Z scale layout on a G scale flat car

The Idea

Since I also run G scale, I thought it would be fun to see if I could fit a working Z scale layout on a G scale flat car.

Rokuhan just had announced their new small curved track, R046 - 45mm radius, 45° - pack of 4 - brown wood ties. I figured this would just fit on my Aristo-Craft 40;' flat car.

I would power this from the track, so it would run on my G scale DCC layout, transferring the DCC signal from the G scale trucks to the Z scale "layout". I'll use a voltage dropper to reduce the voltage.

The Plan

To make it interesting, I added a reversing loop and a spur. This was possible due to the using DCC. For DC operation, I'll add a switch to disable the autoreverser.

R022 and R023 55mm remote turnouts (22 is left and 23 is right), which also come with the trimmed piece of straight track so a standard track can be used on the diverging track.

I decided to use the free software AnyRail, but quickly found that it is not accurate in respect to the diverging angle of the switches.

So, I bought the parts I thought I needed, and it took a fair amount of playing around to get it right.

Below is how close I got with the AnyRail software:

I was determined to come up with a solution that anyone else could do, so I resisted the advice to start cutting and ordered all stock parts.

I used 3 pieces of the adjustable track, and put the insulating joiners in 3 locations so that I could have a longer reversing section, even though common wisdom would say just to insulate the diagonal section. Actually that is not possible without modifying the switches, since the insulating joiners won't fit on switches, part of the joiners are cast into a switch.

Motive Power & Rolling Stock

Using the venerable Marklin 0-6-0 made a lot of sense: It's about the smallest production loco, heavy, room for a tiny DCC decoder inside, and the drivers can be removed from the center axle.

Interestingly, power is only picked up from the first and third axles, so no loss in electrical pickup is had.

Now for rolling stock, I need something tiny, and 2 axle, I'm looking at the Marklin 86244 ore cars:

But I have my eye on one of these for motive power, a Baldwin Docksider from Searails:

Much cooler!  http://www.searails.com/steam/baldwinzdockside.html

Below is the initial mockup running: