1:38 Scale Layout Construction Progress

[Aaron]

This is a thread documenting the construction progress of my layout.

I had previously built a layout in my basement that I ended up having to tear down in order to proceed with renovations, so I decided to move it into an unused room upstairs. Here's what it looked like prior to being dismantled:

There was a lot of experimentation going on with different ballast designs, and unfinished landscape, as I was in the gradual process of replacing all of my 4 x 4 green plates with 16 x 16 dark tan plates. Due to financial constraints, I had to throw all of my resources at having a complete circuit of track, which translated to a lot of unfilled space on the tables. Since my old layout had a chaotic mix of 16 x 16, 16 x 32, and 32 x 32 MILS baseplates, it also took forever to set up and tear down. I decided that I'd take it all apart and start over from scratch, this time using 48 x 48 baseplates.

I started by assembling 7 30" x 60" folding tables, then laid down 8 48 x 48 XL baseplates per table, for a total of 56. Then, I built them up as MILS modules, and covered them with as many 16 x 16 dark tan plates as I had, which ended up being enough for about 1/4 of the layout.

 

Since it's a smaller space, the layout has to be more compact, and there's less straight track overall, but it's more than enough to be able to test out a lot of the concepts and experiments that I have planned. The curves will be an outer loop of R152, and an inner loop of R136. There are 10 sections of straight track per side, with enough room to expand to 12 in the future if I make table extensions. Most of the straight sections are to be occupied by crossovers and switches that lead into sidings and industrial spurs. I have yet to decide which supplier to go with for the curves, but before I even get to that, I need to finish filling in the rest of the layout with dark tan 16 x 16 plates.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Aaron

[Shiva]

ohh, nice!

More closeups of the trains, wouldb be very nice. + the track bed.

[Man with a hat]

Oh wow. I am getting really jealous now.

[Feuer Zug]

Good start to your new layout. Changing to a single size for modules does help with future expansion and moves. Keep up informed on your progress.

[zephyr1934]

Well that's a modest project (grin), but I bet it will look fantastic when its complete (well, no model railroad is ever "complete" but you know what I mean).

I do hope you are able to put in a temporary loop of unfinished track so that you can run trains while building the rest of the layout.

[Aaron]

Got everything I need now. More pictures of the track and rolling stock will come later. Time to get to work!

 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Aaron

[higgins91]

great project! a lot of work ahead.

Maybe you should hide your contact details in the photos ;)

[Aaron]

3 hours ago, higgins91 said:

great project! a lot of work ahead.

Maybe you should hide your contact details in the photos ;)

Yes.

I should be on track to finishing all of the MILS modules sometime later today. After that will come the curved track segments.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Aaron

[Aaron]

All the 16x16 plates are in place now. I left out a section at the far end where I'm going to put a slight grade change that goes into a section of a lake. Also, some of the tables have a 1 plate height difference for some reason, so l need to figure out a way to level them out before I can connect everything with Technic pins.

 

On the track side of things, I've been experimenting with my own custom 3D printed designs.

Here's a little something I whipped up in Fusion 360:

 

Here they are in printed form, with code 100 HO rail inserted into the grooves:

 

I went with a PLA filament that closely matches Lego's dark bluish grey. In the future I might print these in ABS, but for now this is good enough for my own personal use.

Here's a comparison between my old ballast design using standard 9V track, vs my new design:

 

The skeletal design of my track makes it easier to do light bluish grey ballast without having to cover up the dark grey parts of the track. While that problem was initially solved with ME Models track, I always preferred the thinner profile of Lego 9V and PF track. I wanted something that was the best of both worlds, and designed specifically with ballasting in mind. Since the track sections are being directly attached to MILS modules, I didn't feel the need to design connectors just yet. Eventually I'll design my own 2x8 connector plates, but for now I can just reuse some of my leftover ME Models connectors wherever needed. Eventually, though, I plan to do away with the connectors entirely and use this new track design for the entire layout.

For the curves, I was initially going to go with either TrixBrix or FX Bricks R136 and R152, but now I think I'll actually just print my own. I think I may be on to something here...

Edited September 28, 2023 by Aaron

[Shiva]

Regarding the height adjustments, maybe Stick-on floor protectors for the table legs?

