Dave Cone: Nutmeg Division Secretary

My HO layout started as the freelanced Merion & Lackawanna when I lived in Merion Station, a suburb of Philadelphia, in the 1990's. Soon after I finished the benchwork (plywood on 1x3 grid) and track (Atlas snap-track), and just as I was starting on the scenery, we moved to Madison, Connecticut.

Part of the original layout survived, now renamed the Madison & Lackawanna.

The layout is set on July 4, 1976 and involves a bicentennial parade down Boston Post Rd through the downtown area, which is a 35' x 2' shelf along one wall of the basement. The layout then wraps around another wall, and comes out into the room as the 4x8 peninsula that survived the move from Philly. The semi-freelanced double-track main line is loosely based on the Amtrak line that runs through town and also serves the local commuter rail, known today as Shoreline East. The peninsula is becoming a Tilcon gravel plant, and will be connected to the rest of the layout by a single-turn helix around the perimeter of the sheet. A small staging yard is on the lower level of this part of the layout, though I have realized that accessing this area for the inevitable derailments will be a challenge given that the Tilcon yard is only about 6" above it. Roughly 90% of the track work and electrical work is done for the shelf and staging yard portions of the layout - only a turning loop at one end of the shelf remains to be finished, and then I will be able to run trains continuously to keep my kids entertained while I continue work. Operations will eventually be a mix of passenger (commuter rail) and industrial/freight (Tilcon, and a local lumber yard located west of the downtown area) service. Most of the track is code

83 Walthers/Shinohara flextrack, and I am using NCE digital command control with three throttles running so far. I am experimenting with a number of turnout mechanisms and controls including The Flea (see notes from a clinic elsewhere on this web site), Tortoise machines, and the NCE Switch-8, to see what I like for the rest of this layout, and my next layout.