ScCa

It's been a while... but things have been progressing. I mentioned in my last post that the original track plan has changed somewhat after the layout location and available space was worked out. After much planning and re-planning I've settled on the below plan. The layout will go round the 4 walls of the room, one side for a 6 track traverser fiddle yard, the dock area on the back wall, a 2nd yet to be worked out scenic section along the bottom wall and a removable section at the door end of the room (left side of plan). I must confess to really struggling with the design of the dock area to get something I was happy with in the limited space I have. In the end I have taken "inspiration" from a US layout I stumbled across. Work on the baseboards started a few months ago, long before the final plan was agreed. The traverser fiddle yard is now complete, wired up for DCC and working better than I could have hoped. The baseboards for the dock area and the 2nd scenic side have also been built and all three sides are connected up. As you can see, much of the layout sits on top of bookshelves and across the desk. Work on the container ship has also progressed but not quite finished (not happy with the paint job, maybe it just needs some more details and weathering to tone it down) There's a couple of Scalescene's containers on the ship, not entirely happy with my first effort but sure they will improve. The new Scalescene ship will likely make an appearance, together with the great looking dock edging. Having settled on the dock area plan I intend on creating some prototype buildings (and ship container crane) to make sure I am happy before I start laying the track though I am getting eager to see the trains doing a full circuit of the room. Cheers Scott

Well, it's been a couple of months since I last updated this blog. Christmas has come and gone and while there has been a fair amount progress and decisions made in some areas, others are less settled. The good news first. The location of the layout has been settled. We have a small room in the house that has been cleared / and made ready. Unfortunately the nature of the layout has changed. It's still a intermodal depot / dock with container ships and so on, by instead of a loop with hidden fiddle yard, the layout is now going to be a shelf type layout around the walls with the main dock / intermodal section deeper at 55cm There will also be some form or removable section to complete the loop and allow continuous runs. The track plan has obviously had to be changed from that posted previously, the new plan has had many revisions to date, and while I'm happy with the two scenic sections (I think) I'm still trying to get the fiddle yard and removable section to work. I'll post some pictures of room, baseboards and track plan soon. Currently thinking of a 6 track traverser for a fiddle yard, I must be mad. Work has continued on the container ship with the super structure / bridge area coming along. It's a slow job and I now find other jobs to do instead but it's getting there and I'll try and get a couple of photos up later this week. Stock acquisition has continued, will the arrival of a Dapol Stobart 66, rake of Stobart / Tesco intermodals and other megafret and spine wagons. The intermodal fleet is large enough for now. A Dapol 66 in Bardon Aggregates has also appeared. Also arriving recently was a DCC DRS class 20 bought off ebay from another member of this parish. The second scenic section is to have some form of cement / aggregate plant so the Bardon 66 will fit in nicely there. I scratch built a cement works for OO last year so looking forward to repeating process again in N. Will be looking out for some new stock ideas at Model Rail Scotland this weekend! The DCC controller decision has been made. A NCE Powercab was purchased before Christmas. All four locos are now DCC chipped and so far so good on the small test track I put on the first baseboard I made. Track decisions also made - a box of Peco N Streamline is sitting on my shelf awaiting the final track plan, still to decide on electrofrog or insulfrog for the points (opinions welcome on this one) Will post some pictures later, perhaps someone can help with my fiddle yard design

Hi James, yes your spot on regarding the vessel class. See last reply... As for the building of the hull, the deck, bottom and internal frame are made from balsa wood cut to shape, this part was fairly straight forward. The hull skin is made from regular card glued to the frame, this part was a little more tricky. The superstructure will be built using plasticard. Hope to make a start on that this weekend and will post some more pictures then. The overall layout design is in place (see other blog entry) but this may well change before layout building commences. This is unlikely to start for a few months while I wait to get some building work done in the house. In the meantime I intend making a small test baseboard on which I can have a practice build of the dock area, try my hand and modeling water and some other techniques. Regarding the stock, the Malcolm containers won't be visiting the dock area itself, but will be handled in a dedicated yard away from the dock area. They were always going to be my first N purchase as I pass the Malcolm yard every day.

Hi Shortliner, Container ships come in all different sizes, yes there are the massive deep sea container ships, sailing round the globe of the sizes you mention and yes they are massive, even in 2mm. These massive ships can only dock in certain ports that are deep enough and have the infrastructure to handle these huge vessels and loads. Other smaller ports (for example my local container port of Grangemouth ) receive smaller feeder container vessels from larger ports around Europe. These smaller vessels can be found on the web page I used (http://www.containershipping.nl/gallery.html See the Short Sea Shipping Lines section ). In these class of vessels there are plenty under 100m in length but I purposely looked for the smallest vessel I could find which was around 93m in length (approx 300 ft) At 2mm : 1ft this works out as 600mm. My vessel is slightly under this at 570mm in length. Thanks for your comments.

