New module!

Exciting news from the Utraina Dept of Interior Development: at long last, a new module is being built!

It seems like forever since I last built a module for Utriania; in fact, I started Ranuska back in Janurary, 2014! Ranuska took a long time to get built, and since then I have suffered a bit from analysis paralysis, as I wondered what my next module should look like, how it would fit in to my mix of large scale railroading (earlier modules) and light rail & trams (Ranuska), what the track plan should be, etc etc. Basically I wanted my next module to be perfect, especially if it was going to take 2 years to make again!

But then I was browsing JNS forum one night and came across an amazing Hakone Tozan themed micro railway:

This really appealed for a few reasons:

• It is tiny; 900x600mm (2x3 feet). That is the same size as Ranuska. I'd have no problem finding a place to store it.
• It is self contained. I wouldn't have to have 5 modules set up just to run a train.
• It is designed for small trains. Many of my recent modelling activities have been light rail vehicles, trams, and small engines. They look good on Ranuska, and they are cute. They would look right at home here too.
• The track plan is very similar to my first model railway, which had a similar ground level station, with a branch line that did 1.5 loops up to a high level station. This version is much smaller though!
• Small and achievable size, with lots of opportunities to make fun little scenes.

So after some intense study of the original railway, I used AnyRail to reverse engineer the original track diagram.

Dotted sections are hidden in tunnels. The percentages represent the grades; yes up to 6% (1 in 17) in places, however the real Hakone Tozan is even steeper with 1 in 12 grades, and no rack or centre rail; pure adhesion!

So with a track plan I grabbed my sketch pad and ran the numbers. After some careful calculations and measurements, I decided on 10mm pine for the sides, and polystyrene for the base. Different to my usual methods – usually lots of ply and chunky pine – but I wanted to try super light-weight construction.

With that sorted out I hit the garage...

Pine cut, and small corner gussets being glued and screwed in place. The weights are 1kg lead scuba wights; super handy!

Clamping, gluing, and screwing the sides together. I am using Gorilla Glue; messy, but incredibly strong.

Planing down some 7mm pine to make stiffening battens inside the module

Battens in place with cable holes drilled; or perhaps I am trying to shave off every gram?!

Polystyrene base cut out and glued in place with more Gorilla Glue, as it is foam friendly and expands as it dries so any little gaps get taken care of.

The odd shaped cut out is for the lower station, which I will build on a 7mm ply base, to make it easier to install point motors etc. All very exciting, and gosh it feels good to be cutting wood again! Poor Mrs A, it is almost all I can talk about at the moment!

As for the name of this module... I am tempted to call it Mt Adams. If fellow blogger J D Lowe can have a Mt Lowe with its own railway, surely I can have my own Mt Adams, even if mine is only fictional?