His and Her's micro layouts

[mega_mort]

Hi All,

 

So the wife has decided to get rid of her Warhammer collection and join me in playing trains, she's been operating layouts at shows with me for the past few years and built up a small collection of LNER locos in the process. So it seemed logical to get rid of the Warhammer as she's not played with that since she moved in.

 

Sssoooo at this years Furness Model Railway show she talked the manager to letting us bring a pair of mirco layouts joined together with a shared fiddle yard in the middle. With a year to make them both,  , we both work full time........

 

I already had plans on a NSE micro layout ether based on this plan from the scrapbook on Carendt.com Maldon Market Hill station.

 

 

Then there was another idea to do a small layout based on Ian Futer's Victoria Park.

 

 

Both nice and small terminus stations with some opertational possibilities.

 

Think i'm going to settle with the Maldon Market Hill idea, with an extra siding on the towards the goods to act as a head shunt for shunting. So swaping the point there out for a 3 way just to add some more to the shunting as using GUVs and pacels wagons on this encarnation of the layout. I will build a version of victoria park as a NSE 3rd rail layout at some point in the future. Possibly as another 4by1 that we could pass trains between the 2 NSE layouts hhhhmmmm.......

 

The main premise is that the station is some forgoten back water in the NSE area, served by 2 car DMUs for passenger and with a fright yard nearby all goods are tripped by class 08 and 03 for the local printers. The odd appeance of a 33 or 73 with the express freight trains but most of the freight will be tripped to and from the station. It was once a through station but services have been cut back to here, would have been further other than the flats that where built and the printers demanding a rail link. Or it could be the rail link was put in for the printers and the station added when the flats went up not decided yet.

 

Now the the wifes 4by1 is going to be a shed layout as a starter into the hobby, using a Metcalfe 2 road engine shed and a relatively simple track plan with some other Metcalfe kits to add to this to make it look like a small servicing yard. Some where to run big locos while we think about where we could put a silly sized layout for the future.

 

In the middle will be a 3 road 3foot fiddle yard that is to be shared between the 2 layouts, this is going to be may for an existing 4 by 1 board and the remaining foot of fiddle yard will be come a small extension if the layouts are every going to be operated independently.

 

The boards for these are already built as when I was in the old Bolton Model raileay club I got 2 sheets of 8by4 chipboard and cut up into a few 4by1 and 4by18" boards and braced with 2by1.

 

Will post some plans at some point once I've had a few hours play with anyrail. Unless someone can come up with some better ideas.....

 

Neil

[Gordon A]

Another crossover in the platform area would give you a run round capability for shunting.

Also a couple of trap points for the two sidings?

 

Gordon A

[mega_mort]

Hi Gordon, that was seriously thought about the run-round, but then I've got both and 08 and 03 and the idea was to have them as station shunters and save money on points. But i'm still playing in any rail at the minute so ideas may change, and that is a very good one.............

 

The current plan based on Maldon Market Hill

 

[mega_mort]

Also the wife's shed will look some thing like this :

 

 

The full plan will look like this :-

 

 

And now Gordon's idea (this may become the next project as just found as 4 foot by 8 inch and a 3 foot by 8 inch board in the pile of boards)

 

Edited October 14, 2016 by mega_mort

[gazmanjack]

The track plan of Maldon Market Hill is very similar to what I am using on my Parcel Depot layout see here : http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/114154-industry-lane/?p=2462743

 

I haven't started a thread as yet, but will soon. Looking forward to watching your layout develop.

 

Cheers, Gary.

[mega_mort]

Hi Gary, 

 

As my mum always told my dad when he complained his new plan looked like (insert layout here), there is only so many ways you can place track on a board. 

 

Also that parcels depot gives me ideas for an extension of layout in the future as to where the 08, 03 trips the vans from.............

 

P.S

Industry Lane looks like a brilliant layout

 

P.P.S

is the parcels deport building scratch built or is it a kit?????? - looking for ideas for a small building for the printers with a covered loading dock

Edited October 16, 2016 by mega_mort

[gazmanjack]

Hi Neil,

 

Thanks for the kind words on Industry Lane. As for the parcels depot, it is kit bashed or I should say pieced up from the Scalescenes Large Station Building (R005). I cut and shut individual sections of the kit to get the desired results. It is mounted on 3mm foam core and the relief brickwork is on 1mm card.

 

Cheers, Gary.

[mega_mort]

Hi Gary, 

 

thanks for the insight, will look into that, got the demo kits to make off them, so will see if the printer is up to the job at home. 

[mega_mort]

Hi All, 

 

A light work load on a Sunday in work has left me with time to think about the control system for the layout. Don't think the normal control system we use will be up to the task, that being a Sprog 3 and a laptop. It may work but if going to be using point motors powered from the DCC bus and lighting form the DCC bus, I don't think it can handle it. So what to do instead........

