Add Variety with Interchangeable Scenic Modules

There aren’t many ways to change your railroad without ripping up a finished area and replacing track, structures and scenery with something different. This certainly gives you something new, but it destroys the original area. But there is one way to add variety to your layout that does not destroy your original work. This is especially relevant if you already have a lift out section in the middle of a big space that allows you to climb under the railroad and pop up to reach background or hard to reach areas.

This is the case on the HO Scale Gilpin Gulch RR. I have several of these lift out areas. The largest is a sort of kidney shaped section of scenery that I designed to be removable so I could perform maintenance on a lower level loop of track that would be otherwise unreachable. The section holds a small circus complete with its own N scale circus train ride, a big top, Ferris wheel, ice skating rink, roller coaster and circus-related details. The area is roughly 2 feet wide and 3 feet long. This area was created as a lift-out during initial benchwork construction on the RailRoad. The section is mounted on 2 inch builder’s foam to reduce its weight for easy handling. The benchwork risers were specially shaped to hold it at a level to align with the rest of the sub roadbed.

The underside of this section was reinforced with a 1X2X30 inch oak beam to help it stay flat and provide support when the section was off the layout and on the workbench. The beam provides clearance for the wiring connections from the circus pieces. All of the circus pieces have their own power transformers which plug into a single power strip attached to the bottom of the module. The circus train is powered by a power pack under the layout, set at a realistic setting to allow the train to circle the circus slowly and not toss off the little plastic people. Train power and direction is controlled by a double pole, double throw toggle switch on the fascia. This switch is connected to the module with a quick-disconnect type wire connector. Before lifting the module out, you just unplug the connector for the train and the power strip for the rest of the animations, freeing the module from its electrical ties to the layout. With a helper beside the layout, you climb under and push the module up to a point where the helper can grab it and move it to a safe storage place. This circus module shares no track connection to the rest of the HO Scale layout.

After a few years of using the circus module, I realized that it would be easy enough to change the scenery here by just building another module, the same shape as the first. Looking for more switching opportunities, I decided to create a yard for railroad maintenance rolling stock, which I find very interesting. Did I say easy? What evolved was a little more complicated, but ultimately worth it!

I removed the circus module, cut a piece of foam slightly larger than the hole and placed it over the hole in the layout. Then I got underneath with a sharpie and traced the hole on the bottom of the new foam piece. With a little trial and error, some sanding and sawing, I shaped the new foam piece to fit the hole exactly. I drew up a track plan and decided where I could add tracks connecting the new section to the existing layout. The old module had no rail connection to the layout, so this was a bit of a challenge. There was a siding to the left of the old module, so I was able to branch off that siding for one track and I was able to add another from the mainline just off the lower right side.

This maintenance yard module would be much more of a challenge than the Circus module:

1.Track work would have to line up exactly with the rest of the layout.

2. DCC power would have to be routed to the module tracks.

3. Wiring for structure and vehicle lighting would have to be supplied.

4. There would have to be a way of easily disconnecting power to track, structures and vehicles.

5. There had to be an easier way of removing and re-installing it.

I pondered these problems for a few weeks and realized the construction of the first module held a big answer to some of these questions. I reinforced the bottom of the new section with another 1X2 X30 inch oak support beam, using epoxy glue to secure it to the underside of the foam. (It has been my experience that epoxy glue is the safest way to secure foam board to lumber.) I then drilled straight down through the foam and through the oak in two places, one at each end of the module with a 5/16 inch long drill bit. I bought two 8 inch long threaded 1/4 X 24 bolts with matching nuts and installed them as moving handles. The nuts were counter sunk slightly in the bottom of the oak beam and epoxied in place. When I want to move the module, I insert the bolts through the top of the module, engage the nuts about ten turns and lift the module free. When I replace the module on the layout, I remove the bolts and cover the holes with portable scenery, like a small vehicle or bush.

