My Noch Cortina Z scale layout using Micro Train Lines track

Last update 6/22/2010

To view pictures click on underlined words (not URL's).

The purpose of this web-site is to chronicle my endeavor to adapt Micro Trains z scale track to the Noch Cortina pre-formed layout (part #85880). The layout is made in Germany and designed to be used with Marklin track which is quite pricey. The cheaper Micro Trains Line (hereafter MTL) track is made here in the USA and is readily available on the internet, if not locally at your local hobby store.

The main problem with the adaptation of MTL track is that it does not come in all the various sizes that Marklin makes, especially the shorter sections.

The Cortina was designed to use a number of Marklin track sections with built in relays (circuit track) that switch every time a train goes across it and isolation tracks that break the electrical connection with the adjoining track. Unfortunately MTL has not yet made either such pieces of track. The basic wiring plan for the Cortina envisions the possibility of running three trains simultaneously on the layout without user intervention. One train will run on the outer loop using its own transformer, and two trains on the inner loops on their own transformer controlled by the track relays which prevent them from running into each other.

My basic plan is to complete the track layout as designed without any relays or isolation and deal with those possibilities much later. I think MTL makes some sort of track connectors which can provide isolation but am not sure at the moment. I also have not explored DCC which allows computer control of the trains and may not need all the relays.

One piece of necessary track could not be duplicated with MTL track - a curved left hand turnout (part #8568L). Every other turnout in the layout is straight track with curved turnout, but this piece has both parts curved. It only comes from Marklin with remote control although there is also a manual switch. MTL turnouts come either manual or remote, and what is really neat is that you can buy MTL adapters (part #916) which convert the existing manual turnouts to remote turnouts which can be operated either manually or electrically. There is some question as to whether or not these adapters are too big to fit all turnouts in the Cortina layout as designed. They will definitely work on the turnouts for the outermost loop.

Once I decided to proceed with the project I spent many hours of research on the internet finding the best prices for the layout, track, and various basic accessories needed to complete the layout. The results of my research are noted in Appendix A. The necessary parts list is in Appendix B.

After ordering the layout from Germany, I began buying packs of MTL track and turnouts needed for the project. I also picked up the one piece of Marklin track noted above on eBay and the necessary Marklin bridges and piers. All surplus track will be easily resold on eBay once the layout is done.

The Cortina comes with six plastic stone pattern tunnel portals which need to be glued into place at each tunnel entrance. Some of them will need to be trimmed and/or cut into sections to fit the tunnel openings. This is one of the first things you can do if you do not have some of the parts necessary to get started.

The first step is laying out the MTL track and fitting the bridges with MT flexible track which fits them nicely. If you are going to paint the flex track ties do it before threading onto bridges/ramps. Leave spaces where necessary for shorter pieces which will need to be fabricated. Since MTL does not make the called for 45 degree track with a 145mm radius I used the 317.5mm MTL flexible track (part #599/901) as the replacement. At this point I think it best not to begin bending the flex track until you have the actual roadbed that you will be using underneath it.

