Console City: The Floor at Waisneed's

[Lina_Blue]

Watch your step! Train's incoming! 

 

As you may know, I'm Waisneed, I like Trains *vrooom*. And a living room with lot's of space I can use temporarily. Mostly for a month at a time. And because of this, I have enough time to just build something without planning that much ahead. It's also a lot easier to just try to fit something with the available pieces when furniture is moveable, isn't it?

 

The couch had to move a little bit more towards the TV, and there was enough space for the all important TRAINS! Who want's to watch the telly nowadays anyway? ^^;;

 

 

But it could use somithing more to liven it up. It looks so empty and barren.

 

As I didn't have any N-Scale buildings (Except the overhead stations), I just used what was at hand: Video Game Consoles. And as it turns out, those make for great big buildings of all kind:

 

 

What do you think about this?
It was my first 'real' layout with multiple feeders, all electric switches and overhead wire masts.

[Lina_Blue]

But that's not all! Here, have some more pictures:

 

[bill937ca]

You are not the only one.  There is an old Running on the Floor thread.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

Lol the game consoles do look so much like many larger Japanese high rises! Wonder if there is any subconscious design going on there if the designer sees these buildings out their windows!  Love LEGO land going high rise!

 

You have a lot of space there and great to have that spread of track. Hard to do a layout like that on tables as you can’t easly step into the middle! One of the big advantages of floor running!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[NXCALE]

10 hours ago, Waisneed said:

 

 

 

What do you think about this?
It was my first 'real' layout with multiple feeders, all electric switches and overhead wire masts.

 

That playstation 3 kinda looks like a modern building.

Very nice set up!

[tt0880]

Oh my goodness this is one of the best posts I've seen on this website 😂

 

As someone who loves gaming and trains about equally, this is such a fantastic "layout" to see. But man, I've got to ask, 3 Xbox 360's, 3 Wii's, and 3 Gamecubes?! I have one of every console, but man, you make me look bad!

 

Regardless of the consoles, you have a pretty huge layout on the floor there with tons of great track and interesting trains... Looking forward to seeing more 🙂

[Khaul]

Wow! That’s so cool. I think there is another Swiss forum member who does equally crazy, in a fun way, temporary layouts. He goes the whimsical small thing way.

[Lina_Blue]

Thank you for all the comments.

 

I'll post my current layout this night, I foubd some more systems to put in place ^^;;

 

[cteno4]

That’s whats fun about a floor layou and a big box of track, you can just keep playing and playing! 😜

 

jeff

[Lina_Blue]

I'm finally home again and got some time to tell you about my June '18 layout.

 

After some conventions my GF and I decided that the guinea pigs had enough time in their extension to the living room, and I could have some space for the next weeks for my trains.

 

For more convenient access and more usable space without interuption, I decided to move the couch out of the living room. Also because of this it's now possible to comfortably watch the trains from there (trust me, I know my floorplan).

 

 

It is a fairly simple affair of two standard loops. One on the floor, and an elevated one for Super Express services.

 

The track starts in front and comes in on the middle trough a station and loops back under the overhead station, loops arround over the bridge on the right and then the track goes all arround to the back left and comes in for the second station in the middle. after that it loops back again, hugging the line which comes from the bridge until it reconnects again on the left for the front station. If you were able to follow this explanation. Congrats, I certanly would be confused ^^;;

 

Not yet visible is the main station which will be situated in the front. After building that, installing the electrics and overhead wires, it was time for some cleaning.

 

My trusty RBe 540 with the LUX cleaning cars made short order of any remaining dust bunnies and cat feasels and the layout was ready for running the first trains.

 

 

Of course, workers for the new construction had to get home, as others began to work with the freshly delivered supplies by Super Rail Cargo ( I love that train).

 

 

Destinations farther away are connected with Super Express services. Today an E5 unit is leaving the station.

 

 

 

As I'm still running on DC without any computer controlled shenigangs, traffic is light and only four trains are able to run.

 

 

 

To make the best out of my waiting time for them fancy DCC decoders, I got the giant Lego bricks assembled and some new high rises for console city installed. I really like the long building made out of N64 cartridges.

