There is a talk on the Waverley Route at Bassetlaw Railway Society on Wednesday August 22nd at 7;30pm The talk will be given by BNNRS club member Ben Eckersley. This is sure to be of interest to any Waverley fans … <a href="http://www.railwayblog.kevinappleby.co.uk/any-waverley-route-fans-in-east-midlands-524/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
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One of the key tasks for the forthcoming week is to start properly evaluating Railroad & Co vs JMRI. So far the hardest part is working out which railroad & co products I think I need. A readers of previous … Continue reading →
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Is Railroad and Co. worth using? That’s a question that has come to the forefront of my mind in the last 24 hours. I’ve used JMRI decoderpro and Panelpro for some time, mainly because these are open source, well supported, … Continue reading →
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One of my reasons for adopting DCC was my requirement for some degree of automation of the layout, so that it could be operated single handedly in as near a prototype fashion as possible where using traditional cab control would … Continue reading →
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Those of you that have checked out my locomotive fleet will have seen an odd-ball amongst all the LNER engines. No 746 Pendragon, a SR King Arthur. Well, its all very prototypical…… The answer, its 1943 and Heaton depot has … Continue reading →
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Roy Jackson has been building an EM scale model of Retford in the 1950′s for some time. I first came across this amazing layout a number of years ago in Model Railway Journal. At the time trains were running but … Continue reading →
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In the last 2 blog entries I created a portable programming track and DCC fitted a locomotive. Now we use the programming track to set up the DCC chip for use. This post will cover basic setup, and subsequent blogs will look at using Decoderpro for more advanced things.
Lets assume you have Decoderpro installed and working, if not, this was covered here.
Step 1 Start Decoderpro and put the locomotive on the programming track.
In this case I’m programming my Bachmann WD Austerity 2-8-0 wh
Time to DCC fit the austerity, as promised. A change of plan though, the OPTI chip is too big to fit so I’ve opted for a smaller ZTC255 that was spare in my toolbox. I dare say the mini version … Continue reading →
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Want to test and program your DCC locomotives away from the Layout? I've built a portable programming track to do just that. It is also the ultimate plank layout! All you need is a yard of track, a sprog II to supply the DCC signal, and a laptop with a spare USB to connect it to and provide a host for the programming software.
The full details are on my Rede Valley Railway site
Inspired by Pete Goss' layout "Rowlands Castle" (see below), I really must get my WD Austerity 2-8-0 into traffic. This will also provide a good place to test out one of the OMNI decoders I bought at Hartlepool at the weekend.
Gaugemaster BPDCC25 with 8 pin DCC plug
The OMNI is a straightforward 4 function 8pin 1.2amp decoder, so fitting should be quite straightforward. Digitrains were selling two sizes of these, I went for the larger ones which measure about an inch by half an inch in o
The highlight of my Sunday was a trip to Hartlepool and Hornby Live. The show has a new venue, in Hartlepool College of Further Education, and this provided a very pleasant bright and airy space to view the exhibits.
As in previous years there were a decent number of layouts and a huge number of trade stands. I spent far too much at the digitrains stand on Gaugemaster OPTI decoders and on train detection circuits. Ive never tried OPTIs before, but they appear to offer good value for money to
The last blog entry was some time ago, things have been hectic, and very little progress made on the layout.Paid employment really does get in the way of the more important things in life! New locomotives and rolling stock have … Continue reading →
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The blog has been very quiet of late regarding layout progress. As regular readers will be aware, the 2012 project is all about creating a diorama that has the feel of the Waverley route and features a viaduct based on Shankend, a siding and signal box based on Whitrope siding, and a tunnel mouth based on Whitrope tunnel. The intention is to make the scene as timeless as possible so that anything from LNER steam to a BR blue Deltic will look right passing through. There is a good reason for slow
Finally it has arrived, the 61′ 6″ full brake from Hornby, in both LNER teak and BR Maroon. I had hoped that this would be available for Christmas, and was quite disappointed when it didn’t arrive under my tree. I … Continue reading →
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I’m currently working for a client in Nottinghamshire, and this has me located in the Retford area most weeks. Last week I went along to the Bassetlaw Railway Society, and before the evening was out I’d paid my annual subs … Continue reading →
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newly published through Middleton Press this should be of great interest to waverley fans The book covers the Border Counties Railway all the way from the junction with the Newcastle and carlisle Railway just west of Hexham all the way … Continue reading →
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It’s been a while since the last post, life has just been too hctic over the last 3 weeks or so. In the absence of being able to write something meaningful I thought I’d share some Deltic footage I found … Continue reading →
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We are a week into 2012, the festive season is well and truly over, and New Year resolutions already broken. It is time to look seriously at some objectives for 2012.
On the Rede Valley, my 2011 aim was to have an operational layout that could run trains. The main obstacle to this had been completion of the Viaduct, so that the continuous main line circuit could be completed. This was achieved, and by and large the layout is operational. There is still quite a lot of track to lay in order to c
I’ve got to admit I’m no great fan of Edward Thompson. This mostly stems from his acts of vandalism to Gresley’s original pacific “Great Northern” and to the wonderful P2 2-8-2 express passenger engines which he rebuilt as class A2/2.
He did however redeem himself with the B1......read more on my external blog
While in some ways Christmas 2011 was a disappointment, with many promised products failing to make production in time. Hornby's new teak liveried LNER Gresley suburban and full brake coaches failed to make it to Santa's sack and arrive under my Christmas tree.
One very welcome arrival was Bob Essery's new book in the "railway operation" series: Train shunting and marshalling for the modeller. I've had copies of Essery's titles on freight train operation and on railway signalling for some ti
Glad to see RMWeb back again, but even more glad I have an externally hosted blog and a reliable Web Host. I hate to think how much affiliate revenue Andy has lost over the last few days.
While RMWeb has been down I've been writing, and the external Rede Valley blog has a number of new entries:
New JMRI Release
Wishlist for 2012
DCC configuration on Rede Valley
Plus working timetables for Waverley and ECML have been added to the prototype research pages.
First day of my Christmas break and its snowing in deepest Northumberland.
Time to take stock and consider what's to be achieved over the next couple of weeks. The loft hatch has been firmly shut for the last 3 or 4 months because of other priorities, and its time to do something about it. Starting the blog properly is part of giving myself the motivation to get things moving again.
First job today was to start documenting the real locations that the rede valley line is based around, so
Hello all
After having an RMWeb account for some time I finally thought it was time to put pen to paper and document my grand scheme under construction. 10 years in the making and I've finally got some trains running, so it feels like something has at last been achieved.
We moved house in 2000, and having had a fair say in the design of the new property I managed to get a roofspace with no interfering roof timbers that was big enough for a major project. Once floored out a usable space o
