Tue 17 Jan 2006

Ride my version of the San Juan Central

Posted by Daniel Swearingen under Layout Progress
[2] comments / Leave a comment 

I’m building an HO version of Malcolm Furlow’s San Juan Central as descibed in his HO Narrow Gauge Railroad You Can Build (1984).

Why that plan?

While I love narrow gauge, why HO standard guage and not HOn3 or anything n3?

The answers are driven by one main goal and an associated attitude. I decided that my goal for 2006 is to work continiously — at least 12 hours a week — on a model railroad and that in this year I must make significant overall progress on the layout. To meet this goal I have taken the following attiude: it does not have to be a perfect layout. It just has to be good enough. Significantly, I have also made a pledge to devote all my modelling energy this year (i.e., time and money) to the layout. This means forsaking my strong interests in all other types of models and model building.

For YEARS I have been saying to anyone who would listen that I wanted to build a layout. I’m finding it stunning that simply saying “good enough” suddenly gives me license to proceed. I started planning in October and November, building benchwork in December, and started roadbed in January 2006.

Coming posts will describe planning choices I made as well as progress reports on what I’m doing currently.

I am not paid for anything I write in this blog. I accept no advertising. The product reviews are based on my personal experience with items I purchased unless I say otherwise.

Copied at  The Layout Project

 

2 Responses to “Ride my version of the San Juan Central”

  1. Chas Boodro Says:
    February 24th, 2007 at 4:51 pm

    Daniel,

    I love your blog and particularly its thoughtful common sense. I am planning a layout based on Malcolm Furlow’s San Juan Central but moving it to the Lake Winnepasauki area of NH connecting to Portland Maine. It will be in ON30 with two foot flavor.

    The good news is we just did an addition to our home and as a byproduct their is a 13×24 foot room for a layout to be fit into. The bad news is that it is full of “stuff” at the moment and I also want to “finish” the room before I do the layout – not to living room standards but I plan to install a hung ceiling and plaster board walls. In the meantime I am enjoying the planning.

    I do think that I will build the yard section while all this work goes on so I can have some fun and stay motivated. I haven’t had an inside layout or done much modelling for twenty five years and am a bit out of practice!

    I do have an 1:20.3 scale outdoor layout but that is kept fairly straightforward and I haven’t done a lot of model building for the railroad. Just a few plastic buildings and bridges and I run it for fun.

    Thanks for your motivitaion and good work!

    Chuck Boodro

  2. Daniel Swearingen Says:
    February 25th, 2007 at 9:42 am

    Hi Chuck,

    Thanks for writing. It’s definetely a trick building into a room you need to make other uses of at the same time. I nearly chose On30 myself and own several pieces of rolling stock. I may do an On30 diorama with all my spare time — when I ever get some!

    Take Care,
    Dan