East Penn Traction Club - N Group

[brill27mcb]

It's been a while since any news of our group has been posted here, so I thought I'd give an update. We set up temporary tabletop layouts and just have fun running all kinds of trains, trolleys and so on. There is a wide range of interests among our members, so everything is welcome. We have also had a regular contingent of folks from Japan, who are living in the general Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, who come and participate, including kids.

 

We used to do this on weekends in an older building's all-purpose meeting room in a hospital complex, but that came to a stop a few years ago when 3 things happened: the member who could reserve the room retired, the person who managed the room reservations also retired, and the building was demolished! One of our members missed the sessions so much that he cut back his basement layout and bought 5 tables to re-create the opportunity. There is less room, but it is plenty big and we no longer have to pack everything up at the end of the session.

 

The layout keeps evolving, which is a perfect use for Kato and Tomix track. It features what we consider to be a high-speed viaduct, a regional line and a mainline (all are Kato and double track), plus an EasyTrolley trolley/tram dogbone using Tomix Wide Tram and regular track. We recently added a Tomytec Moving Bus System road layout, and extended the 5 tables with another large table. Here's a general plan as it looks now:

 

 

And here are views from both ends:

 

 

 

We can handle 16-car trains and just about anything else.

 

Rich K.

Edited February 2, 2017 by brill27mcb

[cteno4]

Rich,

 

I'm so sorry I could not make the meet! Life just to crazy still, but next time!

 

Looks like you guys had a great time.

 

Layout is growing.

 

Jeff

[serotta1972]

Oh wow, how cool is that!  The mother of temporary set-ups in the forum.  

[cteno4]

Except the cool thing is now Dick has let it stay set up in his basement so they don't have to tear it down after every weekend event! It keep growing as well.

 

Jeff

[Kiha66]

Wow, what an impressive layout!  I really like the idea of a club that sets up temporary layouts with unitrack every once in a while, maybe we should start a similar setup on this coast too.