Over 50 years ago I had a model railway. A steam locomotive with some wagons in the N track scale. A nice little track built from a MiniTrix starter set and some additional sets. It was a wonderful hobby, not only to play with the train 😁, but also the construction of the track was a lot of fun. Now that I am over 60, I have started with model railways again. On an even smaller scale...🤨
This time I chose Marklin Z gauge. As mentioned, it's a bit smaller, because the ultimate goal is for the layout to fit in a suitcase. Yes, a model railway in a suitcase. It takes up little space and is easy to store! 👍
Since I had no experience with Z gauge, I first bought a starter set, the Christmas set with a cute little locomotive:
I have to say, the first impression isn't bad! Nicely detailed for such a small model, and although lightweight, it feels sturdy. It also included three wagons that will be featured in a later post. So, train "in the pocket" and some track, time to come up with a track layout.
For my first railway, I had a MiniTrix book with various layouts. It was easy; you traced the layout over a base of wood, used the list of required track as a shopping list, and off I went! Now I had to figure out the best way to come up with a layout. I ended up doing that online at Trax editor and came up with the following idea:
I've gathered materials to make a base plate, sourced various pieces of track here and there, and now the building and testing can begin! I suspect it will probably require some adjustments, but the puzzling is part of the fun!
To be continued...