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Reading Lines GP35 #3647

Middletown, Pa

Thursday 12 April 2012

JL&T Railroad - Layout Update & Important News...

"Just thought I'd add that the JL&T is not going to be dismantled as mentioned below, we are still in our current house and the layout is still being built". I will leave this post in situ to show the layout plan that I was going to build if we moved...  Jas.

Hi everybody,
I've been holding off as long as I possible can with this news, it's a little bad news, but it is only temporary bad news (well possible a few months anyhow).  And there will be some great news at the end!
During the last month we have been presented with a golden opportunity to build new and upsize to a bigger home and move to an area that we have always liked and will suit our growing family more than our current location.  So our house is now on the market and we have purchased our new block of land about 15 minutes north from our present area.
This does mean that the current JL&T Railroad is in limbo and will not have anymore work done on it, mainly because the layout room has reverted to storage for our excess furniture and other things that need to be out of the house while we are trying to sell it.  And I'm dedicating most of my free time to organising the building of our new home.
That is the bad news.......
There is a couple of bits of good news though, the first and biggest (literally too) is that when we do build on the new block with our new home, there will be a brand new, bigger layout room for the JL&T.  With some added additions that have come about from building the JL&T - Mark One, the original layout shed was 7m x 4m (23.3' x 13.3') which was a good size to start with, but some of the things I wanted to do were limited by the size.
The main things that I wanted changed was the helix location and some of the track configurations, so with this in mind and the ability to build a shed/layout room a little bigger it has...  The new home of the JL&T has grown to a 10m x 5m (33.3' x 16.6') it is divided into two areas internally so the layout room will be 8m x 5m (26.6' x 16.6) the other smaller room will house the layouts 30" helix and be a utility room for storage.
The new JL&T Layout...

The major differences between Mark I & II are, the addition of the helix outside and separate of the layout room, the wye that has been added upon entry to the top deck that will allow for trains to travel in either direction upon entering the top deck, the increased staging on the southern side of the top deck (modeled as a small interchange yard), the area near the JL&T module has another scenic element area added (to be determined what it will be), the intermodal terminal track work has been extended and straightened, the L&T Branch track work has been changed.
The existing Mark I JL&T...

Compared to the old Mark I JL&T there are some significant improvements and additions that have me very excited, I will also be looking at a different method of doing the bench work, I over engineered the last build and do not need to go to that level again, also the sequence that I did a few things in will be changed too.
The other good news is that I will continue modeling by doing another practice module or two, along with some submissions to MRH to go along with these.  I will also be building my turnout controls so that they are ready to go on the new JL&T, it will also give me a chance to try some weathering on both rolling stock and locomotives too.
So in all a little disappointing that I have to stop on the layout when I was getting into the fun part of the build, but the future is looking very bright and promising for the new JL&T...
Jas...