Mini OneTrak

[Cat]

Ooh, cheap and cute!

[tossedman]

Always innovating Jeff! I likes it. These little things look great. Looking forward to seeing where you go with this.

[Cat]

The Kato R249–45º Viaduct sections could work well for quicky corners.  If the track on straight modules are placed at angles, plain viaduct connectors wouldn't foul the jutting corners of the bases.
 
The 62mm straight Viaducts could also be entertaining wee bridge connectors.

[cteno4]

Yes I was think the same and stealing the Kato mini diorama of making little 1” risers to just use any track pieces to make up gaps or get good geometry. This is the fun it’s more like throwing together something together with misc track instead of the same old loop and everything even!

 

jeff

[Cat]

Engineering query: can the module height be set to match a viaduct pier height so the piers could just sit right on the table?

[cteno4]

I suppose it could but the standard pier height is like 1.75” which would be a bit high for these  little modules. I think they don’t make any intermediate heights I think other than the incline set. With the modules only about 3/4” high it would put them up pretty high. I did a quick mess at around 1.5” high with the modules will little sushi tray cross block legs to rise them up some and it was too much for the smaller modules and that design looks a bit strange on the square modules. In the end just having them float about a quarter inch off the table looked the best. Putting them higher and you start to see the legs and on the little modules they stand out even with the small M4 set screws. I think this is due to your eye focusing in tighter in these smaller modules, things look and feel different than Ttrak sized modules. I ran across this when a few of us were working on potential Ttrak specification for T scale.

 

but it’s all good as the whole point to the mini onetrak is to focus the eye in tighter to smaller scenes. Having the slim face helps keep it from feeling heavy or distracting and the float is just enough to lift it all off the table into its own level. I’m now really thinking this small float and not seeing feet or legs will help accentuate the patchwork idea for the overall display in a fun way. It’s been a pet peeve of mine about the 2 3/4” tall face of Ttrak, they hideous colors they get painted (including black) and all the visible bolt legs at usual running height that it really distracts the eye with it being a negative frame that just draws the eye away from the scene instead of focusing it into the scene.

 

mostly was just thinking of a bridge or track floating between modules when needed to curve some or make up more track length easily. But making some piers that more track could get laid out on if needed for geometry/space should be easy. They could easily be just blocks of wood dolled up to look like a cement pier or wrapped in brick paper. But I also just want to look at plain wood blocks as it might be fun and sort of like the module bases and an indicator of not module area on a run of track.

 

I recently ordered some 5mm inserts and 10mm bolts to try a depression module for sunken scenes with just a piece of 5mm ply and the  two little blocks of wood to support the tracks ends to proper height. Doesn’t lend itself to super deep scene depressions but enough to do like a small stream under a small girder bridge. Maybe even a roadway underpass if thinner base material was used and no feet or very shallow ones (ie set screws instead of bolts). I had an idea for a module with a small dock with a fishing boat tied up and small warehouse dockside that would need lime a half inch drop. But again the purpose on mini onetrak is not grand scenes, it’s smaller ones.

 

I am interested to see if larger modules will even work with smaller mini onetrak around them. Already the 10”x10” corner modules for the r216 curves feel big! I’m also making 8”x8” r183 corners as well, but need to test how well longer equipment works on those. When I was working on the T scale Ttrak I found modules fell into working well at a number of small sized proportions and a couple of mid sized proportions and then a big one at like 12”x12” which could be like a couple of town blocks or a big scenery piece. I mocked one up with some paper structures and it looked like it might work but would have been like a small layout to build at like 3’x3’ of modeling space in n scale! But T scale is so tiny you have to squint at just about everything, so I don’t think it’s going to be totally parallel to mini onetrak as it’s scale is N, so not as much squinting involved in looking at details!
 

im hoping to layout some buildings and track on modules this weekend ro start getting an idea of the boundaries and potential synergies or clashes with sizes and shapes of modules. But it’s definitely working out to a heck of a lot more variety than traditional Ttrak! I’m also looking at street running tram track as well. Could be fun to do like a small tram layout in mini one trak like the tea tray Tram layouts.

 

playing with the onetrak has been super stimulating design wise for me and I’m hopeful something new for newbies that’s simple, cheap and easy to get started. It’s also really brought home one of the first lessons my design mentor banged into my skull, less is usually more. He had worked in the Eames office and was always telling wonderful stories of how designs evolved and always the last bits were almost always shaving bits off the design rather than adding to it.

