The saga with Active Powersports continues. I ended up having to file a BBB complaint because the company never responded to my emails or inline messages. It was only through the BBB that they did respond with an explanation of what happened - items were back-ordered and Greg - employee at Active said he decided to send what he had. Fine. He could have told me that or included a packing slip with a note or responded to my emails. He claims he did respond to my email but there is no evidence of that and other BBB complaints had the exact same situation. Something is seriously wrong with Active's email system.
I asked Active to refund my account for the remaining items. It's been three days now and no refund has posted yet. So that saga is hopefully coming to a close. Before ordering from Active Powersports be sure you have a strong stomach and aren't in a rush. Everything about them is misleading. You have been warned.
Update 3/9/2019: The refund finally posted. This saga is now closed. Thank goodness.
Setback 1: Still need the missing pieces of track.
I REALLY wish there was a local hobby shop near me. Trying to find an online retailer that isn't charging 150% over list and actually can tell you if the items are in stock is very difficult. I don't want to use Amazon if I can avoid it but sadly I think I will need to Amazon some of the items. Between modeltrainstuff.com and Amazon I have the rest of the items on order and they should be here shortly.
Setback 2: Turns out the track design I found on Kato's web site for the Burbank and Babylon has several inconsistencies in it. I went through the design to see what we could construct with the pieces we have and discovered there are parts listed in the bill of materials that aren't on the drawing and parts on the drawing that aren't in the bill of materials. There is some correlation between the two in terms of quantity but no indication which parts should be used to actually build the layout. How do I figure that out? The parts in question are 282mm 45deg curves vs 249mm 45deg curves.
Enter XTrackCad (http://www.xtrkcad.org/), Reading through the nscale.net forums I came across a discussion on design software for n scale Kato track and they referenced xtrkcad among others. I couldn't see the others because I needed to become a member and my confirmation email never arrived. (What is it about email these days?). xtrkcad isn't limited to Kato track. There are parameter files for just about any scale and brand you can think of. The application, at least the Mac and Linux versions, run under the X windows system so the GUI will feel different to those that haven't ever used X before. I've used X and many, many design packages so xtrkcad didn't intimidate me.. for very long.
It was midnight and I was so desperate to know the answer of how this track plan should be constructed. I dove into xtrkcad and built the layout. And then built it again, and again trying the different curve options where it seemed like they were meant to go. At 2am my son (a 16 year old that probably shouldn't have been up still but we were waiting to watch the SpaceX launch) helped me create the first successful layout that closed. It was possible to close the layout in several scenarios with the addition of some extra small straights and interchanging the curves around. Eventually I converged on a layout that closed and still fit the advertised 38" x 58" space. Some of the other designs exceeded the space constraints by half a foot, probably due to the larger radius curves.
Here is what I ended up with:
I think I might have been a little hasty in my original selection of this layout. I thought from the fuzzy diagram on Kato's website that there were two independent loops. After working with it, I don't see two independent loops. But maybe we can figure out a way to do that so two trains can run simultaneously without operator intervention. Also learned that the xtrkcad software has the concept of track "slop" allowing for the track to move around and allowing for more chances for it to close up. I'm curious how much slop the unitrack has in real life.
And the bill of materials for it:
XTrackCAD Parts List
03/02/2019
Count | Description
------+----------------------------------------------------------
11 | Kato Unitrack 20-000 Straight 9.75 248mm
4 | Kato Unitrack 20-020 Straight 4 7/8 124mm
8 | Kato Unitrack 20-030 Straight 2 1/2 64mm
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-034 Bumper B 2 1/2 64mm
4 | Kato Unitrack 20-040 Straight 2 7/16 62mm
1 | Kato Unitrack 20-091A Straight 1 3/4 45-5mm
3 | Kato Unitrack 20-091B Straight 1 1/8 29mm
13 | Kato Unitrack 20-100 Curve 9.75R 249mm 45°
1 | Kato Unitrack 20-110 Curve 11R 282mm 45°
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-111 Curve 11R 282mm 15°
4 | Kato Unitrack 20-121 Curve 12.375R 315mm 15°
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-160 Curve 19R 481mm 15°
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-202 Turnout 6-L
2 | Kato Unitrack 20-203 Turnout 6-R
1 | Kato Unitrack 20-430 Single Track Truss Bridge 9.75 248mm
------+-----------------------------------------------------------
In the end, I think I need some additional track pieces to make this layout work. <sigh> back to my little ordering hell. It's silly trying to order $8 of track and not pay $12 of shipping.