Started scratch building a container ship a couple of months ago. If an intermodal dock yard is to form the main focus of the layout I had to be sure I could build the container ship as there's no such thing as ready made for N gauge. After scouring the web for images and dimensions I stumbled across a web page ( www.containershipping.nl ) which has loads of photos and dimensions. From this I made myself some plan drawings that I could work from. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of early progress but here's what I have so far. The hull and deck is complete and I'm about to start work on the aft (back) of the ship. (accommodation / bridge etc). The first batch of 20ft Containers from Graham Farish arrived the other day. Also arriving the other day... my first ever N gauge rolling stock... Dapol DRS Class 66 Malcolm Logistics Intermodals

Will be going DCC but not sure if turnouts will be DC or DCC

So as I stated in my last blog entry, I'm going N gauge intermodal but also want a continuous run . I've also got this crazy idea to scratch build a small container ship (not a massive one) and dock-side container crane. The first container ship is underway and will post some details in another entry. Track plans have been designed with RailModeller for the Mac and I seem to be settling on the below plan. No name for the layout yet Description Layout dimensions are 2.6m x 0.9m (or 8.5ft x 3ft). The track plan is in two parts. At ground level is the intermodal yard (red) and a continuous freight loop (yellow) which passes under the main line (green) and along the front of the layout. The mainline for through freight and passenger services is on level one and sweeps across the front of the scenic section above and over the low level freight line. Each level has its own fiddle yard at the rear. Trains will not traverse between levels. Scenic background in blue, the orange blocks are the container cranes, the blue/green blocks are some intermodal warehouses. The following track plan shows the high level baseboards in place. And finally just the scenic section.

Don't get me wrong, he (Thomas) served a purpose but it wasn't long before he was out grown and time to move on to the real stuff that we see out and about.

With the majority of the OO layout sold it's now time to start thinking about what sort of model railway layout I want to build. So what type of layout do I want to build? Here's my wish list - I don't know why, but I have no interest in steam locomotives, perhaps it's my age (I can hear some blog viewers leaving now) My interest is purely in modern diesel and when I say modern I guess I mean the last 10 years or so. Not really planning on modeling a real location but would like to base it on rolling stock I see locally. (central Scotland)I want an intermodal freight yard ( I pass a DRS / Malcolm yard on way to work) EWS and Freightliner 66s can be seen hauling coal to the local power station. While my main interest is in freight operations I would like to run passenger rolling stock through the layout in one form or another. [*]There's something about just watching (near) scale length trains snaking through the scenery. (a continuous run is required here)[*]Having attended several exhibitions over the last 18 months I'm fascinated by DCC sound So there it is, I want modern diesel, DCC Sound and scale length trains trundling through fantastic scenery incorporating a intermodal freight terminal!!!! I'm not asking for much am I :-) You can probably see where this is going, two main problems faced by many modelers 1) Space 2) Finance If I want sound the smallest I can go at the moment is OO. If I go OO I don't have the space to run full length trains If I go OO I don't get a continuous run and am looking at some form of plank layout If I want a continuous run and scale length trains I have to go to N gauge If I go N I don't get DCC Sound So unless someone tells me I can easily get N gauge DCC Sound I'm faced with two choices OO DCC Sound on some form of end to end plank N gauge continuous run (no sound) but I can get decent length trains and an intermodal depot In terms of space, I have space available in the garage, toying with the idea of a partial conversion early in the new year. The other option is a dedicated shed in the garden but it's absolutely freezing tonight and last winter is putting me off that idea. If I go N gauge I'm looking at a layout of 8ft x 3ft up to a maximum 10ft x 3ft I've been mulling this one over for some time and the decision has been made. We paid a visit to the international N gauge show in September and after investigating intermodal rolling stock we're going N Gauge. The ability to design a layout with a continuous run, desired intermodal yard and ability to run decent length trains has swung it! Am I going DCC? - I think so but this is probably a topic for another day I'll post my track plans tomorrow night.

I've been a regular viewer of RMweb for the last 12 months but have just signed up as I have a new layout in the planning stage. Never written a blog in my life so we'll just have to see how this goes. Lot's of thoughts running through my head at the moment so will dump them here. So how did I get here... Well I guess it all started over 30 years ago with our OO model railway that Dad built in the dining room. It was a permanent feature and I remember it being there for many years. Funnily enough I can't remember it being dismantled but the track and rolling stock was boxed up and forgotten about. I stumbled upon the boxes a few years back whilst in my parents attic. My son was almost 4 years and I decided to build a small 6x4 layout in his bedroom complete with Thomas and Percy! This 6x4 was a great success at the time. My interest in modeling began to grow again and before long I was a regular reader of the usual modeling monthly magazines, attending exhibitions and viewing this forum. The 6x4 lasted 18 months or so before my ambitions got the better of me. The 6x4 went and was replaced with a larger layout which ran round the perimeter of the room. Thomas and his mates also disappeared and was replaced with modern diesel locomotives. While initially a great success, interest started to wain and it was clear that my enthusiasm and interest wasn't really shared. After much discussions with my wife it was decided we should dismantle the OO layout and If wanted my own layout I should built one for myself. (more of that later) So over the last month or so the layout has been dismantled, track, locomotives, rolling stock and buildings (many scratchbuilt) were all sold via ebay and I now have a decent pot of cash for my new layout.