Hey Steve it looks great, keep'm coming!

Lookin good Steve. On30 is a good way to go. If I didn't have so much money and time invested in HO, I'de be in On30 in a flash. Would be a lot easier on these old eyes AND they've got the locos etc. that fit my era (1880-1920).

As I often say, Keep on keepin on.

JR

That looks great. I would like to see some close up of your track work, I just love handlaid track, is that C70?, it kind of looks like C55 (if it was in HO), but it looks really great.

Steve,

Thanks for the photos. I really like seeing overall pics as well as close ups. It gives me an idea of how your diorama/module/layout looks.

Is that a Dunkirk? I like it. I am thinking about building one someday.

Paul

WOW looks great!

I like the two levels, great lighting and the track plan is very interesting.

Is it hand laid or what?

looks like a nice collection of locos too.

maybe you shoul sign on in the On30 diarama challenge?...

keep the pics comming! Great job

-Marty

Steve,

I your track plan. I need to come up with a track plan for aprox 8 feet wide by ? feet deep. I want mine to be continuous run. You have just gone through this process. Is 8’ too small for continuous running?

Paul

Thanks again guys,

JR: That’s what I said about HO too, Still have all of my HO stuff, I’m just not doing anything with it any more.

Jrkrista: Next time I’m ready to get some pics I’ll get some close-ups of the track. Anything in particular that you want to see? The turnouts don’t have guardrails yet as I’m going to tune them up without them. The track is ME code 70 on Mt Albert On3 ties with ME small spikes.

Paul: Yup the loco in the background is a BVM Dunkirk. It’s a wonderful kit to put together, with lots of customization possibilities. It uses an Athearn SW7 chassis or you can modify it for a Kato or P2K switcher chassis.

I found that a continuous run can be tricky in 8 ft. If you have room for a 4 x 8 you can run all of the currently available locos on the 18” radius curves. Once you start going down from the 4 ft width, you start loosing the bigger locos, C-16, shay, Dunkirk, mogul. In my 2x 8 space, porters and critters with small rolling stock would have made it. Check the on30guy website for a 3 x 8 continuous run layout. It’s a PDF file. http://gerenm.net/on30/PDF/LittleLayout.pdf

Marty: Thanks, the lower level will be a water area. Nearest the camera in the first pic is the log dump. Right behind the ore cars in the second pic will be a wharf with a ship docked. In the center at the joint between the 2 layout sections is a small dock to hide the joint, and a couple more small boats. Surprisingly the lighting is 2 double fluorescent shop lights and a single incandescent spotlight. It looks a lot better in pictures than it does in person!

I am glad to hear you can use a Kato switcher for the BVM Dunkirk kit. I have a couple of them Kato switchers I would like to use in conversions. If I sold them I would get next to nothing, but if I can use them somewhere else, that would be great. They should make for fine running On30 conversions.
Paul Brock

Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts on a layout. Also for the link.

Paul B

Here's some close-ups of the track. No ballast, no weathering and no guardrails yet.

Paul:

I found this link for converting a Dunkirk to run on a P2K sw8 chassis.

http://www.hon30.com/DunkirkProgress.htm

I would assume that a kato switcher or one of the new ones from BLI would work just as well. It doesn't look too difficult to modify. The author hasn’t updated the site to show how it turned out yet. When I do another one I’ll follow that article to add sound.

Beautiful track work. This is a 2x8 layout/diorama?, hmmm, I could be tempted to build something like that. But maybe I should just stick to HO for now (since I just switch from N not long ago). Maybe a HOn30 diorama :-).

Beautiful work so far.

Have you checked out Carl Arendt's site? http://www.carendt.us/

He has 245 small layouts/dioramas all under 4 square feet. All scales and gauges from z to g. There's probably something in there you could build. A $10 Model Power hustler can be converted to a real nice On30 critter for a small layout. Not that I'm trying to influence you away from HO of course[}]

Steve,

Thanks for the link to the P2K Dunkirk. That is a great "How To" article. :up: What website is that from? There is no "Return To Home" icon on that page. I would like to bookmark it so I won't miss "Part 4".

Good looking track work. Do you recommend hand layed over flextrack?

Paul B