Also good visible is now the station in front. A simple arrangement with three sidings and a parking track for the Hyper Clean DX™

 

 

 

 

[Lina_Blue]

But only a week later, I finally got some DCC decoders, the Zephyr stations ready and I was able to Enjoy Multiple Train Action!

 

Just look at those 7-segment displays:

 

 

 

Because I was now able to controll 6 trains simultanously, I had to upgrade the station for additional parking space. Also that Super Rail Cargo is a looong train. Even if the stations are short, there should be enough space to park it, shouldn't there?

 

 

Morning Rush Hours in Console City:

 

 

 

After my Post from two days ago, I had to add some more high rise and other buildings, it would just be my style:

 

 

 

I hope you liked this little excurions to my current shennigans. If you liked it, let me know.

 

For the future, some scale buildings are in the post and should arrive whenever the Global Shipping Programme feels like (I hope soonish).

I think of dismantleing the layout rather soon and rebuild it with two separate lines in a point to point operation. Could be interessting to have the trains operate on lines, instead of just in an infinte loop.

 

 

BONUS TIME! I prepared a little Video for you of MULTIPLE TRAIN ACTION! Please have a look:

 

 

[Bubule]

Nice Run ! It is very cool to see beautiful trains running at realistics speed : Lovely !

 

Most of Japan model railroaders i have seen with gorgeous layouts on utube , are going to fast with theyre trains ... and it brokes all the nice feeling of the scenery they have made. My thougth, it could be different for over peoples.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Jef

Edited June 17, 2018 by Bubule

[Lina_Blue]

1 hour ago, Bubule said:

Nice Run ! It is very cool to see beautiful trains running at realistics speed : Lovely !

 

Most of Japan model railroaders i have seen with gorgeous layouts on utube , are going to fast with theyre trains ... and it brokes all the nice feeling of the scenery they have made. My thougth, it could be different for over peoples.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Jef

 

I noticed this too. It ruins the illusionade by the beautifull world they modeled around it.

 

But it is dificult to drive slow. And even more to stop at thr exact moment in stations. I still need to train some to achieve better stopping performance. Anyone got tipps for a low speed approach in stations?

[cteno4]

Always the temptation to run too fast! Unless you do some length and timing calculations or install a speedometer most don’t realize it. We put a speedometer on the club layout and it was a lot better at getting folks running closer to prototypical than trying to time loops did!

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Great video! Thanks for sharing! 

 

The problem with low speed travelling is usually due to the tracks or the train... Cause if the tracks are not clean enough, the train tends to sometimes get stuck at portions whereby the tracks are dirty due to poor conductivity.... Or the train wheels are dirty and sometimes get stuck due to dirty train wheels at certain portions of the track, especially more so on inclines. 

 

Speaking of which, steeper inclines require the train to have more power, hence faster speeds, like mine.. alternatively, you can drive the train at low speeds and pump it up when reaching the steep incline, but that wouldn't be just as nice cause one can see the sudden bolt of speed increase.... 

 

But this is a good idea and I guess it's time to put my train tracks to the test of slow speed running~ 

[Pauljag900]

On 6/17/2018 at 1:26 AM, Waisneed said:

But only a week later, I finally got some DCC decoders, the Zephyr stations ready and I was able to Enjoy Multiple Train Action!

 

Just look at those 7-segment displays:

 

Because I was now able to controll 6 trains simultanously, I had to upgrade the station for additional parking space. Also that Super Rail Cargo is a looong train. Even if the stations are short, there should be enough space to park it, shouldn't there?

 

Morning Rush Hours in Console City:

 

After my Post from two days ago, I had to add some more high rise and other buildings, it would just be my style:

 

I hope you liked this little excurions to my current shennigans. If you liked it, let me know.

 

For the future, some scale buildings are in the post and should arrive whenever the Global Shipping Programme feels like (I hope soonish).

I think of dismantleing the layout rather soon and rebuild it with two separate lines in a point to point operation. Could be interessting to have the trains operate on lines, instead of just in an infinte loop.

 

BONUS TIME! I prepared a little Video for you of MULTIPLE TRAIN ACTION! Please have a look:

Like it?i love it! Well done buddy it looks fantastic👍👍😀

Edited June 19, 2018 by Densha
Reduced quote size

[serotta1972]

Wow, the mother of temporary setups.  

