# My train and house project.



## jabbott (Nov 30, 2014)

I live in a big old three story house. The upper story was partially remodeled. I have sheet rocked it and am getting ready to paint and finish it. A couple of bed rooms and a living room / office. The original plan was to make it sort of a mother-in-law apartment but until that time and maybe the rest of the time we are in this house we will use it as a master bedroom suite. So pretty low traffic.

I got The Wife's ok to build in a train as long as it isn't "too obtrusive" so I have a very basic plan now and I have been building the deck.

The space is 30x42. I have the deck built all around. I am very close to having a major milestone to have one of the bedrooms more or less finished. I will be able to put down the wood floors, box beams and trim. Then the whole place will be able to be cleaned up and I will shoot a new set of pictures. Maybe over Christmas vacation.

The layout will basically be three loops. I want to be able to set it up to continuous run but have a few sidings and a switching area with a small town. I work in IT so I plan on doing lots of stuff with occupancy detection and automation.

The outside loop will be the Empire Builder line. The middle loop will be Wisconsin Central. The inner loop will be broken up. Made up of a couple of dog bone reversing loops, each covering about half of the layout.

The first picture is the kitchen. It is plumbed for water and drain. We won't ever put a kitchen in but still that is what we call it. The deck here and in the living room (picture later) is ten inches wide.

Next is The Wife's closet. Yes she likes pink. This is the northwest corner of the house. The gabel end wall will have a deck above the one I have built. That will be her dressing table, all made out of walnut. Down below will be a shoe rack. Between the train deck and the dressing table the front will be glass to protect the trains. This and back into the corner will be a red light district. A couple of strip clubs and a motorcycle repair shop. On the deck on the north wall it is 15-1/2 wide and might be a couple of sidings to some industries. 

Then the big bedroom This is where the box beams will go on the ceiling. The train running through this area will look more like a museum piece than a real layout. The rails will be inset into Walnut plywood. The outside loop might even be elevated on 3/4 walnut. It will just be trains running on polished wood in this section.

I guess I didn't take a picture of where it goes next. My closet in the south west corner of the house. Not much there yet. I don't have the deck built at all yet. The deck here will be wider, maybe two feet. This will also be the reversing loop for the either street car or short steam driven tourist train (haven't decided yet.) that wraps around the north side of the house. Anyway, there will be about a 40" circular deck in the corner for the reversing loop. Underneath it will be a shoe lazy-susan. I will put my three pairs of shoes on it and then slowly over the years my wife will take it over. Anyway there will be a beer distribution company here and a lumber yard. Also I suspect this is where I will need to put a booster. More about that later.

Next into the bathroom. The outside will be the empire builder. The inside will be a long stretch of gauntlet track. Someday I hope to drop a Jacuzzi whirl pool tub in the deck under the rail deck. --I buy one of those lottery tickets every week. I already own the intermodle deep well car. I have set it up with a styrene top that has two holes cut for shot glasses. I have dreams of a special train pulling in to deliver shots of Jameson to me in the tub!

Next picture is more bathroom. Not much to see here. The room is plumbed and wired for a set of apartment sized washer/dryer. If those ever go in you won't be able to see the train here any more. This goes back to ten inch deck. Likely it will have some buildings or something here too with a siding.

The main room. Too much junk in here to even get a good picture. The deck over on the side where you can see the yellow panel is about 24" wide. It has a gas fireplace and the Empire Builder station will be in between the mantle and the fireplace. It might be glass or oriental panel fronted so you will look through something to see the station. 

The guest bedroom. This deck is currently 5ft wide. I could imagine someday taking over this room completely with a rail town. (Uh, lets keep that plan between you and me though…) Here there will be a switching yard and small town with a brewery and a saw mill just like the town I live in.

I have already purchased the NCE DCC system. I think I will put the command station under the north east corner where the town/switch yard is. I will put a booster under the south west corner in my closet. Do you think that will be enough? That would make the DCC runs about 36 feet in each direction from the source.

Other details:

From what I have read I am going to want to setup Digitrax for the detection and signaling? 

I am looking at California Roadbed, milled homasote.

I am thinking about investing in some Fast Track templates to build most of my yard switches anyway.

As I think of more stuff I will update and add to this thread.


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## midlifekrisiz (Jan 29, 2013)

wow thats alot of work...looking good


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

You may want to consider either wireless hand held
controllers, or alternately, jacks placed at various
points along your layout which you can plug in
wired hand held controllers.

I note you will have a dogbone with reversing loops
at each end. You'll need 2 reverse loop controllers
for those. You might think of some sort of sensing
so the train would throw the turnouts so you can
have continuous running on the dogbone. Another
possibility is spring turnouts with points that
are pushed aside by the train wheels. Some cars
may not negotiate these every time tho.

Don


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## trackconnector (Oct 16, 2014)

I love the fact you are remodeling your house around your trains. Thats awesome. Great pics, thanks for sharing.


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## Model Train Structures (Oct 10, 2013)

It looks like you're off to a great start on your train room/area. I look forward to seeing the progress.

D.A.


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## jabbott (Nov 30, 2014)

A little bit of progress over last weekend. I got the deck installed in my closet. Just to give some dimensions the wider deck to the left of the round-about is 24" to the right 16". The reversing loop itself is 39 inches diameter.

I was able to borrow an angle drilling attachment from my neighbor so I got all the decks drilled to accept the screws that attach them to the bracket. The angle driller was pretty cool except for the fact that when the drill is stopped and you release its handle, it is free to quickly rotate to heavy side down. …breaking the drill bit as it hits the floor below. …Twice. Damn. 

