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This Layout is 'Out of this world'
Photo Courtesy NASA
 Way back in April 1978, Model Railroader magazine
ran a special article called, "A lunar railroad you can model." Artist
Alan Cerny and Modeler Bob Hayden teamed up to describe a futuristic prototype and
build a 3/8" scale model (1:32) of a mining complex on the moon, complete with
lightweight lunar Snap Track and robotic gandy dancers!
Now Jeff Semprebon, from Claremont, New Hampshire, has taken the next giant step
and designed a complete Lunar Mining Complex, a three-level micro layout
including a scale model of the Space: 1999 Eagle transporter (still obtainable
in some stores and at swap meets).
Jeff describes his design this way:
"This 9mm-gauge mining micro layout uses a vertical sector plate (orange) to
move between a Base Level, a Lower Level (mine excavations), and an Upper Level (processing
facility and transfer point). In the particular 1/100 scale ("C9", I call
it) example, the miners are processing water ice deposits in a permanently shadowed
region near one of the lunar poles, with the processed water being loaded at the
elevated landing pad for shipment via the Eagle to other lunar bases. The
lunar surface is represented in grey, and the blue indicates solid areas that would
most likely be formed by foam insulating sheet (pink foam should work equally as
well as blue).
"This plan puts the pivot of the sector plate
off-center, allowing the 3-D sector plate to serve as part of a loop in one position
on the Base Level. The loop can then serve (unprototypically) as a runaround track.
The plate is pivoted on a long rod, and to move between levels, a sort of "keyway"
is provided. The sector plate is moved to a particular orientation to clear the keyway
(the plan allows for about 1/8" (3mm) clearance). The sector plate has a notch
in one end that allows it to clear the end of the inner rail on the Lower Level.
Note that on the Upper Level, the plate must be lifted to clear the wall of the processing
facility if the facility is extended as far to the right as shown.
"Cassettes (red) -- at the end of mine shaft
on the Lower Level and in the processing facility (yellow) on the Upper Level --
can be switched to provide an empties-in/loads-out type interchange, with empty ore
cars loaded onto the cassette in the mine shaft and exchanged for full cars that
have been dropped at the processing facility. The sector plate could be moved to
the right a bit if a longer cassette is desired, at the expense of increasing the
grade up to the transfer point."
Needless to say, this LMC layout provides a wide-open
opportunity for ingenious design of locomotives and rolling stock, as well as of
most railway accessories (don't forget those robotic gandy dancers!). You could,
if you wish, shift the locale to a frozen hydrogen mine on Titan, or a superconducting-metals
processing facility on Pluto. Or go even farther out, into the Oort Cloud! The only
limit is your science-fictional imagination. Have fun!
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A Working G-Gauge Micro!
Here it is at last -- a G-gauge railroad made with
standard Aristo-Craft or LGB track sections that fits within the four-square-foot
footprint of a Micro Layout. Now you can have BIG trains in the space of a bookshelf!
This fully-operating layout uses a track plan originally devised to squeeze small-scale
working railroads into a shoebox. That plan is described under Carl's Imports.
 This
special G-scale version is called Carl's Exports. This little railway performs
the vital task of moving loaded skips (ore cars) and other small wagons from the
tipple (top right) to the unloading point at the harbour or to the loading dock.
This may appear to be only a few inches travel as the crow flies, but to this hard-working
little line it's at least twice the layout's length away!
At left is a quick feasibility study made using Aristo-Craft trackage, assembled
on a 1x4 foot piece of Homasote to make certain these big trains will fit into this
tiny space. As you see, they fit very comfortably!
The four-wheel switcher, being bashed from a Roundhouse Big Hustler diesel kit, is
sitting on the 18" sector table -- just long enough to hold the loco and one
four-wheeled car. Rolling stock for this little line will be assembled from LGB and
Hartland four-wheeled industrial or "feldbahn" cars.
The only "trick" to the layout is the arrangement of the tipple, which
is open at the back for "fiddling". To run around a car, the loco simply
pushes it from the sector plate under the tipple and out of sight, where a hidden
hand lifts it from the rails allowing the loco to run through the tipple to the end
of the spur. The car is clandestinely replaced, and the loco then pushes it back
over to the sector plate, having successfully run around it!
I'll keep you posted as Carl's Exports acquires scenery and permanent trackage.
The sector plate will be constructed like the one pictured at the top of this page,
in Lesana Yard.
Aristo-Craft track sections used in this layout are: 4x - 30030 Straight 30cm;
4x - 30031 Straight 15cm; 2x - 30101Curve 15°, Diam. 122cm; 1x - 30350 Man. Switch
left, 30°. Similar LGB track pieces would
work equally well.
