MY MODULAR ADVENTURE: Having fun a module at a time. The ongoing story...
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Les researches a roundhouse then scratchbuilds one from styrene ...
Introduction
Les Halmos has been a model railroader since 1979. He’s been involved with setting modular statandards for the NMRA since 1981. In 2001, he founded the FreeModu-Rail Group and has been active in promoting Free-mo module standards.
Click here to learn more about Les. Photos and illustrations by the author unless otherwise credited.
W
hen I first planned to build my engine facilities, I did a lot of research. I wanted a big engine facility with a large roundhouse because my main interest centers on the job of hostler! I also wanted spectacular scenery where I could watch trains run. I drew my layout master plan based on the “Club-size engine terminal” from page 38 in John Armstrong’s “Track Planning for realistic operation” Seventh Printing (1976), a Kalmbach publication. John’s impressive design met most of my “Givens and Druthers” for an engine terminal. For many years I planned and revised my future layout with this design in mind. During that time (a good 20 years or more) I drew and redrew the layout several times. I spent most of my model railroading time building,
Page 120 • Issue 8 • Jul/Aug 2010 • My Modular Adventure Column, page 1
operating and showing off modules at local and national shows. By the time I finally built my home layout, the decision became well entrenched that it would be in modules. Hence “My Modular Adventure”. I also kept an eye out and bought the kits and products I would need to be able to make this layout a reality. I first bought a Diamond Scale turntable kit, followed by a transfer table and 4 extensions (Walthers Cornerstone), all the while looking for my roundhouse. I bought (Heljan and Vollmer) badly assembled kits at swap meets, but they did not really meet my requirements. After more research I discovered a publication by Edward Forbes Bush titled “Engine Houses & Turntables on Canadian Railways 1850-1950”, published by The Boston Mills Press in 1990. On page 74, there is a 15-stall Canadian Roundhouse built circa 1911 in Trenton, Ontario (see Figure 1 next page). I found this to be exactly what I was looking for! After several attempts to find a kit that I could use to build this roundhouse, I gave up searching and decided to scratchbuild it. But how would I go about it?
“Sleep on it,” I said to myself, “you usually come up with some interesting schemes during the night”. So I did, several times. The result: nothing. One day I started taking the Heljan kit apart to see how it was put together. Then it dawned on me, why not use the basic parts of the kit as examples to build my own? The next day I went to the drawing board (I mean my computer) and started planning, “AutoCad is your friend”. The rest is history, as they say, or at least you can read all about it in my first three articles in MRH #4, 5 and 7. The final outcome is the drawing you see in Figure 2 (the following pages), which I hope to call my final track plan – but we all know it won’t be!
My Modular Adventure In my column, I deal with the construction of my home layout with a twist, because it is built entirely modular, and a portion of it will hopefully be hooked up to a Free-mo layout. I want to acknowledge Joe Fugate and Charlie Comstock for their confidence in my writing abilities and for offering me the opportunity to write Continued on page 123
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