The oak beam also provided a handy locale for wiring “busses”. I screwed a metal strap to each vertical face of the plank and connected one rail of each track to one of these straps and the other rail of each track to the other strap with small sheet metal screws. You pretty much can’t screw anything to the foam. Now I only had to run a wire from each strap to the layout track power buss. I used an R/C type quick disconnect for this to allow easy disconnection of the the track plower whenever I wanted to remove the module.

I also wanted to add lighting to the structures and headlights to the vehicles that would populate this module. I attached 1 pair of screw terminal connectors to the oak plank to collect the structure light wires and another pair of screw terminal connectors to collect the vehicle light wires. I needed separate lighting arrangements because the structures need 12 volts and the vehicles’ headlights only use 1.5 volts. This required 2 more sets of quick-disconnect type connectors. I also needed a fifth quick-disconnect connector for a gravel unloader operated by a fascia switch and a sixth quick-disconnect connector for power to 2 welding animations. These are identified by 6 different color tapes on the male and female ends of the six connectors. (Red tape for track power, yellow for structure lights, etc.) Connecting the wrong wires would be disastrous for the 1.5 volt vehicle lamps!

All done, right? Nope! Now I had to figure out how to set up the tracks to align between the module and the rest of the layout. I set the module into the hole in the railroad, did a little sanding and shimming to align the top surface of the foam with the rest of the layout sub roadbed and laid out my track. My original plan was a little off and would have produced less than 18 inch radius curves, so I had to simplify things somewhat. But finally I settled on a scheme that would provide reasonable curves, proper easement into my existing track work and no turnouts sitting on the gap between the module and the rest of the layout. I tacked the track and all the turnouts in place and ran my most finicky locos and rolling stock into and out of the new section, forward and backwards. After a few more adjustments, I was ready to glue down my track. Since this is a yard area, I skipped the cork roadbed, crossed my fingers and glued the track directly to the foam using silicon glue.

Another round of operational testing was done and to my surprise, no derailments! At this point the module tracks were directly connected to the rest of the layout, so the module was not moveable yet. Crossing my fingers again, I Dremeled gaps in the connecting tracks, and lifted the module free. Holding the Dremel vertically, so that the cutting wheel was horizontal, I then cut out the ties under the rails on the layout side just enough to slide rail joiners completely onto each rail. I cut the ties under the rails on the module side about half the length of a rail joiner. The rail joiners thus stay with the layout and don’t get lost when you move the module around.

With the module in place and all the rail joiners connected, I tested every thing again and found there was a short somewhere in my track wiring. Disconnecting one track at a time, I quickly found that one of my spurs was wrong-rail wired and reversing those two wires fixed the problem. I ran trains in and out of the yard for a few weeks to make sure all the wiring was holding up. At this point, I had only wired the track. I removed the module and put it on sawhorses to ballast the track, add and wire structures and vehicles and add scenic material. This was a pleasure since I could reach around all sides of the module while it was off the layout.

Whenever I switch modules, I take the opportunity to clean and service the track under this area which is normally unreachable, as well as the higher track in back of the Module which is difficult to reach when the module is in. When I replace one of the modules, I fill in the small gap between the module and the rest of the layout with stranded scenic material, you know, that netted green stuff that you can stretch and twist any which way and spray glue on and sprinkle with ground foam and glue and stick anywhere? I have recently tried building a chain link fence kit with barbed wire and have successfully used it to fence in the yard. It looks very good, but you have to be very careful handling the module with that fence installed so close to the edge, to prevent damaging it, so I am not sure how long that fence will remain, but we will see!

The new module has been in use about 2 years as of this writing and is giving good service. I switch it with the Circus module when the grandkids come to visit because they are not interested in switching operations like my adult operators and seem to like the Circus better. My wife and I can easily lift it out without damage and store it under another area of the layout.

My thanks to fellow modeler WAYLAND MOORE for providing some of the photographs and for encouraging me to write this article!