Gerlos will be mothballed soon. Why, you might ask?
1. Gerlos has too many compromises
2. The fiddle yard will be virtually in-accessible once the scenery is applied
3. A loft conversion will give me a huge amount more space
4. I really want to run my RhB stuff as well
Originally I was going just move the layout into converted loft (during construction as it's easier) and then remedy just parts one and two. However that doesn't address the complete lack of depth.
Item 4 give anoth
Well just when thought you had things planned out they go a bit goverment policy shaped...
Never mind.... There hasn't been much modelling going on, but this weekend I have made a few tentative steps back to actually building the layout! The train table is accessible again, all the junk covering it has been tidied and the space underneath tidied.
I bought one of the new Liliput O&K loco's on Saturday, with a Gaugemaster decoder. As soon as it hit the track, I had a sense of déja vu,
The last entry was 1st of July... A lot has happened since then, but not on the modelling front!
First I went to Fryslân to watch skûtsjesilen where they race former freighters over a fortnight on (sometimes) small lakes.
Then it was a fortnight in Switzerland! Narrow gauge heaven!
So: Bernina Express, Glacier Express, Gornergrat, BOB/WAB/JB, SPB, ZB, BRB, PB.
Some goods vehicles were bought, but no great damage. Next I need a large extension for the GB RhB link!
I'm afraid it's wonky, not very high resolution and the lighting is not great...
However, I decided it was time to try and actually run a loco around the track so far. So I got out 2095.04 and first tried it on its own. This was successful and the loco only stopped once (not bad on track that hasn't been cleaned in years).
So for a bit of grand test, I got out some of the stake wagons, they are very light and so should derail at the first opportunity. This was not to be, despite a double
I have a Noch kit for an N gauge level crossing, more of a barrow crossing as it's wood, however it's for straight lines only. I need my road crossing on a bend...
So armed with some left over rail, my normal fat fingers, a pair of pliers, super glue, some platform ballast, I've had a bash, so here is exhibit A:
It needs more ballast, I know!
Now the gap is huge between the running rails and the guiding rails for the heart piece, perhaps next time I should trim off some of the
Again no fancy pictures, diagrams or any other new fangled stuff! Strictly text! All that's left is some childish innuendo...
Having found myself under the table last night and I must get a big cushion or two for sessions like that, today was the evening for testing. Partly to make sure and I hadn't broken anything, partly to make sure it works nicely with the Z21...
Partial success...
Most point motors work, two need replacing. The surprise was that one of Lenz point decoders only r
No fancy pictures tonight I'm afraid, just some hard graft!
Every now and again you get these jobs you don't really want to do, but in the it's unavoidable. So tonight I crawled under the layout to reconnect the point motors. This was followed by banging home the nails, a lot of which were removed to allow me to fit dropper wires to the frog points or to allow painting of the cork underlay...
Tomorrow testing, testing!
Hi All,
Not a lot of progress today, but some testing was required, so it was time to get out some rolling stock, just to check if everything was going to fit.
This is a picture of the rolling stock (not all of it either) out to test the track:
The ZB historical rake is considerably longer than any of the loops in the station, so that will need to run in several trains, not as a single massive rake.
A number of years ago I tried the loco's and worked out that the big ZB diesels
Well, not quite actually! I finally got around to buying some actual people to populate the layout, as well as a beetle (car) to check sizes such as road widths. I've never gotten to this stage before! And with that I mean being somewhat realistic. My most scenic'd layout from my younger days featured one house and some road surface and very unrealistic grass. The whole lot was inside the reversing loop, with no way out! However that doesn't really matter when you're ten!
It wasn't until aft
Not much got done over the weekend, except to visit the Chatham show and pick up a few bits and pieces...
So, I now have some yard lights, and platform lights (although ZB platforms don't really have them, I'll put them in for the atmosphere). A Viesmann HO water crane also arrived. This is the motorised variety so will swing through 90 degrees on command. It's even DCC compatible right from the box!
I think there might be an opportunity for a British version! Would make a great addition
For all of those who are fans of old measurements, let it be known that the metric system was standardised before Imperial measures!
Just a tidbit of information and a lesson in measuring...
Last night when I measuring the width for the strips of plasticard, I used a metric ruler upstairs but then flipped it over and used the imperial side on the reverse to make out the cutting line on the plasticard. So I measured 2.5 cm on one side and then translated that into 1"...
So it didn't
Given the good progress over the last few weeks, things kind of took a bit of break over the last week. A visit looming of a modelling friend with entire family meant getting the house in order before the weekend and not during...
