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A shunting puzzle style layout to try out some ideas

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Forgotten post - Train Identification on my Mimic Diagram

It has been a while since I managed to do much (anything) to the little shunting puzzle, my problem has been that the layout had to go up into the loft in order to free the spare room for a visitor and has not made it down since. The problem being it is a big hassle to get it out of the loft to spend an hour working on it and then put it away again. Given the current weather conditions, and the amount of juke currently residing in the loft, the prospect of venturing upwards and doing work in the
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Movement at last!

Finally, after yet more distractions and life in general getting in the way I have got the major part of the wiring of the layout done. Last night saw the first train movements across all lines and points on this rather small layout (5ft x 2ft). There is still work to be done, the uncoupling magnets are not wired up, the wiring needs to be tied back and labelled and I need to build a control panel.   Although this is a small layout I wanted to use it to try out a number of ideas, so there is r
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Command & Control

Progress has once again been slowed due to a combination of work, domestic and revision issues. One of the reason for doing this layout was as a joint project with my teenage son, sadly he is in mid-GCSE season, so is unable to do anything other than revise at the moment. So I am restricted to doing things he has no interest in and sympathising over the revision. Hence no scenic work has taken place and I have spent a little bit of time assembling the electronics that are going to run the layout
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Track Laid

After a little bit of an enforced break due to work and other commitments, a few hours was found on Friday evening to lay the remainder of the track work on my little shunting puzzle. The steps in putting down the track were fairly conventional: The sleeper web was cut Dropper wire were soldered to the underside of the rails Holes drilled for the dropper wires to go through Masking tape laid along the edge of the foam underlay PVA glue (Unibond in this case) was painted onto the fo
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Wet Bank Holiday Monday -> first track laid

Following on from the progress on Sunday, I now had a baseboard with the foam underlay glued down, a cess painted in textured 'Light earth" and a ballast shoulder rather crudely cut into the foam - not the best cutting job in the world, but then this is not a mainline layout so I wouldn't expect a perfect ballast shoulder. This mornings job was to attach the electro-magnets for the Dingham uncouplers, these are the ones supplied by Dingham and have a coil with an M5 bolt through the middle. I wo
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Track Surveying

Progress with the layout can not exactly be described as fast, the last week can be summarised as full of distraction. It started well, I airbrushed the sleepers and sides of the track, both the points I have built and some lengths of SMP flexitrack. The paint I used was Lifecolour acrylic Matt Sleeper Grime, perhaps a little two dark, but at least it gave a nice finish, and took off the plastic shine. I even went as far as to paint the points of the check rails in a sleeper grime colour in an a
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Ladder Completion

After a long break, caused in part by my need to get replacement switch blades, a trip to California and then having to get replacements for the replacements, I finally got back to the pointwork I am building for the layout. Not a great deal was left to do, but of course it took longer than I thought to get the final pair of switchblades in, the check rails and finish adding all the chairs.   However, finally I have the track components in place and added the tie bars. I had decided to go with
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Track building

With the baseboards all but finished attention turned to the track. One of the goals I had in starting this project was to try my hand at building points and making use of them on a layout. I had previously built a B6 point, but this was a little long to use on such a compact layout, so I decided to go for A4 points for this little project.   With only 3 point to build it didn't seem too daunting a prospect, so Thursday evening saw me embark on point building. The first, a right hand point was
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Screws and glue

After the start with the beams last weekend, this weekend saw the assembly stage, the beams where glued and screwed together to form a framework and the trackbed baseboard glued and stapled to the structure.     It wasn't laying very flat, so I came up with a different way to use the workmate, a cast iron patio umbrella base and some floor tiles. Not how these items were designed to be used, but it gave me plenty of weight to hold it down. It will at least be as flat as the block paved sect
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Wood working and dimensional accuracy

This weekend saw a start on the baseboard building process and a realisation. The baseboards are going to be built using the Barry Norman technique of constructing beams from two lengths of 4mm ply (5 foot long and 70mm tall) with 18mm block of 70mm square blocks of softwood sandwiched between them.   To start with progress was a little shaky, with some uncertainty as to whether this would be strong enough. The first 5 foot beam was made up, with a block at each end, two equally spaced blocks
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Commanding progress

In order to keep up some momentum in the project and whilst waiting for the plywood to arrive, I have built the first couple of CBUS modules, a USB computer interface and the DCC command station. Both went together without problem, very well designed kits, and worked first time. The result is that I now am about to drive trains using these modules, albeit a little bit of a convoluted route.   I have JMRI Panel Pro running on an old PC talking to the USB CBUS interface with the DCC command stat
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Starting point

Like many, no doubt I have been thinking up ideas for layouts for years without actually getting as far as making a real start on any before moving on to the next idea. Until now I have satisfied my desire to run stock by making use of layouts at my railway club or using the "test track" that I have constructed in the loft at home. Originally this "test track" was meant to be a layout, but a combination of mistakes and over ambition has consigned it to being a 24 foot by 10 foot double line oval
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