Regular MTL track comes with an attached gray hard plastic roadbed. There seem to be two options for fabricating the shorter pieces of track necessary for the Cortina. Either use MTL flex track (with some sort of flexible roadbed) and cut it to the lengths needed or somehow shorten the regular straight MTL track with the plastic roadbed to the needed lengths. Since I think the MTL plastic roadbed looks best in the layout, I decided to try the latter approach. I bought a relatively inexpensive mini-chop saw which has a 2 inch circular saw blade with 100 teeth. The main limitation of this unit is that it has a very limited depth of cut. The saw has a mini-vise to hold whatever you are cutting in place, but the design of this vise is funky. Instead of a normal flat surface vise bed, it has a raised flat hump in the middle about .5 inches wide to provide a railway for the front vise jaw to keep it centered.  Unfortunately it allows whatever you are cutting to wobble from the saw blade pressure while sawing. My first attempt at cutting was a disaster. I tried laying the track flat like it is normally installed. When the blade touched the rail it grabbed it, pulled it loose from the moorings on the plastic roadbed, and twisted it. Next I tried making a vertical cut with the rails facing the front. This sort of worked and turned out to be the method of preference. It makes a clean cut of the rails and about 85% of the plastic roadbed. The saw's depth of cut is not enough to go all the way through. A quick slice with a utility knife finishes the cut. I have a small surplus stainless steel ruler that is a bit wider than the distance between the rails which I put between the top of the rails and the front vise jaw so that the jaw does not deface the critical  top surface of the track. Once you have the length of MTL track you need, you need to prepare the cut end to receive the rail joiners. I found it best to use two rail joiners at the cut end rather than the normal one joiner. In order to make space under the bottom of the rail for the joiner to slide on, you need to cut the tiny plastic holdown(s) at the very end with an xacto knife. I put the tip of my xacto knife under the rails and bent them upwards a tiny bit to more easily receive the joiners. It takes some patience and sometimes widening the space a tad between the joiners to get them to slip on nicely. A good set of fine needle nose pliers are essential for this job. Of course, the plastic rail joiner (and metal joiner) will need to be removed from the piece of track the cut one will mate with. I ended up cutting off the plastic joiner flush with my rail cutters so as to not leave a visible space in the track where the joiner goes. If I was going into the business of cutting MTL track I would make some sort of a jig to hold the track so it could not wobble. I solved the wobble problem by using a one inch rubber grommet that just happened to be the correct height to fill the space under the protruding MTL track to be cut off.  Of course one could also solder the joints which many folks do on their layouts. I will take some pictures of the whole cutting process if anybody requests such documentation. Once all the cuts are done and the cut sections are installed on the layout, we move to installation of the roadbed which will underlie the flex track. At this point you can run your train around the outer loop for a diversion.

I did some research on the internet and found some Midwest Products cork roadbed for N scale (part #3019) which seemed to be my best option. It is .3mm thicker than the MTL plastic roadbed, and it comes in 3 foot strips which are 1.125 inches wide and has straight edges all around (cost $.89 per strip). It comes pre-cut in half (length wise) with a bevel cut which allows the two pieces to be separated and then one flipped and mated in the middle with the adjoining straight edges meeting in the middle to make N scale roadbed. I used the strip halves which measure about 13mm on the top so each piece of roadbed will have one beveled edge and one straight edge. I may build a ballast bevel for the straight edge if it looks too funky as is. The MTL plastic ballast measures about 12mm wide so these are very close. I took a short piece of MTL track with plastic roadbed to Home Depot and asked for a matching sample of gray flat paint. These cost $2.95 and are a bargain for small jobs. It took about 10 minutes to paint the two cork strips.  At the hobby store where I got the cork I also picked up some mat adhesive which supposedly stays tacky to allow for realignment of whatever you are sticking down. I tried to use this to hold down the cork, but it turns out this was useless because of the tension of the tight radii. I found out later this adhesive was designed to hold down grass mats. I ended up using the screws noted below about every 5 inches fitting it to the pattern printed on the Cortina.

To fasten the track (and roadbed) to the layout I chose Marklin phillips screws (part #7599) which measure 1.4mmx10mm. They come 200 to a box, and screw into the Cortina layout somewhat easily when using the correct size precision phillips head screw driver with moderate downward pressure.. The predrilled holes in the MTL track are not large enough for these screws so I reamed out the holes with a #53 drill bit held in a small pin vise. Actually I used my unplugged in Dremel Moto-tool to hold the bit since the pin vise I ordered did not arrive until today. Just spin the chuck by hand as you would with a pin vise. Enlarging the holes in the flex track is a challenge since a #53 hole is about the same diameter as the plastic tie on the track. So far the good news is that even a slightly off center hole still catches enough of the plastic to hold down the track nicely. If you find that the screws insist on going in at an angle instead of straight up it probably means you found one of the locations where there is wood underneath the plastic shell. In these cases, it is best to drill a #59 pilot hole down through the wood to help the screw go in straight. Another point to mention is that the rails protruding from the ends of flex track are too long, and they need to be shortened with a track cutter. I also found that for the tight Cortina radii, one rail needs to be slightly longer than the other if the joint falls on a curve or there will be an unacceptable gap at the joint on the outside of the curve. After some research on the internet I settled on the very highly recommended pair of Xuron #2175B track cutter shears. They cost me $13 on eBay new. The track has now all been laid, and I will say that laying the flex track has been the hardest part of the project so far. My original plan for laying flex track was to use as few of the flex sections as possible to minimize joints. In retrospect, it is much easier to join pieces of straight flex track if it means you can eliminate one in the middle of tight curve. With the Cortina layout it will be impossible to eliminate most of the joints that fall in a curve. The problem with the curved joints is making a joint with very small or no gaps. The small gaps on my layout do not seem to present any particular issues and if they ever do I will solder, file, and polish the joints which cause problems.

