What's a chainsaw layout?
Someone on Model Railroad Hobbyist (MRH) coined the term 'Chainsaw Layout' to describe a small temporary layout used to build skills on before embarking on the 'main event' layout. A place to make mistakes, hone technique and get something working quickly; and then dispose of it (chainsaw it into garbage bin sized chunks) without emotional loss. Lance Mindheim's No Skills No Problem blog is a great example of the genre.
I haven't laid track for a few years, scenery work even longer. Time for a practice plank. Somewhat following Lance Mindheim's example linked above, I purchased a plank, some timber edging and started construction. Mine is arond 1200mm long by 185 wide. The pine is 19mm thick, the Tasmanian Oak edging 25mm, so a thin piece of 6mm Tassie Oak is glued under the back of the plank to keep it sitting level.
Cheap poster paint was mixed to a grey sludge colour to paint the plank, and an experiment with track underlay was made.
As the image above shows, it's a foam sealing tape, self adhesive on one side, and only 3mm thick. Super easy to cut with a knife or scissors, very easy to apply without wrinkling. The track is glued down with occasional spots of water based craft glue, so if it needs to change or I want to salvage components, a bit of hot water will release the track without damage.
The track plan is simple, a run around and one siding. Total track is two lengths of Peco TT120 flex, and three Peco TT120 turnouts. I'm keeping the HOm/HOn3.5 track for the real layout.
To run as an Inglenook, the run around is used as two sidings, each holding 3 wagons between clearance limits. The longer siding holds a bit over 5 wagons, the headshunt 3 and a long loco. I have been generous with sizing as the current stock is very short, and longer locos and stock will be built in the fullness of time. Chicago Fork is a mini-nook, condensed down to a 3-2-2 formula, with 2+loco headshunt length. This is a full size/traditional Inglenook, 5-3-3 with 3+loco capacity. The run around facility is just for fun, since the plank was a foot longer than needed.
The photo above shows all the rollingstock available, as well as a new purchase: A Hornby TT12 Class 08 Gronk. It runs like a charm with a 9V battery for track power, nothing technical about this control system so far!
A problem now arises: I don't have enough rollingstock (8 wagons+loco required); and of the rollingstock I have, there were three coupling types fitted, with at most three wagons with matching couplers. Further, one of the wagons won't couple up to other matching coupler wagons due to the couplers being too short for the buffers! Oh, and the TT120 couplers on the grey wagon and Gronk are a prick to uncouple by hand.
So here's my challenge. One wagon per week, to operational level. That means wheels corrected for gauging, couplers fitted at correct height, wagon painted appropriately (albeit without decals on new builds) and two wagons will need to be completely built from scratch.
The delightfully smooth Gronk will hopefully wear a TGR Drewry V class shunter body and appropriate couplers when my 3D printer decides to print properly too.
Tune in for rollingstock updates!
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