4x2 Fictitious N Gauge Anything Goes Layout

[Mattxjs]

Hi everybody, as funds have suddenly allowed me to make some progress on my N gauge layout, I decided to make a topic on here to get a few tips and tricks. Firstly, a bit of background info on the layout. 

The baseboard was originally constructed a few years ago, when I was around 10 ish for me to nail some track to and have an attempt at making a layout. Well long story short 8 years later and I'm finally making it happen thanks to funds becoming available. I've had about 3 starts and failures of making it but I've finally settled on a track plan, wanting to have around second radius curves I opted for just a single track around to operate small locos on. It's not meant to be prototypical at all, just somewhere I can run a few locos about with some decent-ish scenery. The layout is DCC controlled with a couple of engines recently being sound fitted. This brings me nicely onto why I'm about to rip the points up. The layout currently has insulfrog points, however due to my recent sound conversions and acquisition of a small farish pannier, I have decided to change the points to electrofrog as I've had some short circuiting when some of the engines go over the points I do not want this to happen with my sound locos and fry them. The reason the layout has insulfrogs at the moment is due to my lack of confidence with electrical wiring and to be honest not really understanding how electrofrogs work, but now after a bit of research on the benefits and realising how they work, I thought that the switch would be a benefit to the layout. It's a bit of a pain I've decided to do this now as I've just weathered the track, however I'm sure the change will be worth it. The buildings are either Hornby lyddle end or metcalfe kits I've built over the years

 

Thank you for reading and I'm very open to any tips or tricks you may have! 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2017 by Mattxjs

[deltic9014]

Hi Matt

Looks like a great start. A few things you could consider doing scenic-wise if you've not already thought of them:

1. Some of the buildings, especially the farm on the hilltop, are obviously sitting on top of the scenery. Real buildings blend in, so if they're permanently stuck down a bit of grass or gravel round the edges will blend them in.

2. The farm needs an access road of some kind and a surface in the farmyard. This will also help with blending the buildings in.

3. This one could be tricky in N, but I would suggest the edges of the hill, particularly round the tunnel mouths and the cliff behind the loco shed, probably need some fencing of some kind.

 

Also little things like weathering buildings and adding people, animals and vehicles could help bring it to life.

 

I don't quite get what you're saying about the points, as generally Electrofrogs are more likely to cause shorts: they need careful wiring up to avoid this. However, Insulfrogs will cause a lot of locomotives to stall - maybe this is what's happening to you? 

 

Progress so far looks great - keep the updates coming. It would also be great to see some of your trains on the layout.

Happy modelling

[Mattxjs]

 

I don't quite get what you're saying about the points, as generally Electrofrogs are more likely to cause shorts: they need careful wiring up to avoid this. However, Insulfrogs will cause a lot of locomotives to stall - maybe this is what's happening to you? 

 

 

Firstly thank you for your compliments - actually in real life it it looks a lot better than on the pics, they really don't do it justice.

 

I plan to do all of the things you listed and infact already have things like the fencing which will hopefully be put in by next weekend

 

What I meant by the insulfrogs shorting is when a large loco like Tornado went across them, it would short in the area highlighted in the picture, and also my small engines would stall on them.

 

 

However today I have fully installed the electrofrogs and have no more shorting or stalling which is excellent!

 

 

I will hopefully have another update for next weekend with re-ballasting and weathering complete!

 

Regards, 

 

Matt

[ianLMS]

Looking good there Matt - take a look at this page and follow his electrical guidance for the electrofrogs - http://www.brian-lambert.co.uk/ it makes a big difference to modify the points as per Peco and his guidance. How are you switching the polarity? using Peco switches, micro-switches or auto-frogs?

 

I use a combination of all 3. I have to say I am very impressed with the Gaugemaster Auto-frog DCC80 for changing the polarity. Very easy to install.

 

Good luck with developing the layout - bottom line - have fun and learn the skills.

 

Ian

Edited October 2, 2017 by ianLMS

[Mattxjs]

I've just finished installing DCC Concepts Cobalt IP point motors, which are being used for polarity switching.

As you said - my main goal here is to practice skills and use up some old buildings, nothing more than that!

Matt

[ianLMS]

If I only had a few points, the Cobalt IP point motors would have been my first choice. I already had 32 points originally wired for DC using the Peco solenoid point motors so would have been too costly to convert. I just use the DCC ADS-8FX accessory decoders to change them now.

 

Track weathering looks very good - was it applied using the new airbrush? Enjoy and will be interesting to see how it develops

[Mattxjs]

I can't believe it's been almost 4 years since I posted this. Since then it's been a fairly rocky time for me, dealing with various mental health problems, and then of course the pandemic. 

In that time I've been experimenting with 3D printing, vastly expanded by knowledge on DCC sound fitting etc, and made a couple of (not very good) dioramas to get me ready for doing some scenery. The layout has gone through a couple of relatively large (for it's size) changes, with the expansion of the baseboard it is now around 2'7" wide, allowing the space for a double track station with nice sweeping curves on the visible part of it. I've assembled a somewhat collage of the progress. Hopefully anyone who sees this enjoys! 

Matt