 

jeff

[Cat]

Floating bridges will be super.  These do scream for trams (and trolleys, and tiny trains.... : 3 )
 
For depressed modules, there's always thinking under the box, flipping it over and cutting into the wall.
 
On a side note, the larger 'Shadow Boxes' that craft stores sell have always worked great for making 3D chibi dungeons, complete with working secret doors.
 

[cteno4]

We need a dungeon module now!

 

ironically I just walked back from the mailbox which had the 5mm inserts and bolts! Man that was 10 days from China via aliexpress! 

 

yeah since it’s single track a bridge can easily be supported at each end by a module. Wish there was a smaller truss bridge to use, just the 124 and 186 plate girder bridges, I think the 248 truss bridge will just be too big looking, but I’ve got a few so I can give it a try. Might be fun with a long skinny module with just like 3” wid of a shallow, wider stream. But I think just a few scattered plate girder bridges might look nice. I looked at the Kato 15 degree curved bridge but the girders below the track look to be more than an inch high. Does anyone have any of these and could measure it?

 

jeff

[Cat]

Pity that Tomix track isn't so readily available over here.  Cutest tiny bridges, that S35, and the Pony Truss, ooh!  

[cteno4]

Yeah I actually thought an old 5” atlas Warren truss bridge might work with a s124 on it. It would be about 3mm short overall but many of the standard sized wood canvas modules will have 2-4mm overhang anyway so could probably suck that up. I think I have a few still buried away in the few boxes of train stuff from childhood!

 

jeff

[Tom C]

I love the concept of small modules and got very excited when I first saw those by Kato. But, as you point out, they are just a bit too limited with their size and range.

 

I worry that what you are creating will look a bit flat as their limited hight will mean one can only model upwords. Too many model railways suffer this fate and the mountain areas of Japan would be hard to recreate, even rivers. I guess it's very much a trade off between something that can be easilly obtained by all and every as opposed to creative exclusivity 😏 

 

This said, I am super excited about what you are working on and bow with deep admiration. I am following closely. Keep up the good work.🙂

[MeTheSwede]

9 hours ago, Tom C said:

I worry that what you are creating will look a bit flat as their limited hight will mean one can only model upwords. Too many model railways suffer this fate and the mountain areas of Japan would be hard to recreate, even rivers. I guess it's very much a trade off between something that can be easilly obtained by all and every as opposed to creative exclusivity 😏 

 

 

Bringing along a little table and having the track wander off the main tables onto the lower one would be doable I suppose?

 

[Cat]

12 hours ago, Tom C said:

 

I worry that what you are creating will look a bit flat as their limited hight will mean one can only model upwords.

The invert the box trick will certainly give a bit of gullying room.  There's also the option to add an apron to the front of the module to hold lower terrain, these can wander further back from the table edge than the typical T-Trak set-up.
 
And there's always the John Allen extravaganza option: design the module to wander right up to the edge of the table, and drop the mountain cliff all the way down to the floor!  Visually unbalanced perhaps, but stunningly so.
: 3

[cteno4]

Yes with the mini onetrak scenes can stick out in front, back, or both on a module as more room on the tables to do this. also with small modules there is a lot less vertical change needed. It might be fun to have a couple of big depth modules you could hang between two tables with the mini onetrak. These could be less huge than Ttrak counterparts but still be dramatic and fun like a canyon scene and maybe a suspension bridge. Keeping them limited in size (maybe like 18” long 4” deep and maybe like 12” tall) may help them not overwhelm the smaller mini onetrak modules and still appear dramatic. I really am liking how drawing folks in closer may really change how you can play with the viewers’ mind’s eye.
 

You can do modules sticking out in front with in Ttrak, but the you need to double up tables for front scenes or to run a section of modules with scene side sticking out (or use big 2x back/front reversing modules on either end and those reversing modules take 4’ of space themselves and we have rarely used them). You can do cantilever Ttrak modules, but then they stick out from the table and there can be stability issues if someone yanks on the part sticking out. Ttrak just makes it harder to do the more fun stuff like wandering all over and scenes sticking in and out in odd ways.

 

for Ttrak the depression modules are usually just thin box or board for the bottom and like 3/4” blocks on each end to support track ends. Usually these are done all the way across the ends as you never know what the ends of the modules on each side might look like if your scenery doesn’t go all the way back up and they can look unfinished and ugly. If the scenery doesn’t go up at the ends then the walls can be painted neutral or even photo scenes applied. If scenery creeps up on the front or back folks usually just cut styrene profiles for the edges. One issue with the back if it very open then you can see any ugliness on the back of the module behind it and wires and such running down the center. We took one of our black sheet table cloths and cut it into 12” wide strips so we could lay these down the center to cover up the wiring harnesses and also kind of poof up behind depressed module so the back drop is black material, not the back of the module across from it. Works well.