 

Option 1,

'Borrow' Lenz set-up off my dad, has worked a similar layout set up in the past, but a short on one board kills the whole layout, also if want the phones and laptop style control then it gets pricey with the PC interface. Also its that old not sure it was ever upgraded to firmware 3.6 any way so may be none starter.

 

Option 2, 

Buy a new DCC set-up with PC control so phones can be used, or a set-up with 2 handsets also costly. 

 

Option 3, 

get a Pi-SPROG Nano to use with my V3 raspberry pie, and each board has its own Tam Valley Depot DCC Booster or sprog booster to power the board. Then find a laptop charger that can give enough amps to power the lot (i think i found a HP spare that has enough amps). This also gives short protection between the boards as well. 

 

Option 4

Use existing sprog 3 and laptop with the Tam Valley Deport DCC Booster or sprog booster. This also gives short protection but has the problem of many plugs required for running. 

 

Option 5, 

Use current sprog 3 set up and cross fingers. 

 

I'm leaning towards option 3 as all that can be built into the middle board and will only use 1 plug socket, if wired correctly. This also gives access to laptop to program locos using the sprog 3 separately. Also all the circuit boards on top of the fiddle yard will look cool and geeky. But the man plus is the boost feds to separate the layouts and stop shorts hitting the hole layout. 

 

hhhmmmm choices........................

[Emmi_OO_LNER]

Hi All,

 

Neil's Wife Emily (Emmi) here, the Warhammer has now left the premises to make way for this layout.

I am looking forward to learning more about the building side of the hobby and look forward to showing this idea off at Barrow In Furness Model Railway Exhibition in 2017. I think the phrase is Challenge Accepted.

[Jerry1975]

Looks like a good plan you both have there.

 

Will follow with interest.

 

Jerry.

[mega_mort]

Finally   the boards have been moved into the railway room, the room is still being tidied at the minute to make room for the boards to go up on the legs (once legs got from parents house). Then I can figure out how good my joinery skills are be seeing if the boards meet up and find the worst joint between the boards and then that board get shortened to make to 2 fiddle yards. 

[mega_mort]

OK made some room in the railway room to put the boards up and check the joins etc, all seems fine with the joints between the boards. The middle one in the picture will be shortened by a foot to make the two fiddle yards. That will done at some point before Christmas I hope with the points to be bought after Christmas and then the track laying can start.

 

[mega_mort]

Little bit of an update on this, plans have had to go for a redesign, gone is the 3 foot dual fiddle yard, in is now a 1 foot fiddle yard for each layout. Mainly due to space problems in the house, but the fiddle yards will be designed to allow trains to run through from one layout to the other. Hopefully I can design these fiddle yards to hold all the main electrics and make the track design so I could use these boards with the other 4by1 boards I have as well. 

 

On a plus side I do get another 4 foot by 6 inch board out of this re-design for another layout to be built on. Plans have been drawn up.......

[andyram]

A wife who is interested in joining in with your hobby. You are very lucky. Seriously the plans look very interesting. I look forward to seeing how you progress with your challenge to be ready for the exhibition.

[mega_mort]

Finally progress on this layout, the boards are built now mostly (still got the back seen to attach to the wifes). Track has been bought, point motors bought, 50% of the DCC equipment got. Images of the progress of NSE side are below. Hopefully after this next set of shift the wife half will be at point. Some of the scenic items have been built as well.

 

Images below as a few days of progress

 

the first build of part of the back ground. 

test laying the track and checking clearances 

back scene fully built and track going back in. 

[andyram]

Nice to see some progress.

[mega_mort]

Annoyingly while drilling out for the point motors discovered that the 3way point sat over a cross brace, so I have moved the cross brace which i thought great more room in the head shunt for the GUV as clearance was tight. Didn't realise that moving it would make the platform road too short in front of the point for the GUV and Class 08 to fit    This now means that the industrial building will use VAAs and VDAs etc and not GUVs and parcels vans now are well least had a few in for another project, may stretch to a CCT if can find the cash. 

[mega_mort]

Ok now most of the track is wired up and working, just need to set-up the fiddle yard wiring but that may be for next week. Point motors are in but annoyingly not talking to JMRI but work fine with my Lenz set-up, still trying to figure that out at the middle the signal also works with the Lanz set-up and not the JMRI set-up so must be some thing I'm doing wrong in the accessory bit of JMRI. The wifes bit is behind this and has the track plan stuck to it to line up the points and lay the track. Which should be done by next week and then some pictures may be taken. 

 

 

[mega_mort]

OK we made it to the show below are a few pictures taken at the show of the 95% complete layouts, there are improvements to be made to both, but they currently look good. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is also amazing how a small layout can change over the space of 72 hours

 

Start -

 

 

To this 24 hours later

 

 

a further 24 hours later and it looked like this

 

 

pretty good progress made in them few hours.