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[martink]

I've just started work on a new little T Gauge road layout (currently unnamed) using the latest version of my linear motor track experiments. It will be 2' 6" x 2' with 11' of 2-way roads (22' of single lane), and will be an urban setting focusing on a river spanned by multiple bridges. The track plan is my trademark pretzel-ized single-track oval. The current intent is to also include a short stretch of double track railway worked as two auto-shuttles. Most of the "vehicles" in the video are currently just pairs of magnets that fit under standard Eishindo car bodies.

Video: http://youtu.be/zNgcZdTuSpc

[Towers]

O M G !!

You should start selling this as a modular system or the people with the patent should, somebody needs to!! Its awesome!!

[martink]

You should start selling this as a modular system or the people with the patent should, somebody needs to!! Its awesome!!

I'd love to, but alas, IDL Motors has the patent rights.

However, I am now free to mention that they are actually in the process of commercializing a sectional track system based on the same principle, although with a different objective and different pros and cons. They put a lo-res picture on their website (http://www.teenytrains.com) and emailed some better pics out to existing customers a few weeks ago, and they are showing it at the Nuremberg toy fair right now. It isn't in final form yet, and unfortunately they seem to be concentrating on reinventing the traditional train set, which really isn't of much use to me. That is why I have been wandering down my own eccentric path.

[martink]

Here are a couple of pics of the final positioning mockup, showing road, rail and river. The rail part has a double track station in the middle section, with a bi-directional auto-shuttle disappearing into tunnels in both directions. I dismantled my rail test loop, so this neatly uses up all my spare track!

[dkightley]

You could invest in a little more track to put a hidden single track connection round the back.

You would then only need one train set to shuttle back and forth....and it'll make two appearances each way (once on each track) before reversing!

[martink]

Sounds of hammering.... sawing.... gluing.... swearing....

So, the heavy construction work is now done - I ended up sizing it as 800mm x 600mm. Doug - I thought about making the rail part a double oval, but with some multiple unit stock and a minor variation on my existing control electronics, this should do what I want.

[martink]

I haven't been doing much lately, but squeezed in a couple of days on this one - basically some thoughts and experiments on how to proceed. The Eishindo cars and trucks are very easy to magnetize for the linear motor system, but the smallest have stability problems with this version of the track due to only having two magnets.

One thing I am noticing more and more with T is that a large part of it is an exercise in town planning. In the larger scales, a handful of buildings and a short length of street is a town. From my own experience as well as looking at videos of various T Gauge layouts, even the smallest has room for a complete village and most a have lot more (and then there is Doug's - in a class by itself!). I find myself worrying about access roads, pedestrian laneways, garbage collection, etc. I'll have to see about getting a couple of books on the subject.

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The next video... https://youtu.be/c2h5y6ximB4
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[mattd10]

This is looking superb! I find the best way to do town planning is have a scan of Google earth and find something that fits! Looks a lot more realistic than the obligatory row of terraces you see in the larger scales!

[martink]

Thanks - it is getting there, but I really will have to do a whole lot of work with the buildings. The mockups I've tried here just do not look right, so I am going to have to do the buildings individually, even if still built in blocks.