After many, many moons, I have finally started building a Fort Scott- themed layout in our "attic" room. Framework was built many years ago and was used for storage shelves until this summer. It was easy to "reallocate" their use, since they were designed for a layout in the first place! I diddled around laying out Atlas N Scale snap track the other night. I've got the MP scattered out in Ft. Scott, but don't have enough snap track pieces (switches) to do the Katy or the Frisco. All the trackwork is just laying on some cardboard poster sheets for now. Plywood subroadbed and homasote will follow later this fall. The plan will feature "layout design elements" drawn from all three railroads in town. Even with nearly 11 feet to model the MP and the MKT, it feels like I have taken a lot of liberties. The worst is that I had to move Griffith Tower so that it is between the town and the Marmaton River bridges (I can have more Parsons & Wichita staging that way). Most of the curves in town are 19' R, with 11" R at the turnback curves. The layout will have continous running if you use the MP-MKT and MKT-Frisco connections. More later as building progresses.
Attached for discussion is a plan based upon the area east of Buck Run in Fort Scott. And, no, it is nowhere near prototypical! More of a "flavor-of-the-week"!! The project layout emphasis is on the MP and the MKT, but I have to have some Frisco in town, too, right? The plan is derived from an old Linn Westcott offering in 101 Track Plans. As drawn, there is a continuous-running connection between the Frisco tracks to Goodlander Mills and the MP "branch" to their frieght house and Key Industries. This connection could be left off. I used Atlas' Right Track Software running in Virtual PC on an old Mac G3 without too much memory... talk about taking forever to get something drawn! The RTS file was printed then scanned, annotated, and saved as a JPEG file. The real N scale layout will obviously be built with flex, but I used snap track on the plan. -Kevin
Kevin, looks like has the makings of some good switching and great interchange traffic. A plan's the first step; I'll look forward to construction pictures once you start hacking and sawing! Best Regards,
