# New Layout - planning Part 1



## Therios (Sep 28, 2008)

I am back! Finished the move to the farm. I now have 5 acres to build my railroad empire. I will take pictures of my first section in a bit today. I just wanted to reintroduce myself as I have been away for a good 8 months. So here is what I will be doing for the first phase of building:

1) a single continuous loop of flex track
1.5) switching will be added later in expantion 

2) Huge curve diameter as I want to do very large engines in the future... I have a bachman bug hauler and an RS3 right now. Both DCC

3) I have a Super Cheif Wireless 8 amp
4) would like to use some sort of ladder system that allows ground level as well as some consistency for the may bridges and/vias that I will have

5) at least on hardscaped tunnel 


As far as landscaping goes... you will see from the pictures (posted later) that I will have a nicely varied slope that should be gentle if planned accurately. I will need to spend a bunch of time getting the landscaping prepared as well as my chosen ladder or solid base.


I am in Oregon so watershed will be key. I can't say that snow is an issue but this year at christmass (see www.myspace.com/therios) we had 36 inches... a record for recorded history here. so can't plan much for that.


I need to plan ahead for electronics and power. I have not read much on that so I need some ideas. I will have a ton of little projects that are based on the PICaxe system so there will be a ton of automation. All i need there is power. I am planning on running some cat 5 (4 pair) wire around everywhere. I need to know if I should use conduit where and how. I would like to be able to get power out anywhere I neeed/want it and this sounds like a major task and massive substructure.

I am also thinking of using air for actuating switches so I will need to plan on that way early. That sounds like a ton of planning if I don't know where the switches will be right now. How do I plan ahead for that? Would I be better off with DCC and turtles. I will NOT be interested at this point in manual throws. I am too much of a geek for that.


Right now I have three boxes of brand new AMS 6' flex. I think that I can do a major foled figure 8 dogbone of some kind with that.

Anything that I have forgotten?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

You might want to look at some of the stuff on my site, about planning and design that I went through. I live in a milder climate, but made everything as weatherproof as possible. 

Stuff I did right for outdoor DCC: 

ran conduit to pull feeders and other junk. 

Used SS rail and rail clamps 

used large guage feeder wire 

use air operated turnout control, totally waterproof. 

Regards, Greg


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## Therios (Sep 28, 2008)

So here are two pictures of the before and now after a day working on the area... this entire property is soooo overgrown it is crazy. As you can see from the two pictures, I now know that there were two monster stumps inside of this mess... now I will be renting a stump grinder in the VERY near future to continue. But these shots should give a really great idea of the area that I am working with...










and here is the after (still have a long way to go to get the area ready....









Last one to give you an idea of the overall space that I will be starting in....










You can take a look at all the other pictues here as I don't want to post 20 of them here for all you people on slow connections.




http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/therios/newlayout/


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## Paul Burch (Jan 2, 2008)

Looks like you are going to need a little tractor with a loader and backhoe.


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## Therios (Sep 28, 2008)

YA! Don't I wish! I had my eye on a couple of packages at http://www.tractorco.com but could not manage to get it all together yet this year. I would be able to use one around here VERY often. So right now, I just have to rent when I need one. No big deal... rental is about as much as a monthly payment. I can still get it all cleaned out and get the retaining wall built. So I won't loose any time.


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## Paul Burch (Jan 2, 2008)

I bought a Kabota BX23 when we moved to our new home. One of the best investments I have ever made. I use it all the time and it came in real handy when buliding the layout. I absolutly could not have the layout I do without it. The photos are from April 04.


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Paul Burch on 03/07/2009 9:16 AM
I bought a Kabota BX23 when we moved to our new home. One of the best investments I have ever made. I use it all the time and it came in real handy when buliding the layout. I absolutly could not have the layout I do without it. The photos are from April 04. 

















Awww, ain't it cute!










-Brian


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## Paul Burch (Jan 2, 2008)

That little loader will lift 400lbs and I can get it into places that you would never get a bigger unit. The mower deck has a 54" cut. Its a real workhorse.


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## c nelson (Dec 18, 2008)

Brian...His tractor or your Dog? 













sry couldn't resist! 

cale


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