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Going Modular

Having worked in the computer industry for my entire career, I value portability and flexibility in every aspect of my life. I generally buy things more for function, and less for form. I made one compromise when I bought this house; I bought it knowing it didn’t have a basement. That meant no permanent place for running trains.

Railroad modules aren’t a new thing. People have designed portable, sectional layouts for their homes since the very beginning, and NTRAK has been around since the 1970’s, and that’s just one of a few “standards” in the modular model railroad space.

Knowing that I don’t have a lot of room, it needs to be small. Knowing that I’m lazy, it needs to be easy to assemble (and disassemble), or it’ll never get put up and used. I’d also like to see it make an appearance at a train show one day (assuming I can make one worthy of display).

I considered the NTRAK modular standard in the early 2000’s when I first started getting back into trains, and even assembled a simple 2′ x 4′ module, but never got any further than that. Life interrupted me for a few years, but upon returning, I discovered T-TRAK.

The T-TRAK standard is much more appealing to my situation. The modules start small (about one square foot), and can scale up as large as feasible (provided you stick with the standard increments). I think one foot is a little small for me, but doing trackwork in two foot sections seems reasonable. Weight won’t be an issue, and overall size isn’t too cumbersome for anyone in the family to move or load into a vehicle.

Knowing that I wasn’t in a position for some serious woodworking, I decided to look at some of the companies offering pre-cut module kits. I ended up purchasing two “double” (two foot) modules, one from https://www.cmrproducts.com/ and one from http://www.masterpiecemodules.com/. The pricing between the two was about the same, so I figured I’d try one of each, and see which one I liked better.

They have both arrived, much quicker than I expected (considering the pandemic we’re in), and are now sitting here, wondering when I’m going to find some time to assemble them. I guess I should work on them soon..

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