As indicated in the parts list (appendix B), the Cortina plan calls for two Marklin arched bridges (part #8975), one straight bridge ramp (part #8976), two curved bridge ramps (part #8977), and three 40mm tall piers (part #8979). These are placed according to the track layout photo. You must use either MT flex track or Marklin straight track sections for these bridges. No roadbed is used, and the track slips underneath some tabs at the end of each bridge to keep it flat on the bridge. The bridge piers are fastened to the Cortina with screws or could be glued down with hot melt glue.

Once the roadbed was securely fastened in place, I began bending the flex track to conform to the cork roadbed (cutting it to length when necessary) and screwed it down through the cork into the Cortina plastic below. In my opinion one of the tricky connections is where all the various track pieces mate with the Marklin curved turnout. I suggest you check out the handy link below (Appendix C) explaining how to mate the MTL track with Marklin track. By far the hardest section to design was the right side upper level. I can't tell you how many times I screwed and unscrewed various combinations of regular and flex track until I was happy with the result. Once all the layout track is securely fastened down I will deal with the file and sandpaper as described in the article. Before securing the balance of the track to the Cortina make sure you have installed all of the tunnel portals, and then run your train with longest cars attached over all the track to make sure it does not bump into any part of the layout.

Two track bumpers need to be installed at the end of the two spurs in the middle of the layout. There does not seem to be much of a selection for these. I chose to use Marklin part #8991.  These are mounted on top of the track and then screwed down through the bumper and track. If you want the bumpers at the absolute very end of the spurs you will need to drill a #53 hole through the MTL track since the pre-drilled holes are not that close to the end of the track.

I recently corresponded with MTL regarding their lack of necessary track pieces (isolation and circuit track) to run more than one train on a layout and was told some of these parts are under actual  development. Absolutely no details were given. They also agreed to consider manufacturing a flexible matching roadbed for their flex track.

Other Issues

All MTL track is nickel-silver but the ties on the flex track are black instead of brown like on the regular MTL track with roadbed. If this bugs you (and I haven't yet decided how much it bothers me) then you can paint the ties brown. If you are a sloppy painter then mask off the top of the rails with painter's tape. If you are going to paint the rails be sure to do it before installing the bridges and ramps. It would be really tough to try and paint it after installed in these pieces. I did paint one section of flex track gray (don't have correct brown at the moment) which is attached to one end of a bridge just to see what it looks like painted, but still have not formed any conclusions about painting any other sections, and I am certainly not going to take apart the bridges/ramps for track painting.

I'm not too impressed with my MTL engine. It does work but cannot pull much of a load, and if the engine derails on its side there is a 50/50 chance the plastic shell will fall off. I have also noticed that the lighter rolling stock (which is the bulk of what I have) seem to derail more easily than the heavier cars. Installation of the Fox Valley steel wheels seem to help keep the rolling stock on track quite a bit better. These are not cheap (about $.70 per axle) but are worth the money in my opinion.

Current Projects

I built my own front extension. The ones available from Noch are way too expensive (in my opinion) for what you get. I needed a place to display all my rolling stock which the engine cannot pull. It is mostly a typical train yard with turnouts and spurs. I made a 12" x 39" frame from 3/4"x3/4" pine and covered the frame with two layers of 3/16" plywood. The plywood was then covered with 1/2" foam. This made the top of the foam about the same height as the roadbed on the front of the Cortina. The foam will allow some negative sculpting here and there like on the Cortina. I bought a hot wire foam cutter than can be used for either straight or curved cutting as well as the negative sculpting. I am making the front expansion compatible with the right side extension which I also bought from station500. For the immediate future I have no room for permanent attachment of the right extension. I only ordered it so I could make sure that my setup for the front expansion will be easy to connect up once it becomes a permanent part of the layout. My current front expansion configuration should work fine with little modification. The trickiest part of this expansion was figuring out a nice looking way to get cars over to the front expansion which was accomplished by using an N scale highway bridge built in sections and custom modified (Rix/N 1930's Highway Overpass). I could not find a suitable bridge in z scale after many hours of searching the internet.

