Marshall Field development started in September 2006. The track was put into the garage of our family home. There was just one problem; how to fit a track in with a garage full of power tools, bicycles, and lots and lots of stuff. The garage was lined all along the back 3 walls with huge 8 foot high-5 shelf- 2x4 storage racks custom built to fit the high ceilings and fill in the space. They were full of stuff.
So Craig's list to the rescue and a person bought them all. Now with that out of the way, it was time to build the tables to house the track. You see, our idea was to put all that stuff under the slot car track, sell off the power tools when we were done and buy smaller versions of the same power tools to store under the tables, hang the bicycles, buy an outdoor plastic shed to store the garden tools, and clean everything up. My wife loved the idea as she loves a clean and orderly everything, even garage.
My son and I started out in September of 2006 to build the 4 - 4x8 tables with bottom shelves as the main surface for our huge 17'6" x 10' race track layout. It took us until December 1 to complete the main table layouts, sell the racks, and clean up the stuff.
Then the wiring had to be done. We decided on using individual power to each lane, so off to Norvac electronics to buy the power supplies. Velleman makes great dual power supplies that can crank out 30 volts per power supply, more than enough power for our track. Then we went to slottronics website to buy the driver's stations. (see the slot car links page), and off to trackmate's web site to buy the track management computer software system (also in the slot car links page). We have never made a track like this before so there was a lot of learning to do especially with the wiring. But we prevailed and by Christmas day all was working and running.
