After finally getting a job in Sherman which keeps me from doing contract work here & there, I found myself without room for another HO scale layout. However, the missus took pity on me, and said I could have a layout if I wanted to, provided it was N scale. I knew I married her for a reason.......... :)
So, I consulted various trackplans for small spaces, and finally narrowed my search to trackplans that fit hollow-core doors. With a little fiddling & finagling, and not a little work with Atlas's RightTrack Software (available ffree from Atlas, BTW), I came up with a workable plan. A trip to the builders' salvage supply yielded an inexpensive hollow-core door about 26 by 80 inches, and back home I went with my prize.
Some time ago, Model Railroader did an article on the N scale Carolina Central which was built on a hollow-core door (hereinafter referred to as an HCD). It consisted of a loop of track with a staging siding hidden in the back, with all the action happenng out front. I took that plan and adapted it to a layout that depicts a fictitious branch of the St. Louis-San Francisco in the Arkansas-Louisiana-Texas area (known in those parts as the ArkLaTex). It would be loosely modeled after the Frisco's A&A Sub in southeastern Oklahoma, and would feature the paper industry as well as the poultry business, with an interchange to another railroad (either MP or KCS).
The CC was built using Atlas code 80 track- on my line I wished to use code 55 and 40 in the visible areas and code 80 for staging. I'm not a big-time electronics whiz, so old-fashioned block wiring and cab control using two power packs would be employed. Due to the width of the door, wide radii would be out of the question, so 4-axle diesels would be used, with cars no bigger than the P/S, ACF and FMC covered hoppers used in hauling grain for the poultry feed mill. I have been collecting woodchip hoppers, pulpwood flats and kaolin tankers over time, and also built up an N scale paper mill kit, so the paper industry would be featured. The Walthers paper mill kit covers a pretty good-size footprint in N scale, with the kraft mill and pulp mill buildings, so more than one spur would be needed, as well as one spur for either woodchips or pulpwood. If possible, I'd like to have one small switcher used by the paper mill for switching chores.
Due to the nature of secondary lines, especially the Frisco's A&A Sub, train traffic wouldn't be more than a through freight each way daily and a local out of an off-the-layout terminus. Geeps and U-boats would be featured as road power, and if an N scale GP15-1 ever comes out for Frisco, I'll get a couple. Frisco road power so far consists of two U25Bs, a B30-7, one VO1000, two GP38s and two GP7s, so I'm well-covered in that respect. I also have a LL SW8 in BN green & black, with the BN markings blacked out, for the paper mill.
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