The Chicago Crossing Train Room Tour!
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- Ever wonder what's behind the scenes at CCMR? From the workbench to the locomotives, modeling supplies, rolling stock and even the stories behind the artifacts on the walls - here's your guide to the CCMR train room!
Want to know more about something you see on the tour? Leave a comment and it just might end up as a future video!
It was great to see your whole train room. Amazing what you have been able to do in a small space. Really impressive!
Thanks Mark! The cabinets are probably the big hack that makes the whole thing work. Early on the layout was on sawhorses and everything else was just in a pile.
Very nicely done.
Thank you!
Love the organization!
Thanks Keith! Admittedly it'll sometimes look like a hurricane hit down there, especially in the midst of more involved builds.
Really great use of space.
Thanks!
I very much enjoyed the tour of your train room; nice to see I’m not the only one who still holds on to the various items from childhood and onward.
And I can also appreciate the size of your layout, small and manageable and nicely detailed.
I watch some of these guys on CZcams with these monstrous basement filling layouts and wonder where they find the time, energy and resources to undertake such massive projects.
Looking forward to your next video!
True that. As much as I sometimes envy the big layouts for ability to run long trains, I'd have given up long ago if that was what confronted me on a daily basis in the basement. Time and energy are definitely limiting factors and I'd hate to burn out on a project halfway through - I notice eBay is often littered with these sorts of half-done basement empires. A deep dive with lots of detail and modeling 'last-mile' local operations has been really rewarding.
Nice! Thanks for sharing and giving me some ideas.
Absolutely!
Thanks for sharing your layout room. Your layout is so impressive and really shows how realistic an Nscale layout can be. Had to smile seeing that Old Chicago beer can!
Have a good week!
Scott
Thanks Scott really appreciate it!
Very nice space to go with your excellent layout -- attractive and efficient. I like the way you've incorporated the displays of older personal and family items.
Thanks for the comments Evan, definitely appreciate it. The decor down there is a conscious attempt to make a crummy basement seem nicer, and to provide a bit of a sanctuary from the daily grind in the process. I think it succeeds in both!
I love these kinds of videos. The modeling is great but a peek into the modeler and their environment is terrific. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you!!
Just found you and commented on an earlier video. Though a completely different demographic (0-Scale/Semi scale whole house floor layout), I enjoy(ed) your(s) as well as others meticulous eye for detail within an allowable space, as I hijack ideas and inspiration.
I’m currently in the middle of complete reconstruction and hope to get ‘er running soon. Any method of the hobby has its own constraints- floor gymnastics and exposed wiring the bane of mine🤪
Looking forward to more content.
That's fantastic thanks Ken - I enjoy watching videos of the larger model train scales and envy the out-of-the-box detail level on a lot of HO and O models. Where I can, I try to go that deep in N. Good luck to you on the reconstruction of your layout - having spent a month re-wiring mine for night-time lighting I get that it's both a pain in the rear but absolutely worth it once it's done.
Nice room😊
Thank you! I'll confess it's not always that clean...
Loved O.C.D. back in the day.
Hi! Hey, you just gained a subscriber, I too model N scale and the crazy thing is, I also lived close to EMD.
My dad was a welder they’re and my later stepdad worked in the tool room there and when he retired they gave him an SP loco mounted on a pretty wooden base with his name and EMD plaque on the front, it’s HO but nonetheless pretty cool and I still have it on display to this day. I loved going to the open houses and in the late 60s when I was an explorer scout, we got to direct traffic in and out of EMD but that was quite a long time ago.
Small world but I wouldn’t wanna paint it, LOL
Great video and thanks for sharing, Ron
Hi Ron, thanks for the message. My neighborhood had quite a few EMD employees, many retired with their own model loco plaques as well. Also had family working there in the 1970's (before I was around). The open houses were awesome. I attended one in 1989. It was cool to watch an SD60 body moving around by crane in the high bay. As an informal rule I pretty much only run EMD locos. I have one GEVO and one Alco and everything else is 'made in La Grange.'
Fantastic layout!
Thanks Harold!
Just found your channel, really cool layout my friend. Big fan of metra engines & stock and the Chicago area railroads in general. Ben.
Hey Ben thanks a lot! Saw your Metra stuff on your channel!
I am a big fan. Your molding skills are great. The Chicago crossing rail road is very nice. For the small yard at the end on the right what type of switches are they. Thank you
Thanks Debbie, much appreciated - those are Peco #4 turnouts in the yard.
Awesome layout
If one day you decide to increase real estate acreage, it´s on the sides or above....so you´ll have a real Chicago elevated !!😊
A suspended second level with pulleys that you can lift or lower. The trick being to always keep it level.
We never knows....
Cheers Éric
Heh, that ledge might get a shelf layout on it someday...
I have been wondering where I could find the track plan of your layout. Also it would be interesting to which brand & code of track you used & what type of switch machines are in use. Getting back into the hobby and have been in awe of this small but very well detailed layout!
I recommend checking out the 2024 layout tour video if you'd like to get some images of the plan. I don't have a published track plan since I just pulled an image from the internet back in 2016 that I can no longer find. Everything else is just Atlas Code 80 flex and pico turnouts. Really nothing special at all.
I have been thoroughly consumed by your wonderful layout this past month, I recently tore down my extremely large N scale layout and my large G scale basement layout that had been up for over 20 years. I am downsizing the layout sizes to be much more enjoyed. Could you do a short vid on what you used for track, roadbed, minimum radiuses etc? I will be using Kato's track as I am heavily invested in it with 650 feet of track and nearly 60 turnouts. I won't of course use all this but will use what I need on the new 3' by 12' table. Thank you for willingly sharing your wonderful layout.
Hi Richard - thanks for watching. Long queue ahead for video topics but happy to share up front. It's all very classic stuff for track. Atlas Code 80 flex, cork bed, peco turnouts, 9.75" radii to fit things into tight spots.
Thank you for the quick reply, I forgot to ask you, did you use a foam base in order to make the river cut? Or did you make a cut in your wood base?@@ChicagoCrossingRR
Hi @double-steel, it's the latter. 8 years ago when I knew nothing about model trains, I had Al Rasch at Rasch Studios build my track plan as a partially complete layout that would at least allow running of trains on good track. He uses time-tested approaches, so it's a cut into the wood base. For the next layout I'm doing, I will go with a cut through foam on the plywood for modeling the Chicago river.
I love the cabinets idea. My question is, how do you access underneath the benchwork to work on electronics, wiring, etc.?
Hi Chris, I can just flip the layout up like a car hood, and hook it onto the side shelves in the train room. Granted, when I first put the layout on these cabinets I never thought I'd go back into the guts so I wasn't deliberate about it. Boy was I wrong - I would have installed some pneumatic door closers and actually hinged the layout to the cabinets in back, with the foresight I have now.
Was excited because we have the same World's Fair poster hanging in our living room....until I saw the watercolors.. we have the one on the left also!!! Any chance of getting a better view of the other one?
👍
😊
Do you have a video on how you did your water?
No, that was waaay back in the day before I even had photos of this layout. Basic strategy is faux painting the bottom, followed by resin and mod podge on top for waves.