Setback 3: I feel like there was a third item holding things up but I can't recall what it is right now so it must not be important.
I asked Active to refund my account for the remaining items. It's been three days now and no refund has posted yet. So that saga is hopefully coming to a close. Before ordering from Active Powersports be sure you have a strong stomach and aren't in a rush. Everything about them is misleading. You have been warned.
Update 3/9/2019: The refund finally posted. This saga is now closed. Thank goodness.
Setback 1: Still need the missing pieces of track.
I REALLY wish there was a local hobby shop near me. Trying to find an online retailer that isn't charging 150% over list and actually can tell you if the items are in stock is very difficult. I don't want to use Amazon if I can avoid it but sadly I think I will need to Amazon some of the items. Between modeltrainstuff.com and Amazon I have the rest of the items on order and they should be here shortly.
Setback 2: Turns out the track design I found on Kato's web site for the Burbank and Babylon has several inconsistencies in it. I went through the design to see what we could construct with the pieces we have and discovered there are parts listed in the bill of materials that aren't on the drawing and parts on the drawing that aren't in the bill of materials. There is some correlation between the two in terms of quantity but no indication which parts should be used to actually build the layout. How do I figure that out? The parts in question are 282mm 45deg curves vs 249mm 45deg curves.
Enter XTrackCad (http://www.xtrkcad.org/), Reading through the nscale.net forums I came across a discussion on design software for n scale Kato track and they referenced xtrkcad among others. I couldn't see the others because I needed to become a member and my confirmation email never arrived. (What is it about email these days?). xtrkcad isn't limited to Kato track. There are parameter files for just about any scale and brand you can think of. The application, at least the Mac and Linux versions, run under the X windows system so the GUI will feel different to those that haven't ever used X before. I've used X and many, many design packages so xtrkcad didn't intimidate me.. for very long.
It was midnight and I was so desperate to know the answer of how this track plan should be constructed. I dove into xtrkcad and built the layout. And then built it again, and again trying the different curve options where it seemed like they were meant to go. At 2am my son (a 16 year old that probably shouldn't have been up still but we were waiting to watch the SpaceX launch) helped me create the first successful layout that closed. It was possible to close the layout in several scenarios with the addition of some extra small straights and interchanging the curves around. Eventually I converged on a layout that closed and still fit the advertised 38" x 58" space. Some of the other designs exceeded the space constraints by half a foot, probably due to the larger radius curves.
Here is what I ended up with:
And the bill of materials for it:
XTrackCAD Parts List
03/02/2019
Count | Description
------+----------------------------------------------------------
11 | Kato Unitrack 20-000 Straight 9.75 248mm
4 | Kato Unitrack 20-020 Straight 4 7/8 124mm
8 | Kato Unitrack 20-030 Straight 2 1/2 64mm
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-034 Bumper B 2 1/2 64mm
4 | Kato Unitrack 20-040 Straight 2 7/16 62mm
1 | Kato Unitrack 20-091A Straight 1 3/4 45-5mm
3 | Kato Unitrack 20-091B Straight 1 1/8 29mm
13 | Kato Unitrack 20-100 Curve 9.75R 249mm 45°
1 | Kato Unitrack 20-110 Curve 11R 282mm 45°
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-111 Curve 11R 282mm 15°
4 | Kato Unitrack 20-121 Curve 12.375R 315mm 15°
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-160 Curve 19R 481mm 15°
5 | Kato Unitrack 20-202 Turnout 6-L
2 | Kato Unitrack 20-203 Turnout 6-R
1 | Kato Unitrack 20-430 Single Track Truss Bridge 9.75 248mm
------+-----------------------------------------------------------
In the end, I think I need some additional track pieces to make this layout work. <sigh> back to my little ordering hell. It's silly trying to order $8 of track and not pay $12 of shipping.
Setback 3: I feel like there was a third item holding things up but I can't recall what it is right now so it must not be important.
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