The first of the benchwork is built

<Written August 2012>

August saw sporadic activity vis-à-vis Carstenbahn One.  I picked up some key control elements, like an IB Switch to go along with my Intellibox, some pieces for the Loconet buss I plan to run around the layout, and other bits and pieces necessary for train control and operation.  But nothing was going to be controlled if I didn’t have a layout to run trains on.  So in late August I got out my miter saw, picked up some one-by-three inch furring strips, and began cutting.  Within a week, I had much of the benchwork completed.

I laid down some track provisionally to make sure everything fit as it should.  I also threw a train on one of the tracks in what will eventually be the covered / hidden staging yard to see how long the sidings in the staging yard would be.  Alas, they aren’t as impressively long as I would have liked.  In HO scale, each track could hold a full-length ICE3.  In 1 scale, even a modest freight train is too long, and the passenger trains would need to be very, very short.  Well I suppose you can’t have it all…

Here is a view of a train on the siding of the outside track of the staging yard which will be covered by the Königstein branch station.  Although I have a total of 13 of these gondolas, my class 55 steamer can only fit in the siding with seven of them…