 

some folks and the new western scenics modules do the inverted box and then just saw out the bits of the sides as need to fit the scenery profile.

 

I’ve seen a 30” tall wooden trestle bridge and also a suspension bridge that spanned a gap between tables. The suspension bridge was actually made by a chap in japan and he brought it over on the plane for the national nmra convention here in dc in the very early days of Ttrak. It disassembled very cleverly. The trestle bridge may have also been someone from japan as well at the convention, but that’s a foggy memory from 20 years back.
 

One of our club members has plans for a table gap module set of that coastal track that curves out on a viaduct above a small town (sorry spacing on the town name). Lots of issues of what he could do and if it would be looking from ocean or out to ocean view, depth, height and width needed to get effects he wanted. So I built him a cardboard mock-up to play with his ideas before we struck out on building a big set of very custom modules. To span the gap behind this module was going to be just a long thin module with probably station platforms. He’s put it aside for now as he’s doing a wild gundam module for otakon this summer.

 

anyhow I’m hoping mini onetrak concept will give folks some more flexibility and variety of ways to do things and hopefully not get trapped in the cycle of expansion, make it bigger, who much track can we have, and just plain straight ovals of track. I’m thinking even just keeping a loop to one table. If there is more do another loop to have another train going. Could even do a single viaduct version of mini onetrak so you could have 2 levels going on two different loops interlocking or one inside the other. We tried to design something like this with double viaduct Ttrak modules and regular Ttrak modules that were either one loop inside the other or interlocking loops. It turned out to be just too big. If you have a double viaduct loop on the inside then you need a large donut of tables an A LOT of regular Ttrak modules to ring the outside. If you put the double viaduct loop on the outside then the Ttrak scenes are hidden some by the double viaduct to younger viewers at low viewing angle and the scenes are pushed back another foot or more making them harder to get a good look at and enticing folks to lean way over the outer loop modules to look at the inner loop. To have interlocking loops required making special intersection modules which had to be quite large and again it still tool a lot of regular Ttrak modules to complete a loop and a big display area and many tables.
 

I’m planning to come back later to these ideas later of a mini onetrak viaduct. Might be fun with Btrain shorty shinkansens. But could be a mixture of viaduct and vertical scenery with regular track and trains as well. Could do the idea of two loops one regular mini onetrak and one viaduct mini onetrak and they meet at a fusion train station. But one issue with mini onetrak viaduct would be the minimum radius for ends is at r249 and putting things at 12”x12” corners then and back up to Ttrak sized modules and areas to cover. Ends could be raised scenery modules that use regular track instead of viaduct to get small radius curves in thought…

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Cat]

38 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Ends could be raised scenery modules that use regular track instead of viaduct to get small radius curves in thought…

Hmm, if the viaduct is dedicated for Shorty shinkansen, you could go even tighter radius.

[cteno4]

Yeah the r186 feels better than the r216 for corners, but I’m going to do both as an experiment as I have the track and frames for them.

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

More work on my diorama.  Going slower than I hoped but that is not unusual for me.  Following along with the diorama book I used texture paint over the various plasters I used:  spackling compound at the back, Sculptamold for the embankment and stone clay for the lower foreground. 

(In the diorama book, he uses stone clay to fill in the creek bed and to make the various layers blend in.  I think it works better for something like that rather than to cover a larger area.)

Glued down some scraps of track and did the dreaded ballast work.  Added some ground cover where I had spilled white glue mix while messing with the ballast.

Next step is to add some more layers of ground cover and some bushes.  Also have an old tree kit I will use and maybe a few more trees - not quite sure as I don't want to clutter it up.

Ciao,

Tony

[Tony Galiani]

And just about done.  Jeff is really on to something with this idea of small doable scenes.  This diorama is not set up to be connected though I am looking forward to more Mini-OneTrak ideas from Jeff.

 

This scene was done over the span of three weeks but actually working time was only a few days.  The scene evolved as I did it (and I may make some adjustments in the future) but it is almost complete as it is.  I need to finish off the ends and sides - likely with some colored cardstock - to give it a finished appearance.  I did not do that today as I wanted to take advantage of the morning light in my loft work area to take some pictures.  And I learned quite a bit and made a list of things I want to improve on the next one:  more scenic scatter material for more texture, more scenic material color options (as the Woodland Scenics turf seems darker than a lot of what I see in prototype pictures) among them.

