Newest Track: The Schweizering - Part One

Having started this blog journal, one of the primary thing's I'll be focusing on is the construction of my new track, The Schweizering - this will be built from all the Artin track I have accumulated. The track will have the seams filled and will be painted as well, with copper tape applied over the rails. The room space I have to work with is about 12' across and 10' deep.

THE TRACK AS IT ENTERS THE WALLED MEDIEVAL CITY.

This new track will be set in the alps - and has three distinct parts. At the right, the track heads up a hill and through a sort of city gate into a Swiss town dating from the medieval era. Through the town, it heads back through a turn and down to run below the ancient city walls, then under the bridge at the barbican and around toward the new portion of the track, located at the rear of the layout. In contrast to the city, this portion will be very modern in appearance, anchored by a large pit/grandstand/tower structure. Working pits would be nice - but I'd have to route-and-rig something from scratch, and I'm just not ready for that right now.

THE BASIC TRACK PLAN (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

The left side of the track will be more open space, with trees, and where the alpine terrain is more in evidence - with a short tunnel and some substantial rock work. This portion will gradually rise up a foot or more toward the "esses" at the bottom of the diagram, then back down toward the center of the "U" - across the table and then back up into the city again. On the hilly (left) side, I am also tempted to model a cable-car and platforms - running up to the high end of the track. It will probably be a static example, though, since I haven't figured out the rigging yet - and unless I had it on a delay and timer, would probably be too distracting going back-and-forth very often.

At first, I was planning to scratch-build the town, gate, but then I came across a great old 1:32 scale castle that was sitting under a bed in the spare room...where its been for about 10 years. German-made (Jean Hoefler, I think) I had bought it for my son over 15 years ago, but he practically never played with it. After inspecting it for a few minutes, I took it apart and started playing with the parts and pieces until I found a combination that started to look right. (See top photo).

That's all for now. I'll update more on the progress so far in the next post.