The main feature of this model railroad is that it consists of two separate and independent track loops, laid out in a split-level. The two track loops are on separate controllers, enabling independent control of the trains on each track.
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| Overview of The Sunny Model Railroad in its earlier stage. There is still much left to be done! |
I got this brilliant idea from a Japanese N scale train magazine DVD that illustrated this concept so perfectly-- talk about squeezing maximum train action into a minimum amount of space!
I initially set up my little single loop and sidings on a temporary, unbraced 6' by 3' piece of plywood that I place on top of a couple of cardboard boxes. Considering the size of the room that was about the maximum amount of real estate I had to work with! And there wasn't much HO scale track one could fit onto that.
Frustrated, I all but left my little layout largely abandoned in the back room. Peering in to the room now and then, I lamented having spent several hundred dollars on tracks and trains just to see them lay there on the bare baseboard. I didn't even bother to attempt any landscaping or scenery.
And then came the turning point.
Before a gig -- I'm a musician playing at a local blues-rock club -- I was browsing at a Kinokuniya bookstore when I spied, on a solitary display rack, a magazine and DVD pack about N scale model trains -- in Japanese!
Bearing in mind, that at this point, I had more or less lost all interest in the hobby.
On impulse, I bought the magazine anyway, telling myself that since it came with a DVD it must be worth the 40 bucks. Right?
Let me just say, it was the best $40 I could have spent on this hobby!
Now, I had done my fair share of research on the internet -- several hundred hours worth -- and bought many issues of every US and UK model train magazine publication I could find. I was hungry for layout and scenery ideas and track designs for small spaces. I wanted to know how to create realistic looking rock-faces and mountains. Some of the information was good but most of it was useable only if you had some 20 square feet of space to dedicate to a model railway.
And I found answers to every one of my burning questions in that little Japanese mag -- and then some!
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| The Japanese model railroad magazine in question. If you can find it, buy it! |
The DVD that came with the magazine became my regular late night viewing before bed. I watched it several times over, browsing through the various chapters, remembering what I had watched the night before, and going back to it the next night to watch it again. I learned something new every time I put that DVD on -- that's how much of a revelation it was!
Starting with a bare 6' by 3' board, the two Japanese men hosting the show brought me from a single loop with one siding on a bare plywood baseboard to designing a split level layout that incorporated tunnels and bridges with realistic looking rocks, mountains and trees.
And to this day, I don't even know the title of the magazine because it's in Japanese!
Needless to say my enthusiasm and imagination were piqued. Within two weeks I had laid the foundation for what you see today -- split-level track design, landscaping and scenery.
This was my very first attempt at landscaping a model railroad, so if you like what you see, bear in mind that you can do it too!
