to thank you for that. I am sure I'll learn a lot from it as I plan my own new track - which is tiny by comparison.
One tiny caveat though - the track design seems that most of the corners are of a constant radius. It might be more of a driver's challenge if you mixed it up with more unorthodox bends that opened out or tightened up, or had a double apex. But that's just my personal preference - I am sure it will be really entertaining to drive and I look forward to seeing it used in anger!
David
It looks like we are guaranteed months of entertainment if you keep us informed of your progress on the track, and I have to thank you for that. I am sure I'll learn a lot from it as I plan my own new track - which is tiny by comparison.
One tiny caveat though - the track design seems that most of the corners are of a constant radius. It might be more of a driver's challenge if you mixed it up with more unorthodox bends that opened out or tightened up, or had a double apex. But that's just my personal preference - I am sure it will be really entertaining to drive and I look forward to seeing it used in anger!
David
Hi Bill - The answer to your question is that I have not given routing this track a whole lot of thought, which is principally due to my not knowing a whole lot about the benefits of a routed track and even less about what it would take to put one together.
This is a timely question though as some of the folks over in the Pro-X forum have been singing the praises of 1/24, which will run with Digital132. This has me scratching my head about borders, which I didn't have much need for with 1:32 scale on Carrera track. Adding Carrera borders and having the "crack" between the track and border doesn't appeal to me, nor does spending a slew money to buy them. With a routed turn, I assume I could just choose the size of the border, cut the wood to size and that would be that.
Just so I understand, what is the benefit of going wood? Pretty much that the smoothness of the track makes for a far better ride? I've heard that the power distribution is better but I've got an awful lot of power taps and I really don't anticipate that being an issue.
While we're at it - how effectively do you think wood and plastic could be combined scenically?
Thanks,
Pete
This is a timely question though as some of the folks over in the Pro-X forum have been singing the praises of 1/24, which will run with Digital132. This has me scratching my head about borders, which I didn't have much need for with 1:32 scale on Carrera track. Adding Carrera borders and having the "crack" between the track and border doesn't appeal to me, nor does spending a slew money to buy them. With a routed turn, I assume I could just choose the size of the border, cut the wood to size and that would be that.
Just so I understand, what is the benefit of going wood? Pretty much that the smoothness of the track makes for a far better ride? I've heard that the power distribution is better but I've got an awful lot of power taps and I really don't anticipate that being an issue.
While we're at it - how effectively do you think wood and plastic could be combined scenically?
Thanks,
Pete
Hi Tileguy - I am sure there will be plenty of maintenance but I'll need something to keep me busy once this track's done right? I did like the one about the maintenance labor
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JustDave - That's a good point. The latest plan does have a couple of non-uniform turns but it's something I will look at. Thanks for the comment!
JustDave - That's a good point. The latest plan does have a couple of non-uniform turns but it's something I will look at. Thanks for the comment!
QUOTE (thib @ 9 Mar 2007, 17:47) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>While we're at it - how effectively do you think wood and plastic could be combined scenically?
Pete
Pete, I think there are several benefits of wood. First, it's much cheaper. Second, it's much smoother. Third, the power conductivity is better. Fourth, there are no design constraints. Fifth, it is much better for a scenic track. Mind you, all this is coming from someone who has never had a wooden track or even driven on one! But I think these benefits are pretty well known (and others might add more). For me, point #5 is the reason that I regret doing my track in plastic. I think it would be slightly more tricky to do a routed digital, but seeing WesR's routed targa convinces me that it isn't overly difficult. His is SSD, but I think Pro-X or the new 132 would be the same concept. Just food for thought.
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Bill
Pete
Pete, I think there are several benefits of wood. First, it's much cheaper. Second, it's much smoother. Third, the power conductivity is better. Fourth, there are no design constraints. Fifth, it is much better for a scenic track. Mind you, all this is coming from someone who has never had a wooden track or even driven on one! But I think these benefits are pretty well known (and others might add more). For me, point #5 is the reason that I regret doing my track in plastic. I think it would be slightly more tricky to do a routed digital, but seeing WesR's routed targa convinces me that it isn't overly difficult. His is SSD, but I think Pro-X or the new 132 would be the same concept. Just food for thought.
Bill
There are other options for improved conductivity on Plastic...Kevin (Zipp) could tell you a bit about the copper tape method.
Ive seen a track somewhere where a small routed section was Mixed in with plastic track to form a Shortcut (looks like it cut a corner through a field LOL).
They did this to help balance out the advantage their design gave to the outside lane.
