A Brief Survey of N-Scale Modular Model Railroading

Beginning model railroaders often think and dream in terms of huge layouts running multiple trains and operating sessions, with plenty of highly detailed scenery. Indeed, that dream is one of the things that sustains us in the hobby over the decades..

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Life has a bit more reality in store for most of us. Job situations, the growth of our families, personal crises and triumph frequently curtail our wildest fantasies. In fact, some plans get scaled back into inactivity in the hobby until situations again permit our layouts to proceed.

Modular railroading is one aspect of our hobby that offers some incentive to return to our creative bent with the added bonus of demonstrating progress towards that massive rail empire you crave! Modules are easy to build, singly much less expensive than a huge layout, and have the advantage of being standardized so that others so inclined can come together and create large layouts by linking modules together. When the gathering is complete, the module(s) can be disassembled and returned to convenient storage.

Take a tour of a nearby industrial area and bring your camera or smart phone. Take lots of photographs, then go through your kitchen and garage and look for small bits that look like the objects in your photos. Look for the shape rather than the color, you can always paint to suit.

Be sure to glue your trash down, though. Otherwise you might end up with model trash being real trash on the layout room floor!

Using Paints and Washes To Create Scenery Realism

Paints useful to model railroaders come in five basic types: Enamel, Acrylic, Lacquer, Polycarbonate and Latex. The easiest paints to work with are Acrylics and Latex because they are water soluble and clean up easily leaving very little mess. The more familiar model paints for rolling stock and plastic items are Enamels and Lacquers and require a special thinner product to clean up and remove spills. Polycarbonates are usually found in the form of spray cans or airbrush products and sometimes need surface preparation besides cleaning to adhere well.

Washes are made from paint plus whatever thinner is appropriate to the paint type. Washes can be of nearly any proportion, but 4:1 or 5:1 thinner to paint is typical. A rule of thumb is that the thinner the wash, the easier it is to control the effect. It’s best to use several very thin coats of wash than one thicker coat.

One-Trak

One-Trak is an offshoot of the N-Trak standard using the same physical size modules and same electrical wiring arrangements. While the N-Trak modules are based on a two main line and one branch line track arrangement, One-Track concentrates on a single branch line track per module. Also, One-Trak allows a one-foot long module to be included. Corner modules have the same arrangement as N-Trak. This standard allows N-Trak and One-Trak modules to be mixed on a large display layout. It is up to the builder to ensure that the locations where the two types of modules adjoin adhere to the stricter N-Track standard for track spacing and alignment across the joint.
https://ntrak.org/resources/Documents/oNeTRAK_Manual.pdf

However, the mating sections between T-Trak modules must use Kato Unitrack in the arrangement shown in the figure.

Making the modules so small makes construction at the kitchen table or a small portable work bench very easy to do and easy to clean up as well! https://www.ntrak.org/T-TRAK-Standards

Free-MoN

There are some modelers who wish to create a somewhat higher standard of modeling than might be found in any of the standards summarized above. Rather than running trains in a circle over module collection that is “child-height”, it uses a more realistic adult viewing perspective of 50”. This places scenery and trains at more nearly eye-level, enhancing the realism and appreciation of enhanced accuracy modeling techniques. These techniques include the use of code 55 rail and turnout radii of no less than #6 with 22-inch radius minimum curves. At the same time, the other modular construction techniques such as end -plate interfacing and DCC capable wiring are incorporated. http://sv-free-mon.org/documents/FreeMoNX2011W.pdf