I also finished sheet rocking the bathroom so now I only have two remaining sheets to apply and all the rock is up. Whew! Still lots of taping to do but just having the rock on the walls will feel really like the project might be done some day. I estimate about 120 sheets of 4x8 5/8" came up the two flights of stairs.

The brackets are custom made from the local welding shop. I drew it all out in Adobe Illustrator and took him the plan and a few weeks later I had my brackets. He did a great job and I only found one that was out of square. Kind of funny, everyone in town complains about this guy. But he is the only welding shop in the area. A few years back he got behind on his taxes and had to shut down. A bunch of people took up a collection to pay his back tax. The city forgave a little and they got him opened back up. He is slow though. People say he takes months to get something done. Every time I drop something off or pick something up I take him a case of beer. …whadda-ya know, he gets to my stuff pretty quick!  

My question though, what do you think of my thoughts about the DCC booster? I thought I had heard it is best to keep the total runs to 50' and to put the booster between two 25' runs. I read that if your runs are longer you pickup to much radio frequency interference and the dcc packets get corrupt. Is that fairly hard/fast rule or more of a guideline? Or not something to worry about at all? If it isn't going to work out I need to get another booster budgeted in and ordered.


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## lajrmdlr (Apr 25, 2014)

jabbot
If you don't have a layout plan yet, there's a gazillion plans on the internet & ones already posted on this & other MR forums. You can use whatever parameters you want in your search. 
If you haven't bought your DCC system yet, recommend you try out as many different ones as you can at your LHS & local club/home layouts to get a hands on feel for the different throttles. And each DCC system has their own Yahoo Group forum. Read those to see which DCC systems have the most problems. Some have way more than others. The two important things to look for are ease of use & customer support.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Jabbot

As to your question regarding long lengths of
buss wire for DCC there is an expert on another
site that can guide you. In addition to length
limits there are recommended 'snubbers' that
are used at the end of long DCC buss runs.

Here is a a recommended site for large DCC layouts.

https://www.google.com/search?q=wir...la:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

Don


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## Mr.Buchholz (Dec 30, 2011)

So this train will be passing through all of the rooms on this level? Are you also going to have a room in which the yard resides? My curiosity is piqued here.

-J.


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## Model Train Structures (Oct 10, 2013)

Mr.Buchholz said:


> So this train will be passing through all of the rooms on this level? Are you also going to have a room in which the yard resides? My curiosity is piqued here.
> 
> -J.



I'm with Mr.B as far as wondering if the train will be going in/out of the various rooms on the level? This is going to be a really neat and interesting layout. When I saw that hole cut through the John made me laugh.

D.A.


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## Brian (Jan 22, 2014)

Just curious, whats your wife's definition of "not too obtrusive"?? you are going thru every room/wall in the place!!! BTW, I love what you are doing
Brian


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## hannamet (Dec 1, 2012)

Jobbott, sounds like you have a rapt audience here. We all want to see where this thing goes! You gotta do a rail cam some day once it's up and running. We're all envious.


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## oldmerc (May 12, 2014)

I think you need some peninsulas protruding into the rooms for things like switching , big mountains, roundhouses and train yards farms,towns,minning the possibilities are endless.


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## raleets (Jan 2, 2011)

You may consider buying or building another house next door, then using this one strictly for the train layout!  :appl:


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## jabbott (Nov 30, 2014)

Here is an update of how the project has progressed. Most of the changes have been to the living space, not the rolling space. But, you seem interested in that as well. 

The week after Christmas I took off and was able to get the walnut flooring installed. It went really smooth. I had picked up the wood from the Amish sawmill this spring and had it sitting up there so it had lots of time to acclimate to the house. This is my first time to put down Amish cut flooring and I have to say it was a breeze. First of all, it is walnut which is quite a bit softer than oak. The main thing though, the boards are cut neigh on to perfect. I took some measurements every so often checking to make sure I didn't get out of square as I moved across the room. I never adjusted anything and I was less than a quarter of an inch off across a sixteen foot room. A totally different experience from laying Johnny Menard flooring a few years ago where you are constantly having to shim it. ...Stuff was so crooked and tapered, I could have built a round house.

I have the foam cut for the reversing loop in my closet. I am using Woodland Scenic 4% grade for this because I have to get the grade dropped down as quick as I can. The other two loops have to pass over this loop and then they have to get back down to grade level as they pass out of this room heading into the bathroom. Here I will also put a few rail destination spots. Lumber yard, tank industry, etc.

In the bedroom I got the deck cut for the train passing in front of the window. The outside rail will be elevated 1” the middle rails 1/2” and the inner rails will be at grade. All of the track will be glued directly to the walnut, giving it sort of a museum look.

I don't really have a layout plan yet. But I do have some things I want. The reversing loop is one, the minimally switched outer loop and gauntlet track through the bathroom. Very soon though I am going to have to come up with a full track plan.

Last spring I purchased a wireless Power Pro NCC system. I think I will need a couple of boosters now after what I have read about buss wire lengths. 

I have to build The Wife's shoe/boot rack in her closet, then I will be able to complete the deck there.

To answer some questions, yes the railroad will pass through every room on this level. I think in our house “not to obtrusive” is defined by “within 10 inches of the outer wall in most rooms” and so protruding peninsulas are definitely out.  The only exception is in photo number seven of the starting post. This is where I will want to have a switching yard and several industries. 

So has anyone here used California Roadbed?


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