Its taken nearly 12 months since my last post, but finding out that the roof of our new house had been left structurally unsupported by the previous owners extension has taken a lot of time and worry to sort out. (according to professionals this is a really rare case and very unlucky) So for 12 months I was very stressed out while getting this fixed and couldn't even work easily on my favorite hobby to take my mind off things. The only projects I worked on over the winter was a 16mm kit bash and (MERG) CBUS kits that could be easily packed away and wouldn't cause much mess.

However since Easter I now have a railway room !!!!

Painted the room (I call it a room though legally its still a loft) at Easter. Its light grey walls and white ceiling to get British weather overcast ambiance.

Bought a cork floor underlay 10mm thick and laid it. The idea is this stops noise from transmitting to the rooms below but also adds insulation (and nice to walk on). Tempted to use remaining roll to lay another 10mm on the floor in the operating area. 

So I now have embarked on two projects 

Project 1 - Cabinets and Baseboards

Project 2 - CBUS and Re-wire

Project 1 - I am using kitchen units as I want to have something for storing all by train stuff and the baseboards will go ontop. Im waiting on some nuts and bolts so I can bolt all the cabinets together, and the next  task is to build up about 17 drawers of different sizes plus a few more units. I have found that the lowest kitchen drawer height nicely fits the 00 gauge stock with about 10mm clearance. I need to make up some storage slots from 3mm ply and glue them into these drawers to act as dividers.

 I have used AutoCAD to design my layout which incorporates the main board of the previous layout 'Mattington'. The layout isn't prototypical but I have based it off plans from railway books so that I have turnouts in the correct places where possible. The plan is to have four tracks round the room with a lift out section. 2 tracks DC and 2 tracks DCC. Separated by a vertical level difference. The DC circuit is at the rear and is mostly a simple tailchaser with very few turnouts. The DCC circuit is the one with a lot of shunting opportunities and lots of turnouts but also a tail chaser and somehow I need to fit in a fiddleyard but space is a bit limited so needs a bit more design. The plan is for baseboards to be modular and this is partly due to the size of the loft hatch which is just over 600mm square, (getting the existing board in was a tight squeeze on the diagonal). So I am using mostly using 600mm x 900mm size . The 900mm is the depth where I can just about reach the back, 600mm is the width which nicely fits on the cabinets. 

Project 2 - So last summer I found out about MERG and CBUS, reading into it it seemed a good idea to incorporate their modules. Since then I have built and tested 2 modules which will be used for the general lighting. Im not going into details here of how it all works but this is going to cut out about 90% of the wiring and offer massive benefits into how the layout can be controlled. I had a wiring jungle on the last layout something which I don't want to have again. So the plan is to re-wire the existing layout board and add several CBUS modules. All the point motors I can leave in place but will be disconnecting the LED panel wiring from the PECO points as it will be redundant due to the CANPAN talking directly to the CANSOL. The DCC wiring also needs upgrading as I have realised the bus wires are too thin so probably won't take the load for a larger layout. All the wiring needs a general tidy up anyway as its a hotch potch of 15 years of building. Currently the layout is on its side so I can easily sort this out. Last night I took the transport cover off the bottom of the board for the first time since it went into storage over 2 years ago. Will be using the exhibition board (3 x 1 foot) as a testbed for wiring and CBUS, plus locomotive testing. As the baseboards are modular im intending to wire them up first and then slot them in. 

Im using my vintage (1870) work desk for the first time this week. Soldering together a CBUS test unit, also was a good opportunity to try out my new magnifier / desk light which I am very pleased with.

The photo shows the first 10 units, the layout on its side is going on the left side. The rear will be a steam loco shed and the right a second station / goods area. More units have just arrived to complete the square. Due to positioning in the room the loft hatch won't be in the middle of the layout so a lift out section next to the pink box will be needed. Access panel in floor at rear right - hence why units don't go up to the wall but baseboard overhangs.