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UPDATE: 'Carl's Exports'
Under Construction! (December 2004)
 Bill Nunn, from Tucson, Arizona USA,
is building a version of the Carl's Exports and doing a grand job of it, as
these under-construction photos attest. Bill has widened the baseboard to 15 inches,
to enjoy a little more breathing room around the edges of the trackwork.
Track is stock LGB, and the locomotive
is an LGB "field diesel". Bill writes, "The box car was built from two
Hartland Locomotive Works gondolas. All the building siding came from Precision
Products. The little dock is made from popsicle sticks. New couplers, completion
of the storage tank, and ground cover are in the works."
The wedge-shaped building at the
top of this picture conceals a sector plate, a space-saving substitute for a turnout.
Bill's trackwork and modeller's tips for building the sector plate were featured
in the July 2004
Small Layout Scrapbook (#27).
Attention garden railroaders: here's
a way to enjoy some of your G-scale rolling stock all winter in the space of a bookshelf!
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Mainline HO in Upstate New York
Paul Boehlert, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, recalls
his boyhood haunts in upstate New York in this plan, deliberately designed to use
HO mainline equipment in a micro layout setting. The Mohawk & Adirondack is
set, as Paul points out, "in the Mohawk Valley of central New York and interchanges
with the New York Central just outside the picturesque village of Whitesboro. The
time period on the railroad is either the Thirties (if I want to run steam-era equipment)
or the mid-Fifties (if I’m in a ‘diesel mood’ that day)."
Key to the layout's operation is the sector plate, which is 15" long and can
hold an eight-wheel road diesel plus a 50-foot railroad car. Thus the sector plate
(which is removable and swappable) becomes part of the layout's runaround facilities
as well as a flexible fiddle yard representing the "rest of the world'.
 Paul is building the M&A (see progress photo at right),
and you'll notice that as so often happens the track plan has changed somewhat between
design and construction! Paul's notes on the sector plate:
"The plate is a 15-inch long piece of lattice board, drilled for a mini phone
plug (mono) from Radio Shack. The corresponding mini jack was recessed into a clearance
hole in the baseboard. I glued three lengths of 1/8" strip styrene to the underside
of the sector plate to serve as bearing blocks. The plate (visible at the top
of the photo) just plugs into the jack, which also carries current for the track.
"Despite my somewhat relaxed standards of craftsmanship, the plate pivots easily
and smoothly. Bottom line: I will never again be intimidated by the thought of building
a working sector plate. The process really was as easy and trouble-free as I'd hoped."
Notice that the "plug in" feature of the sector plate means that Paul can
have several of them, each holding different rolling stock, and just swap them in
and out to arrange for different consists on the layout without handling the rolling
stock.
Although this plan could be located anywhere in the world, Paul opted for familiar
territory in central New York state. Industries were carefully chosen from those
found within a few miles of the real Whitesboro. Paul reports, "The malleable
iron plant receives ingots of iron and other metals and ships hinge sets, hasps,
brackets and other finished hardware.
"The apple warehouse is very typical of the region, and also distributes produce
such as onions and potatoes during other times of the year. Reefers naturally need
to be iced to keep the produce cool, so frequent trips to the ice house are in order.
"Varick Freight Company, the team track with its dock, and the M&A freight
house can all receive a wide variety of shipments in many different types of cars,
adding flexibility to the relaxed operating style of this little layout."
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A bit of nostalgia...
Ian Holmes designed Saltfleet Haven several
years ago, as part of his projected East Lincolnshire Light Railway, set amid the
grassy sand dunes of his native coastal Lincolnshire. Recently he rediscovered the
plan, which was never built, in his files at his present home in Princeton, Minnesota,
U.S.A. "Not bad for a prehistoric micro layout!" was his reaction, and
we agree!
Ian comments, "Saltfleet Haven is a real place about 10 miles from where I was
bought up. Some small fishing boats and pleasure craft are kept there to this day.
"When I was first developing this design (easily 10 years ago) I imagined that
Saltfleet Haven had a small, but successful fishing fleet and that there was a need
to transport the fish from here to the major port of Grimsby to be transported all
over the country. The large warehouse on the plan was inspired by a building that
really exists about five miles from the Haven. The smaller buildings I added for
somewhere to spot wagons.
"The plan was designed for EM gauge as the 18.2mm track gauge was closer to
scale than the 16.5mm of English OO trackage, and all the other layouts I had designed
and built for the East Lincolnshire Light Railway were EM gauge too. [EM is a
finescale version of Briitsh OO scale, 4 mm to the foot.]
"So there it is -- my first micro layout, 10 years later!"
A pioneering design effort, still fresh and interesting. To see what Ian is currently
doing in model railroading, visit his website.
Return
to Page 1 of "Layouts Using Sector Plates"
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