[Lina_Blue]

9 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Always the temptation to run too fast! Unless you do some length and timing calculations or install a speedometer most don’t realize it. We put a speedometer on the club layout and it was a lot better at getting folks running closer to prototypical than trying to time loops did!

 

jeff

 

Alternativly, you can just count seconds.

As in prototypical use, at a speed of 120 kph, a train needs 3 seconds to traverse 100m.

For 90kph its 4s.

For 60kph is double, as in 6s.

For 40kph is triple, 9s

And for 30kph (Swiss shunting speed) it's 12s

 

How to get 100m you ask? A typicall Japanese EMU has a car leght of 20m, therefore, just count the seconds needed, for 5 cars to pass any point on your layout.

 

This makes guessing spees without a speedometer easy.

 

4 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

Great video! Thanks for sharing! 

 

The problem with low speed travelling is usually due to the tracks or the train... Cause if the tracks are not clean enough, the train tends to sometimes get stuck at portions whereby the tracks are dirty due to poor conductivity.... Or the train wheels are dirty and sometimes get stuck due to dirty train wheels at certain portions of the track, especially more so on inclines. 

 

Speaking of which, steeper inclines require the train to have more power, hence faster speeds, like mine.. alternatively, you can drive the train at low speeds and pump it up when reaching the steep incline, but that wouldn't be just as nice cause one can see the sudden bolt of speed increase.... 

 

But this is a good idea and I guess it's time to put my train tracks to the test of slow speed running~ 

my biggest problem is not about electrical connection between trains and rail, and the smootheness of.the trackbed. But most suitable speed settings lay in the first third of the throttle. There is a lot less avaible variation to controll speed in this low settings.

The higher positions are only needed for highspeed Shinkansen services and for climbing steep inclines.

 

Or does anyone know a solution to that without replacing the gearinh in the motorcars?

[Yavianice]

Why don't you make the inclines less steep? It seems you use the ordinary V12 slopes, which are way to steep in my opinion, as I discuss in this thread.

[Lina_Blue]

I didn't knew those existed last week, stumbled upon those last weekend and plan to use em.

 

But in the meantime, my M250 doesn't have any problems climbing the standard incline.

 

Only my E231 5 car addon set without tires has sometimes some problems.

 

Here a quick Video of my 250

 

[JR 500系]

That's a nice video! I can see your tracks are in great condition from the constant lighting on the front of the M250 ~ Great!

 

 

[cteno4]

Different trains will have different responses to grades. Changing gearing would be a lot of work to redesign a gear set and truck to House it. I don’t think I’ve seen much of that ever done on n scale and tough due to size of the truck and available space, but possible if you want to have a real project!

 

with Dcc you can set a different speed profile for each decoder to spread out the lower end of the throttle and set max top speeds.

 

jeff

[Lina_Blue]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Different trains will have different responses to grades. Changing gearing would be a lot of work to redesign a gear set and truck to House it. I don’t think I’ve seen much of that ever done on n scale and tough due to size of the truck and available space, but possible if you want to have a real project!

 

with Dcc you can set a different speed profile for each decoder to spread out the lower end of the throttle and set max top speeds.

 

jeff

I think changing gears would a little bit too much for me.

 

But I didn’t play arround with any further CVs next to adressing. I’ll have to read a bit more into that documentation.

 

About track maintenance, I allways first run my cleaning train before each session. After longer periods of no play, I vaccuum with a handheld device first, then let the cleaning train pass.

[cteno4]

Yes, I think the gear changing would be some work. The CVs are pretty straight forward and powerful. Can als help with speed matching of trains as well so they respond similarly on then throttle if you like.

 

you are wise to be doing good vacuuming, especially running on the floor! Dust and schmutz is one of the worst culprits or dirty tracks and clogged gears. Cat hair as well as they are flexible enough to wind into gears. Keeping things clean to begin with seems to work better as once a build up starts to happen it seems to accelerate quickly and get on wheel as well. A small air purifier can also help suck up loads of dust.

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[Lina_Blue]

Now, with having so many trains and jump trottles. To not get confused which trottle is which trsin, I made myself some cue cards.

 

In big digits it states the DCC adress, a b/w picture of the train, its name, standard operating lenght and if it is equiped with lighting or DCC front lights.

 

I made them with a label printer and stuck those on two Kato decoder leaflets each.