Cant remember where i saw it, might have been a Portugul site???
Like Bill I know little about Routed track.never built one, never raced on one, in fact i dont think ive ever even seen one In person..............Yes, I really do live in the sticks where Mail comes by Dogsled 6 months a year and covered wagon the rest of the time
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Ive seen a track somewhere where a small routed section was Mixed in with plastic track to form a Shortcut (looks like it cut a corner through a field LOL).
They did this to help balance out the advantage their design gave to the outside lane.
Cant remember where i saw it, might have been a Portugul site???
Like Bill I know little about Routed track.never built one, never raced on one, in fact i dont think ive ever even seen one In person..............Yes, I really do live in the sticks where Mail comes by Dogsled 6 months a year and covered wagon the rest of the time
Bill - I had forgot that track was routed. It certainly did come off nice.
Well, you're right, it is food for thought. I'm going to check into this a bit more.
Tileguy - That track rings a bell with me as well....
Thanks,
Pete
Well, you're right, it is food for thought. I'm going to check into this a bit more.
Tileguy - That track rings a bell with me as well....
Thanks,
Pete
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1,947 Posts
Go wood and miss all that click clack of plastic? I had forgotten how smooth and quiet wood was til I ran on ScotM's a couple weeks ago. I am going to tear mine up as soon as it is warm enuf to play in the garage and go wood. Besides I want to make my table a bit bigger and put it on casters so I can move it a bit.
Next time...If there is a next time, I think for a permanent I would go wood or at least give it very serious thought. I would keep my Plastic for playing around with new layouts .....Something to Perhaps set up Outside on a nice day for some Saturday evening racing fun......In fact, I still may start picking up sport track used if i see a good price just for this reason........Ive got hundreds of feet of HO track, but once youve run 1/32 its almost impossible to go back to the blur of HO........wha......t wa..........s tha................................................t !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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3,430 Posts
Wow thib, I think I have table envy
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It looks like you have plenty of space to play with too.
Your track plan looks amazing, especially with all the scenery you have planned. This is definitely going to be a track to watch. Building in wood has definite advantages as mentioned, I love the way mine runs and there's no way I would go back to Scalextric track now. But Carrera is reputedly the best of the plastic tracks, and incorporating digital into a routed track sounds like a lot of extra work.
Regarding borders, why not make your own form MDF or hardboard? They can be made to join the track smoothly (and by extending the borders you can create a level base for scenery if needed. Take a look at Brad Koronado's track (here, here and here.
Have fun and keep the photos coming
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cheers,
Rob
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Your track plan looks amazing, especially with all the scenery you have planned. This is definitely going to be a track to watch. Building in wood has definite advantages as mentioned, I love the way mine runs and there's no way I would go back to Scalextric track now. But Carrera is reputedly the best of the plastic tracks, and incorporating digital into a routed track sounds like a lot of extra work.
Regarding borders, why not make your own form MDF or hardboard? They can be made to join the track smoothly (and by extending the borders you can create a level base for scenery if needed. Take a look at Brad Koronado's track (here, here and here.
Have fun and keep the photos coming
cheers,
Rob
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65 Posts
The hybrid proposition, mixing wooden track with plastic may very well be the ultimate solution for some of us. We are 6 guys racing regularly on our 110'+ Pro-X Track.
We did not go overboard with scenery yet simply because we like adding and changing parts of the layout every now and then. Plastic allows for quick changes, trials and errors, etc... On such a big track as Thib's, changes are bound to happen quite often in the first 6 months. I see Thib's you already have all the track sections you need so I would keep going with the Carrera tracks and slowly move into wood sections once you are really pleased with an area of your HUGE layout and then start working the scenery of those now permanent areas.
We've been racing our track for more than 3 years now and still modifying it as we go. My dream is definatly a routed track fully integrated in the landscape but hey ! It will come with maturity
;-)
Cheers and good luck to you Thib'S!
Jean
We did not go overboard with scenery yet simply because we like adding and changing parts of the layout every now and then. Plastic allows for quick changes, trials and errors, etc... On such a big track as Thib's, changes are bound to happen quite often in the first 6 months. I see Thib's you already have all the track sections you need so I would keep going with the Carrera tracks and slowly move into wood sections once you are really pleased with an area of your HUGE layout and then start working the scenery of those now permanent areas.
We've been racing our track for more than 3 years now and still modifying it as we go. My dream is definatly a routed track fully integrated in the landscape but hey ! It will come with maturity
;-)
Cheers and good luck to you Thib'S!
Jean
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