[zephyr1934]

On 9/28/2023 at 5:49 PM, Aaron said:

For the curves, I was initially going to go with either TrixBrix or FX Bricks R136 and R152, but now I think I'll actually just print my own. I think I may be on to something here...

I believe that's what they do at BTD.

In terms of your new track, a couple of things you might want to be cautious of. Before Bricktracks and then FX Tracks, Big Ben Bricks prototyped a wide radius track system that did not go into production. It had rails separate from the ties/sleepers and I believe they encountered problems with the rails separating over time. If you stick with the rails separate from the ties (or some other lateral connection) you might want to stress test it to make sure you have enough clutch. Maybe you could do every 2nd 1x tie 3D printed for the lateral reinforcement?

Meanwhile, before BBB there were the ME Model wide radius curves. They had many problems, but the most relevant here is that their 9v rails did not make good electrical contact at the joints. So that is also something you will want to test to make sure it works with your design. And no matter what, the fewer joints generally the less power loss (that remains true even with FX Track)

[Aaron]

On 9/30/2023 at 11:28 PM, zephyr1934 said:

I believe that's what they do at BTD.

In terms of your new track, a couple of things you might want to be cautious of. Before Bricktracks and then FX Tracks, Big Ben Bricks prototyped a wide radius track system that did not go into production. It had rails separate from the ties/sleepers and I believe they encountered problems with the rails separating over time. If you stick with the rails separate from the ties (or some other lateral connection) you might want to stress test it to make sure you have enough clutch. Maybe you could do every 2nd 1x tie 3D printed for the lateral reinforcement?

Meanwhile, before BBB there were the ME Model wide radius curves. They had many problems, but the most relevant here is that their 9v rails did not make good electrical contact at the joints. So that is also something you will want to test to make sure it works with your design. And no matter what, the fewer joints generally the less power loss (that remains true even with FX Track)

 

The problem with ME Models track was that the tolerances were way off. I don't know who they hired to do their calculations, but they failed to take into consideration that with longer pieces, you have to actually reduce the clutch power in order to prevent warping. I was an early backer of their Kickstarter, and despite the delays and setbacks, had high hopes for them. In the end I got hundreds of pieces of track, including my first loop of R104 and R88 curves, but every single one of them was warped to hell and back.

 

I had never intended on using them with their default 2x8 plate ties, but instead used this ballast design:

 

While they were functional, I still had to use glue on nearly every curved track segment. Even then, there was a lot of popping and crackling in the plates as the trains moved across the tracks. I knew that it wasn't a matter of the rails being too loose, but rather too tight and warped. if the rails would have just been flat with the proper tolerances to begin with, this wouldn't have been an issue.

 

Eventually, I ended up replacing my ME Models R104 and R88 curves with Brick Tracks R120 and R104 curves:

 

These proved to be more solid and reliable than the ME Models track design, and I used them up until I got my new house with a larger, expanded basement layout. I then replaced the Brick Tracks curves with a full loop of 9V R120 and R104 BTD curves. I also had a quarter loop of R216 and R200 curves that I tested out, but since I moved my layout from the basement to an upstairs room, I no longer have the space for that, and decided to go with R152 and R136 for this new setup.

I had actually been contemplating designing my own track for years now, and what I came up with was the result of having tested and used track from every manufacturer out there. I always thought the ME Models track was great in concept, but poorly executed, and wondered what it would be like to take that concept and correct on its flaws. Right off the bat I knew I'd have to correct the warping and clutch power issues. The nice thing about 3D printers is that I could rapid prototype my track design, making adjustments as small as 0.005 MM with each succeeding version until the tolerances were just right. The result is something that isn't too tight, but isn't too loose either.