I have added trees to the mountain areas and have installed remote switches on my turnouts. I made the mistake of gluing down ballast between tracks before adding the remote switches which require a bit of disassembly of the MTL turnouts so they need to be removed from the layout to accomplish this task.

I have purchased street lights and a few cars with headlights and taillights for future installation. Still planning the house/building configuration so have not arrived at a final road configuration. 

Modifications to the Cortina

I decided to make a few modifications to the basic Cortina layout. The first was to remove one of the spurs in the back center of the layout to make more room for buildings. Since I now have lots of spurs on my front extension I felt this would be viable. I am going to put a Kibri #6726 large oil tanks (kit) there. I bought a very cool Texaco animated sign to go behind the tanks. It is for N scale but Miller Engineering does not make any z scale signs. I will be picking up an MTL Texaco tank car runner pack (4 cars) when they are released in September for placement on the spur behind the oil tanks.

I also decided to expand the pad area for buildings in the middle of the layout to better accommodate my road system. I used a base of foam, then layered it with air dry clay, then drywall compound to make a smooth surface, then painted to match.

I made the trench between the front extension and the Cortina into a water drainage channel which runs the full width.

Wiring details

The wiring was pretty straight forward except for making the Marklin road crossing gates operate normally. I made the mistake of mounting the relay on the bottom of the layout instead of somewhere where I could get to it easily once the layout is back on the table. I still have lots of stuff not fastened down, all of which needs to be removed for wiring. Next time I do more wiring I will be moving the relay to a more friendly location. I decided to try and use an Atlas snap relay instead of the Marklin universal one (at about 35% of the Marklin price). Operation of the crossing gates is sporadic so until I get the relay moved and check for loose connections I will not be able to determine whether the Marklin relay will be necessary.

Custom Details

I have had little time to concentrate on this aspect of the layout but have managed a few as follows:

cemetery

cattle loading

camp site

beach

Feel free to email with questions or comments: cliff@fidelitytc.com

Appendix A - Sources

Please note that the prices below most likely do not include the shipping charge unless noted otherwise.

The complete Cortina finished by Noch is available through www.ministeam.com for $8,399.93 - they also sell the bare layout like I bought for $449.95

The most well known USA dealer for Noch layouts is www.zscalehobo.com run by Frank Daniels here in California - he indicates he no longer sells the larger Noch layouts like the Cortina because of shipping problems from Germany. He does still sell the complete set of Marklin track for the Cortina for $1075 and the now discontinued Merkur roadbed for the Marklin track ($215 for complete set of roadbed for Cortina). He also will finish any Noch layout to whatever level the customer wishes.

I bought my layout from www.station500.com in Germany. He has an eBay store and is listed on eBay as station500. He has been selling these on eBay with Buy it Now for $259 + $49 shipping. I got mine in one week, though he estimated it would take 2-3 weeks. I also got the right extension from him in a separate transaction and that took about 2 weeks to arrive.

I have been buying my MT track either on eBay from various venders or directly from www.normstrainworld.com. He ships quite fast, and his prices are hard to beat.

I just found www.crmodeltrains.com which has cheaper prices than Norm's above but only carries a limited selection of MTL track. Good selection and prices on MTL engines. They also had the Fox Valley Models steel wheels in stock which I have been having a hard time finding in stock anywhere.

I have been buying various scenery and supplies from both www.HobbyLinc.com and www.Zscalemonster.com and have been very happy with their service.

The mini-chop saw is distributed by Harbor Freight. I got mine on eBay for less than the list price.

I would suggest you avoid Hiawatha Hobbies as a source. They make promises they do not keep and screwed me out of about $13.

Appendix B - Complete parts list (as built)

                                                             Micro Train Parts

                                                                  Marklin Parts

                                                         Midwest Products Parts

Appendix C - Handy Links

RailServe.com: The Internet Railroad Directory - Guide to 17,000 rail-related websites including train travel, model railroading, railfan resources, train simulators, and railroad industry sites

http://www.ztrains.com/basics/mix/mix.html - Article explaining the process of mixing MT track and Marklin sectional track