Traveling Layout for Tam Valley Depot

I decided it would be nice to have a traveling layout to demo TVD products.  Ideally this would be small enough to fit on a standard show table of 6 feet and be light and portable.  I came across an interesting track plan on the late Carl Arendt's fantastic Micro Layout site (an irreverent aside - most of these layouts are not one-thousandth of a full-size, garage, attic or basement,  sized layout as the name micro implies), the Jack Trollope's Standard Gauge Micro TymeSaver.  The plan is for HO and I modified it for On30 by making it slightly longer and increasing the spacing between tracks to 3".  Here is my plan:

I also liked this plan because it featured 3 different turnouts, a standard turnout, a 3-way stub great for demoing the Dual 3-Way, and a double slip which is mysterious to many people but actually quite easy to set up the controls for.

I built the layout out of gatorfoam - one of my favorite construction materials.  It easy to cut with a utility knife and to stick together with glue and coarse drywall screws.

The turnouts were made by Cream City by Glen who uses Fast Track jigs.  The rest of the track is Micro-engineering code 83 flex track.

The clever part was that I added plexiglas windows to view the electronics normally hidden underneath.  After all this is what I sell at Tam Valley Depot so hiding it is not what I want to do. I even installed some LED lighting so the boards would be more visible.

The micro-layout folded and ready for travel.

Windows underneath let people see the electronics usually hidden underneath.

To the left of the stub switch is a clear plastic window with a Hex Frog Juicer in it.  As the trains roll over the frogs of the stub, they trip the Frog Juicer and viewers can watch the switching.

 I have been having a lot of fun with the layout.  I took it the Springfield show in Massachusetts last January. It really didn't work out as I hoped as a demo layout because it needs to be turned over to show people the electronics properly.  Long term I think it will turn in to a module and I will finish the scenery on it and get rid of the windows.

This is a repost of an earlier blog to test out Blogger...
Hooray!  I finally started construction on the new Donner Summit layout!  To the left you can see the surveying crew busy at work figuring out where to place the next beam.

Blog entries have been slow lately due to the delay of painting and restoring the layout shed.  I replaced a lot of dry rotted wood, added new flashing, fixed a number of leaks in the roof, cleaned and painted the exterior.  I also snuck a business ttrip to Europe in there.  Still planned is a deck in front of the building for people to lounge on and to put my table-saw and planer on during construction projects.

I have started building the staging basement level.  I need to finish it to the stage of operating track-work as it will be hard to get to once the next level is put on due to low clearance.  I have bought all the switches (Atlas #6 for economy) and flex-track (Atlas Code 100) and should be laying it next week.  After that I will build the helix and start the lower level.  Keep you posted!  Hopefully it won't be so long until my next post.

The newly restored and painted workshop metal shed - site of the new layout.