 

Here's a side profile comparison between a 32L straight segment of ME Models track vs a 32L straight segment of my track:

 

Overhead comparison, with ME Models rails on the left and my rails on the right:

 

Over time I learned the importance of reducing clutch power while building, and came to appreciate the way Lego sets are designed using gaps, tiles, and spacing in order to reduce clutch power. In the end, it actually contributes to a more sturdy build, and this is something I also took into account with my MILS module construction. With these rails, having that space between each tie helps to give it enough slack so that stays level while maintaining just the right amount of clutch power across the entire piece. From the very beginning I intended these to be strictly for ballasting, and not to be used with the vanilla 2x8 plates as crossties. Lateral forces around curves segments would only be problematic if these were to be used that way, with just 2x8 plates, but that's just not what I had in mind with these. Curves and switches will have their own dedicated ballast plates, with tolerances adjusted to compensate for lateral forces.

Filing the metal rails is a tedious, time consuming process that doesn't always produce clean results. It's a skill that takes patience and experience to get it right, and my first few pieces were a total disaster. But you learn what to do and what not to do along the way, and each succeeding rail will become more flush and smooth. While the ME Models metal rails were a disaster, the BTD ones work just fine, so I approached my metal rails with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. The nice thing about having my own rails is that I can make constant, gradual refinements as needed, and create any track geometry I want, including curved turnouts and things that aren't available from anyone on the market. I also want to make my designs open source, and enable anyone with a 3D printer to be able to print them. Print times are also significantly reduced compared to the bulkier 9V/PF Lego style track, which means that there's less opportunity for things to go wrong while printing them, and less post-cleanup needed afterward. They're also an aesthetic improvement over everything else out there, eliminating the awkward gaps between rails and ties on 9V/PF track, and having a thinner, more prototypical profile than the ME Models rails. Early on I contemplated making the rails more "rail shaped" and adding small details such as spikes, but I abandoned those ideas as I felt that they'd stray too far from making these look like legitimate Lego elements. I wanted to strike a perfect balance between real world aesthetics and Lego aesthetics, if that makes sense.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Aaron

[Shiva]

Looks nice!

[zephyr1934]

Excellent, it sounds like you are among the top 10 experts of lego track! (sadly, probably no one at lego is in that league). And you have the resources + skills to address just about any issue that comes up. I'm looking forward to seeing how your layout evolves.

Meanwhile, another thought for you, perhaps BTD would be interested in marketing printed versions of your new track designs.

[CarloDavis]

On 9/11/2023 at 12:23 AM, Aaron said:

This is a thread documenting the construction progress of my layout.

I had previously built a layout in my basement that I ended up having to tear down in order to proceed with renovations, so I decided to move it into an unused room upstairs. Here's what it looked like prior to being dismantled:

There was a lot of experimentation going on with different ballast designs, and unfinished landscape, as I was in the gradual process of replacing all of my 4 x 4 green plates with 16 x 16 dark tan plates. Due to financial constraints, I had to throw all of my resources at having a complete circuit of track, which translated to a lot of unfilled space on the tables. Since my old layout had a chaotic mix of 16 x 16, 16 x 32, and 32 x 32 MILS baseplates, it also took forever to set up and tear down. I decided that I'd take it all apart and start over from scratch, this time using 48 x 48 baseplates.

I started by assembling 7 30" x 60" folding tables, then laid down 8 48 x 48 XL baseplates per table, for a total of 56. Then, I built them up as MILS modules, and covered them with as many 16 x 16 dark tan plates as I had, which ended up being enough for about 1/4 of the layout.

 

Since it's a smaller space, the layout has to be more compact, and there's less straight track overall, but it's more than enough to be able to test out a lot of the concepts and experiments that I have planned. The curves will be an outer loop of R152, and an inner loop of R136. There are 10 sections of straight track per side, with enough room to expand to 12 in the future if I make table extensions. Most of the straight sections are to be occupied by crossovers and switches that lead into sidings and industrial spurs. I have yet to decide which supplier to go with for the curves, but before I even get to that, I need to finish filling in the rest of the layout with dark tan 16 x 16 plates.

Building or remodeling anything, whether it's a big LEGO layout or an actual space in your home, takes a lot of planning and the right materials. When I was working on some home renovation projects, I realized how important it is to choose the right company, especially for bathrooms where quality really matters. After doing some digging, I found that reading luxury bath reviews gave me a better idea of what to expect in terms of materials and installation. It saved me from a few costly mistakes, and the end result was way better than I had imagined. Definitely worth checking out before starting a big project!

Edited October 18, 2024 by CarloDavis