Anyway, tonight it was back to it with the washing machine running in the background. Just some simple jobs tonight, the first one painting the baseboard in a piece that will be in the tunnel. That's now black to make sure the tunnel looks like a proper tunnel:
Hi All,
Not much progress today, housework gets in the way sometimes! However I need to do some work under the layout so tonight I cleared out all the crates stored underneath and stacked them elsewhere. So first job, some dangling cables under the layout. Now the previous weekend, I bought some new stuff to hold up cables under the layout. I had been using cable loops with nails, but it's a pain to try and nail these on whilst lying on the floor, so I'm trying these stick on pads and cable
I originally started to lay the track for Gerlos around Christmas 2010! So it is great to find that I'm making progress with the layout again. Over the last week or so I've been taking some of the lessons I've learned and started to apply them.
So if you go back you can see the upper level having been cut and the track being stripped out.
So without further ado, tada!
The track is back, much better aligned than before, I used a massive one metre long ruler clamped to the baseboa
Last night I put down the second coat of grey in the station yard and this morning it looked like it had now completely covered the cork tiles (I've got a couple of packs going cheap if you'd like them).
So tonight the track went back down, as it's set track that is fairly easy (come on Peco, some new OO9 nine points please, plus 12" radius curves?) but this is premium Roco track so I did very carefully! Some of the holes needed a little prod, but it's all back down again except for the curv
The snake has been formed and it almost eats it's own tail, the siding has been laid together with the passing loop in the upper station, so far so good!
As an aide against ballasting mistake I have decided to paint the cork grey, on the snakey part: no problem, in the lower station: big problem!
When I started I bought a large pile of cork tiles (as used for flooring), never again! These tiles have been impregnated so that they can be used in places like kitchens (don't ask)...
I ha
Yesterday I did some experimental glueing down of the cork strip for the upper loop. A quick examination this evening showed it had worked as planned so I've now finished off the main track of the upper level.
The upper station loop and siding are still to come but I'll wait until the glue sets.
Here you can see a photo of the cork as laid. The nice thing about doing it this way, is that it requires no compression to stop it from warping.
On Friday, I hope to complete the passin
Now that the track formation has been cut, I have commenced laying the cork for the road bed.
I'm using 1/16" N gauge strips fron All Components, these by default, won't curve around the kinds of radii that I'm using (291mm).
To overcome this I'm cutting slits in the cork on the outside of the curve about every 5mm to 1cm.
Next problem is that the PVA comes up through the cuts which means I can't really use clamps to squish the whole lot together. So I'm taking it in small sections
Yesterday, I promised a picture of the cut upper level, well here it is:
It was quite an effort to make sure whole lot didn't break and it's time like that you wish you had a properly equipped workshop with a nice big bench.
The advantages of doing it all as one piece is that you the wood helps to make the transition smooth. Of course there might be some issues at the bottom but they can be overcome.
Next I will be laying a cork strip along central track formation, then the whole l
Unfortunately the image is too big to upload, but yesterday my fellow modeller came round and while his partner went to check out the delights of the High Street (a better one than the one they have), we cut the board for upper layer.
Due to a couple of other things that needed to be done during the week we first had to mark out the cutting lines. The track had been marked out on the board and so we marked out lines one inch from the outer line of the track. In the end that meant a 9 mm gaug
No major progress over the last fortnight, just a slow and steady plod...
The key task is to mark out where to cut the upper level board, as a friend is coming to help out this weekend.
In the meantime, I've been lifting the points (again) and fitting wires to the bottom of the frogs with the intention of adding polarisation circuitry at a later date. As the point motors don't have auxiliary switches I'm intending to use a little circuit with a latching relay to do this.
A friend of
In March last year I pretty much mothballed my main layout: Gerlos and started work on a much smaller layout instead just to practice some building techniques. The small layout being Linksueberdorf (LUD for short).
Over the last year the baseboard for Gerlos has just become a repository for junk that needs to be put away, so the weekend before the Bank Holiday, I cleared all the junk away again and gave the top of the baseboard a bit of a clean. The reasoning being that as I progress with LU
OK, so after playing with the settings on the loco's to get more realistic running now it's time to turn my attention to the track plan, so I can control the points using the App.
I had taken a photo of the layout but it just was too vague and lead to confusion about which point was where. The problem being the contrast being too low to produce a clear picture!
So instead I've made a maximum sized drawing of the layout using a black marker pen on a piece of paper.
I know this is
Hi All,
So the Ally Pally show is now over, got a bargain just like last year. Last year it was a On30 loco, this year was an N-gauge DB BR-215, mint condition Roco model...
Anyway, play with the Z21 continues, this iPad now has a copy of my mates' layout, he e-mailed it too me! It includes stock, track plan, the works... Nice! If you're both on the same WIFI network you can send it direct but we didn't try that...
I've spent some time this evening adjusting the maximum speed on some
Hi Again,
I've calmed down a bit now, after all I got it pretty much setup as it should be. This is:
Change the SSID so it no longer has a number on the end. This is (probably) a serial number and gives hackers a way in...
Change the Wifi password (this is very likely to be calculated from the serial number, so if the secret gets out...)
Change the name of the Adminstrator (in the case of this router it's a well disguised admin) and password (admin again, so hard to guess!).
Pre
