MY SHOW LAYOUTS

INDEX

ATSF First/Alice Street Terminal

Oakland, CA

Alice Street was the western and First Street was the northern boundary of the Terminal Facility, which is Jack London Square today.

The former location of Santa Fe’s Terminal in Oakland is now a modern Apartment complex called “The Landing”. My wife Alice points to “her street”.

Track Plan

All above layout pictures (c) Marcus Janke

Webmaster http://lokland.no-ip.org

I included a handicap into the switching moves. No locomotive is allowed to roll onto the dock area.

To switch cars to the industries on the dock, the engineer must couple to a pair of idler flatcars

The engine and the flatcars reach out to the cars spotted on the dock. The engine is not allowed to move further than the ballasted tracks.

The idler flat cars are coupled to the cars to be removed and shoved forward

The idler flatcars are uncoupled from the rest of the train over a hidden magnet. Another magnet further on, uncouples the flatcars from the engine and now they may be pushed back to the idler track.

The engine couples to the removed cars and continues his work. The same procedure again for spotting cars onto the dock

The layout has a footprint of 3 x 2 meters (approx. 10 ‘ x 6.50 ‘). It needs 1-2 operators, one in front of the layout, and one behind to feed the traverser cassette. Here the rolling stock may be exchanged against new cars, adding diversity to the operation.

I am travelling with this layout to several shows around Europe. If you are interested in booking Alice Street, just contact me at: kapa@gms.lu for details.

TIMPAS, NM

This is my new layout to take to shows. Basically it’s a shadowbox connected to a track oval from a Peco starter set.

The dimensions of the shadowbox are given, so that I may change the scenes by just replacing the shadowbox. The shadowbox measures 84x40x40 cm and the overall size of the layout is approx. 200 x 110 cm. As with my Alice Street layout, I placed Timpas on a shelf rack from a well known Swedish manufacturer.

I modified a Laserkit ATSF Standard #1 depot to represent the model that once stood in Timpas, New Mexico. The surrounding scenery however is somewhat freelanced. I added a platform with the correct measurement for a #1 depot, with standard closet and coal house. I also wired the telephone poles with Berkshire Junction rusted wire and added cacti. Unfortunately the backdrop would remain too empty although only 40 cm high, so I added a small Grain elevator in the background to fill the scene, although this is not prototypical. But as the depot was torn down in the mid 1950’s, who can tell how it really was.

The main goal was to recreate a typical depot scene.

The very small radius of the starter set allows only small 4-axle engines like GP-7/9 and consolidation type steam locomotives.

Enjoy

I modified the bay window, airbrushed all the wall parts and printed the logo and station name on my printer

Photo: Christiane van den Borg

The coal house and the standard depot closet are lasercut kits I developed two years ago.

HIGGINS BOATS (my first attempt on Micro’s)

The track arrangement is based on Carl Arendt’s “Carl’s Imports”. The layout will be a shadow box again with the dimensions of 100 x 50 cm. I will attach a cassette to the right side of the box to make the connection with the world. On the left side will be a sector plate, hidden inside an assembly building, to connect the dock track with the back track.

A DCC powered crane will add to the operation. I will try to add a lot of detailed scenes to keep up the visitors interest for a while. The shadow box will also have a sound system with the incredible harbour sounds from FANTASONICS.

I want to combine my love for modelling water, switching in tight spaces and unusual cargoes in this project.

The above pictures show the status of a weekends work during a train show. I will post more pictures as work progresses.

TBA

Last updated: May 20, 2007