fall inside a hole

2013 landscaped layout

In the summer of 2013 I set up my first (and longest-lasting to date) "permanent" layout in my parent's basement. I was 13 at the time and had been collecting TrackMaster at retail stores for a few years as well as continuing to find Tomy and earlier TrackMaster toys at yard sales and thrift stores.

This layout was built across three folding tables which I had used for various other train layouts up to this point. This was the first time I landscaped a train setup. The layout consisted of an elevated hill platform which housed the upper portion of the layout with a spiral on one side and a sloping elevated line going up the other. Originally, more of the layout was TrackMaster track but as time went on I changed the layout and incorporated more Tomy track.

A YouTube video from around the time I originally "completed" the layout is still viewable online or is available without the music directly here. I originally selected the music from the YouTube audio library but ten years later it has been claimed under copyright. The original footage had only incidental audio and was probably recorded either on a late 2000s digital camera or a Nintendo 3DS, the only cameras I had access to at the time.

By 2015 some of the TrackMaster track on the lower portion of the layout as well as the spiral were replaced with Tomy track and the selection of engines had been expanded. The tunnel portion was also widened. One train could go under the hill portion of the layout and another could go up and over. A second YouTube video was made around this time, and the layout was also seen on some other older YouTube videos.

The hill was made out of cardboard boxes cut up to make the shape I wanted and taped together with access holes left for the underground portion of the layout. Over this I put a layer of paper mache which I then painted and decorated with moss and grass and other scenery. The lower portion of the layout had a station and a small yard with several sidings. The upper portion sagged inwards pretty much immediately and had a few branching Tomy lines and later a station. I sometimes staged engines almost falling down the hill after coming off one of these lines.

In May of 2015 I posted about this layout on the BluePlasticTracks forum.

This layout was eventually taken apart in late 2015 and was replaced by the never finished second landscaped layout that was partially built in its place. The main thing I ended up disliking about this layout was that I could only let a few trains run at the same time as there were only really two separate loops around the layout. Almost all of my layouts going forward had room for at least four trains to make nice runs. I also had a fairly limited collection of Tomy and TrackMaster trains and accessories at the time.