Well the layout has taken a back seat of late one due to money and the other being my illness cropping up again.
I've had some more surgery where they did some monitoring of my condition for a few days where I was wired upto a laptop again. Just waiting on a decision from my surgeon if he is going to do more to me before I start back with the layout.
I have however since my last trip to the hospital been back to work which means I'm back to being able to buy things so I wasted no time in
Well after a week or so of no activity or updates there seems to be two in short succession.
From the previous update you saw that I started the Scalescenes arches wall to divide the upper level from the lower level. Needless to say I think I'm done and all I need to do now is fix it to the board.
I decided not to put the top parapet in place as I'm happy with the height that it has come out at.
I've taken a pic of the finished walling in place but not fixed in place so if it seems a
After a little bit of a lull on the layout after the excitement of getting things moving on the 3 boards I've made a start on the scenic part of the layout. Starting with the dividing wall between the lower and upper lines.
I made the decision to use the Scalescenes archways for the first time and apart from fingers being covered in UHU glue I'm enjoying the kit so far.
I am thinking that before I put the archway onto the back picture is it worth just running the sandpaper over the cut o
As the title suggests since my last update I've wired up the 6 lines with doppers on the new board and I've connected them to the Bus wire and then connected it to the existing boards after having to order some new clasps as I couldn't find the ones I thought I had.
Anyway I am that pleased with the work so far that I did a short video and I thought I would share it with you.
Comments welcome as always
I realised when testing the locos back and forth that when the locos were pulling into the station that at one end they had no where to go and left me a very short running length so whilst the family were out I found another spare shelf from the wardrobe that was thrown out and created another frame to fix to it to create another run off off area but on the other side of the main scenic board make it effectively have 2 fiddle areas one at each end.
I've also made the raised area out of foam
I went out the other day and got some more foamboard to be used as the backboard material to keep the weight down on the 2 boards.
I've taken the advice given but after looking at it I thought 12" back board height was too much so I tried 6" and to be honest I'm happy with the look of it.
I still need to cut out of the dividing wall gaps so that the locos can go from one board to the other but apart from that and some filling of the gaps between the different boards the backboards are do
After the problems of the track testing and problem finding update I last put on I left it for a day or so but did have 1 or 2 comments from friends who told me to check and check and check again my wiring. Ok so I'm a numpty as when I went to check the wires I found that the positive bus wire droppers were wired to the + point on one board and I thought I had done the same on the other board but to my surprise I found that on one board I had done it to the red bus wire but on the 2nd board I ha
As I mentioned in my update last night I've been testing out the tracks on both boards.
I wanted to work out any kinks or potential problems before I fixed the track down in place.
I started off on one of the upper level scenic board tracks and soon came to a problem where the boards join there was a slight height difference on some of the tracks something I thought I had accounted for before I wired up tracks. Any how I put that to one side and tried running the test loco on what would
As the title suggests it feels as if time has stood still all day as I've been wiring the track and putting the bus wires in place as well.
Seriously I'm glad I didn't do a layout any longer than I've done as all I've done all day is cut, strip, tin and solder together.
At the end of it though assuming I've done it all correctly and my soldering has been upto scratch I should be able to test the boards out tomorrow.
I would have done it tonight but I'm struggling to sit up straight
Another quick update.
I've been busy so far today wiring the droppers onto the track and then testing them. So far so good as far as the soldering has gone. I've had 6 successful lines wired and tested using the loadhaul 60 as the test loco.
No pictures of the running. I just have to put the Bus wires in place now and then make a decision on what to use to transfer the power from one board to the other. I still can't work out how I'm going to get a flush join between the 2 boards and sti
Quick update
I've been busy today drilling the holes for the dropper wires to go through and I've also installed the panel for the Powercab to plug into when it's up and running as well.
I should have the droppers wired in and connected to the track in the next few days and then I can fix down the track it's then onto the Bus wire fitting and how to move power from one board to the other.
As the title suggest it has been the first day that anything has ran on the layout just to make sure that I've laid the track right. I only tested the loco on the scenic board just now but that is because I only had one wired up line at a time and with the points being dead after the the trailing points I just couldn't wait to have something running.
I've made a video of the brief run and I thought you might like it.
The loco is one that was painted by a member on here and I did the tran
Well I thought I would update on the progress I've got done today and it's been relaxing and fun even though I've had to get up once or twice from the floor as my legs have gone dead.
The update is that I've made use of the 2 a1 sheets of 5mm foam board and I've used them to raise the upper level from 10mm high to 20mm high and I'm really pleased with the results. I tried it with just 1 board of 5mm on top of the already laid 10mm but it still didn't look right so I placed the 2nd board down an
Finally managed to get the track and extra foam board I needed for the layout today.
I got 4 concrete sleeper code 55 flexi track length to replace the stations wooden sleeper track as it will look better and I'm going to use the track from the scenic track to go into my fiddle yard along with another 4 lengths as well to make the 8 top level fiddle yard tracks that i'm going to put down.
I've not done any of the work today as I've not felt upto it but I will make a start tomorrow when e
Another update on the layout.
I got the foam board as I mentioned the other day and test fitted it on the fiddle yard board but today I've managed to get the scenic board done today and I've also marked out with the correct spacing the 4 lines and I've also checked clearance between the lines on the scenic board as well.
I've still to get the fiddle yard board track down but I need some more track first before I can lay it. I should have the track in the next week depending on finances a
Well the first track is down temporarily though with the correct measurements on top of the card that is hiding the holes on the boards.
The track is down for the freightline and stuck down with blu tac so I could mark up the spacing of the track and once I get the foamboard down at the other tracks down I will fix down the track properly but at least there is some track down at least.
I've attached a pic of the scenic board I'd done and I know there are what appears to be bubbles under
Ok so time for an update not much has gone on with the layout in actual building terms from what has been reported before but I've made a decision to change the layout adding a different dimension to the layout.
The idea is to make the 2 freight lines lower than the rest of the lines and give it a different feel. I'm going to use 10mm foam board to raise the other lines up.
I've done a rough drawing of it using the standard windows paint program but you'll get the idea of what I'm trying
Seeing as this is my first layout blog on this new site I thought I would update you on what i'm in the process of doing.
firstly I've scrapped my previous layout due to the fact that the shed was required I had to disassemble it.
I then made a decision to make something in N gauge that can be taken apart easily and stored in my bedroom.
I found some old pieces of shelving from a wardrobe that were going spare so I decided to make an end to end diorama layout with a matching length f
