BasingAde

Nice work Richard. I'll be following your progress! Ade

Hi Steve, I don't usually take video (I think it's a multi-tasking thing!), but I'll certainly have another go. You're right of course, I can't run as slow or perform as as consistently as a Slomo fitted loco, as there is insufficient 'mass' in the loco and train alone to absorb the fluctuating power from the cylinders. However, with practice and by using a little of the electronic 'inertia' feature of the C2B transmitter, the action of the regulator is smoothed and the response time is slowed (sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it?). I can't do the same with a 'flying' transmitter. Ade

Really nice work Giles. My own experience is that my Roundhouse Billy will happily shunt and run slow without a SloMo. The key, in my opinion, is a transmitter with a knob rather than 'flying' levers. I use the Chuffed-to-Bits unit and cannot fault its operation. With experience you know how far to open the regulator and then wait a second or two for the steam-chest and cylinders to respond as you back off. Just like the real thing! Thanks for the head's up about Bracknell Steve. It will be good to see Hambleden again - it was the first end-to-end 16mm layout that I'd seen than worked like a real railway and that gave the inspiration for my own layout. Ade

It's now two years since we moved house and a year since I started working on the Basing & Lyde Railway. Time to stop lurking on RMWeb and start taking part! This is my second outdoor layout, the first being ground level and "P" shaped, built at a previous house over 20 years ago. This one was going to be different.... We're lucky to have a walled garden, so the B&L is probably best described as a live steam outdoor end-to end shelf layout! I wanted it to feel like a typical narrow gauge railway, so the action takes place at the stations - shunting, running-round etc. I like to run a railway. From terminus to terminus, the total length is just under 50 feet and there is no continuous run. A halt and siding break the journey midway. Inspiration comes from modern private railways like Bredgar & Wormshill and the Richmond Light Railway, although I also have a very soft spot for the Lynton & Barnstaple! The infrastructure is made entirely from exterior plastics - mainly square PVCu downpipe for the "baseboard" framework and legs, with soffit board as the baseboard edge. All materials are rot-free (no wood), and UV stable as they're intended to be outdoors permanently. Track is all Peco. The trains run at counter/waist height for comfortable operation and almost eye-level viewing if you're sat in a garden chair. Resident steam locos are from Roundhouse: A manual "Millie" & radio controlled "Billy", plus a trusty old Mamod. There is also an Accucraft "Lyn", but she feels too large for the layout and has only ever run with my L&B stock in other people's gardens and on our club layouts at GMES (Guildford Model Engineering Society). That will probably do for now, except to share "Billy" after arrival at the outer terminus "Hatch" - (still awaiting an island platform and canopy).... Billy will soon uncouple and pull forward into the headshunt, before running around the Shull & Skibbereen style stock and departing bunker first to the main station at "Milkingpen Lane" - maybe with a request stop at "Hodds Hill" on the way.......

Nice work Jack, I'll be keeping an eye on this one! I'm also building a short-ish terminus to terminus line in 16mm, although mine is a shelf along a walled garden with a total length of just under 50ft. Like you, the spark was Hambleden, but I'm also loving what you and others like Dinmore Manor are doing. It fits well with my desire to run like a real narrow gauge line. I must get around to writing that layout thread...... Ade

Hi everyone, I've been collecting info and photos of the Jersey Railway (mainly the Western, 3'6" line to Corbiere) for many years, so I had to join in on this thread! Maurice Deane wrote a very detailed account of his "Narrow Gauge at St Aubins" layout in the February 1963 Model Railway News. This included a trackplan. He references an article in "Locomtives & Railways" from the early 1900's containing details and dimensions of rolling stock, but I've never been able to find the relevant copy. If someone has an archive, please put me out of my misery! His layout was later extended to include St Helier Weighbridge, West Park, Millbrook and (I think) La Haule stations. Aparently it was donated to a museum on the island and there are some photos on the Jersey Heritage archive here https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/collection/Details/archive/110326974. There are also some photo's of the model and prototype in an article that Maurice Deane wrote for British Railway Journal No.53 (Autumn 1994). The article includes a trackplan of the Weighbridge terminus. I'll try to reference some other sources for you if it would help. Ade