I have some T-Trak modules awaiting development and some other wooden canvases for another project and now I feel a bit more confident working on them.  Thinking  I am not likely to ruin them!

 

So three Hokkaido scenes with a new H100 unit, a South Hokkaido Railway KiHa 40 and a Soya Main Line KiHa 54.

 

I left the end uncropped so the underlying base is visible.  As always, there are some things I would have done differently, however, I am pleased with the end result.  Looking for more ideas on the Mini-OneTrak theme.

 

Ciao,

Tony

[MeTheSwede]

Looks good!

Quick and easy is underrated.

[cteno4]

Tony,

 

great work! Yep exactly what I’m thinking with all this! Keep the amount of time and money way down per module and focus the scene way in so folks want to look closer rather than stand back. I’ve been observing folks viewing our larger Ttrak modules and most folks tend to stand back a couple of feet back and a small proportion of the visitors that really get in close to look at detailed stuff. standing back is more like viewing a layout but a layout is usually contiguous and Ttrak is not a contiguous scene most all the time.

 

hope to have a lot to post this week on my playing with mini onetrak.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

So I bought a variety of canvas sizes (in inches) 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, 8x8, 10x10, 12x12, 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, 9x12. Put feet on a bunch and put down track temporarily in a couple different overhangs (what workers easily with one or two pieces of track and what gives standard 2-4mm overhangs) and two corner curves of r183 and r216. Then set out a bunch of structures and even some scenery bits I have laying around on them. Good sized loop on the large dining room table.

 

well after doing design work off and on for most of my life I should have learned that golden lesson that something that’s seeming great in your head can be a complete flop when brought into 3D. My design mentor took me under his wing as he saw I was a good model builder at 15 and he was constantly wanting his ideas tested quickly in 3D as he had learned the lesson well that most of the hard work in design is in the details and also so many ideas are great in your head or even in sketches, but then the go flat on their faces when they go into 3D with the first crude models. well mini onetrak did that…

 

my initial tests just playing with a few individual scenes in their own looked good, but the string of them just didn’t pop as I had expected it to from my mental projections. It just looks like a jumble and the single track just a squiggle in the bigger mess. The module bases on their own looked good, floating on their little adjustable feet, but just clunky once track and buildings were on them. I tried a few different arrangements and no joy. I’ll maybe give one more whack tonight and try to find the flaws better and take some pictures and see if I can get across what’s not working. Then I think I’ll set this all aside for a while. Bummer when that happens, but hey that’s design along admitting when it just doesn’t work.

 

at least it’s sunny and warm here today so good to get outside and let this fall away.

 

more later,

 

jeff

[Cat]

"Be of good cheer. If science teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept our failures, as well as our successes, with quiet dignity and grace."

[cteno4]

Between working in science and design my whole life I know that lesson oh so well! Just go a big caught up in this one! 
 

c’est la vie.

 

jeff

[Cat]

Sunny and warm here too.  About to go out for a late afternoon walk.
 
How the little hodge podge would look all together was always the big question in my mind.  The basic notion of cheap and easy to set up little modules is still a worthwhile goal.
 
My inclination would be to standardise on a single module size and less meandering of the track.  If all boxes are purchased from the same brand, then they should all be a consistent height and levelling not needed (until Murphy steps in).
 
If I haven't run out of math for the day yet, 90º of r183 should work well on 8"x8" with sufficient set-back from the front edges.   2 corners with a straight in between comes in at 24"+overhangs for an end cap that fits comfortably on a 30" wide folding table.  Something like that would meet the essential goals of cheap little modules that can be plunked down on a table with minimal fuss.
 
The set back distance for straight tracks could fall within a range measured to prevent the modules from creeping too close to the edge of the table, but otherwise give some design leeway.  With a straight module in the middle of the end caps, that also gives leeway for modules to creep in towards the center of the loop.
 
If parameters like that work as a basic foundation, then later mad scientists can work on how much, if any, creativity could be built with more meandering tracks that are still aesthetically pleasing.

[brill27mcb]

What you need to do is play down any connecting tracks between scenes and then focus a mini-spotlight on each scene to draw the eye to each scene individually. You could also add backdrop walls and divider walls for the train to run through, kind of like Lee Monaco did with her little T-Trak scenes back in the day.

 

Rich K.