Dragonfly

This week's work so far: One thing has been painting the trackside walls from their default Cotswold stone colour to a darker slate colour, using the same Woodlands Scenics Slate Grey I've used on the house and garden paths. In addition, I've started planting some growth along the tracksides, to blend between trackbed and walls. In the other direction, another stone wall has been built, replacing the three-bar fence, and similar overgrowth added to the left-hand side of the trackbed. The right-hand side will wait for now, as the plan is to add a small halt here. Finally, a birds-eye view of the layout overall, at it currently stands. The road looks a little shiny and reflective from this angle, so may have to matt down that a little... But overall progress is slowly being made. The area in the red boxes is what I've done so far, so still plenty more to work on.

So is my bank account! So don't mind waiting until next year, though I'm very glad there's going to be another batch. Hopefully something 1990s for my Trainload Petroleum class 60 to pull!

A little bit more progress. The lawns have had some flowering bushes added, the shed and outhouse have had initial painting done (but more to be done), the garden has sprouted some veggies, and the house has been painted into a more slate colour. It's possibly a tad too dark now, so further tweaking may be beeded.

...and then a few months passed, with no further progress... Life decided that the chest infection and car crash wasn't enough, so added in a breakup and a house move to the mix, among other things, which put everything on hold for a few months. I've begun my other layout during this time, but this one wemt to the storage lockup. But with a couple more appearances booked for the layout in the near future, it's about time I got on with some gardening... It's also now named "Cwm Hir" as a reference to the street name of it's builder's home in South Wales. Firstly some stones put down to form the "yard" and paths, around the house and across the garden. Bedded in with some Milliput, with the house in place. Then the garden areas painted with their respective undercoats of brown or green. Before scatters applied to both areas. It won't appear quite so vivid once the glue dries, and a bit more weathering down, but it's starting to take shape.

I'd seen them but have been umming and arring, wondering about the quality. So now I know they're good, will get some ordered myself. Thanks!

My backup coal livery one has arrived in the last couple of days, so as promised I've dug out a few (only 24 this time) MGR wagons for a more full effect. Very happy with the decision to leave the nameplates and shed plates for the customer to attach (with the handy jig). A bit daunting for me, but this one will be left unnamed (and likely renumbered to another Toton example) anyway. Very nice work Cavalex!

I ended up giving up on one of my pre orders, as it would seem that at least one of the retailers didn't get them. But although the one I wanted had sold out by then, managed to get a very similar one from Rails.

Well, mine arrived on Wednesday, and now stretching it's legs on one of Stafford's layouts. Spectacular work from Kernow, as ever!

070 arriving at one of Stafford's layouts for a test run, looking very nice and running very smoothly!

Well, the one I had on pre-order from Rails has arrived, 070 in blue. Very pleased with it, looks stunning (as much as anything can in that colour) and has a good weight to it. Thankfully tonight is club night so it may well get a test run! Now just awaiting the Trainload Coal 023, coming to me via KMS Railtech. Now just awaiting the Trainload Coal 074, also from Rails. Will certainly be digging out the MGR hoppers to run them with!

Well, mine was due to arrive yesterday, but Royal Mail sent it to the wrong delivery office. So maybe tomorrow, maybe later... I wouldn't mind, but the other delivery office is only four miles away from the correct one! And so the anticipation grows!

I did this. Can verify they're 36 different numbers. 😁

That looks wonderful, @okirkby, and I for one would certainly be interested in purchasing one. As for the power conundrum, what you've described is exactly what I'd be doing, removing the drive from one (or two) of the 11-105 units (I've got a few to spare).

Looks amazing Matt. Placing an order for one shortly. Do you know if the designer has any plans for a centre coach? A 3-car would be really something.

Not made masses of progress on the layout itself in the last couple of weeks; it's all been spent developing the lighting setup on the Arduino. More on that soon. But tonight I pinned the track down, stuck a couple of wires in, and had a play to see what did/didn't work. First, a couple of photos of a typical train in the station area. It just about fits... And yes, thanks to the tiny central couplings and short wheelbases, this runs around the layout like a dream. The Baldwin 10-12-D... not so much. Didn't expect it would, but still. Now, I already know that the Quarry Hunslets work lovely, as do their slate wagons. But what about the Mainline Hunslet? Yes... ...but its coaches didn't fare so well. The cab overhangs too far. On to the 3D prints. I haven't fitted these with 009 couplings yet, so can't really test well. But anything on an 11-105 bogie chassis should be fine, due to the tiny bogies. But the 11-109... looks a bit tight to me. Too much overhang. Thankfully, most of the few diesels I have on Kato chassis are on the 11-105s. But that's enough to know I can run a little bit of variety, though I knew a lot of things would be ruled out. Now, back to making some progress...

The intention for mine is to go with 18200.

I had similar last year too. I've been told that if they've got the item in stock, they get it to you quickly. But if not (because their website stock levels are often very out of date), they just ignore the order entirely. They don't reply to emails, and you just get answerphone when you call them. After a while, and a few emails, I went through may payment provider and got my money back.

A sensible person would have done some testing of this before embarking on a project like this. Maybe in the bit of time after I'd got just a basic oval of the tight curves, but before I ordered anything else... So far, I know that Quarry Hunslets with slate wagons is great. I assume that Bug Boxes will be OK. GVT coaches and Quarryman coaches... maybe? I've got some testing to do, methinks! But sufficient to say that there'll be no L&B stock, Bowsiders, or fast running on here!

And now for something completely different. Part of the plan for this was also to see what clever things I can do with the electronics. To that end, I've dug out one of my Arduino units, and some addressible RGB LED strips. One of these strips will form the lighting strip behind the pelmet, extending down the sides somewhat too. Another will be cut into individual (but wired together) pieces, to go in each of the houses. Some upstairs, some downstairs, some in shops, some in the factory, the pub, etc. So a couple of days' work has resulted in this. Still early stages yet. The colours are very preliminary, and the timing has been sped up, and there needs to be more randomness. But have a look: AS you may notice, there's a bit of a day/night cycle going on. The top row, with the yellow-orange lights, is the building interior lights. There are about five shades of yellow/amber that it chooses from, and they come on/off around set times, with differing time schedules for houses, shops, and the pub, with a bit of a random variance to when they switch on/off (not enough variance yet, though). The lower row, is the sky. In this video it starts just before sunrise. Then you see dawn, and during the day the sun (not yellow enough right now) gradually moves across the sky, before setting in a beautiful orange glow, then as it goes dark, the moon appears and goes across the sky too (i'm tempted to move it in the opposite direction just to annoy people). Next step is mostly tweaks, though I'm implementing weather as well, so some sunny days, some overcast days, and even... Lightning. Doesn't show up too brightly on the video, but in person one of the three LEDs (to be put in different locations in the pelmet, so it isn't just in one direction) makes a decent flash. So on a stormy day, every 5-15 seconds, there's a flash of lightning. Eventually to be accompanied with sound... So, enough for now, back to programming.

Thanks very much. Absolutely. For me it's part of the challenge, trying to find the balance as to how much you can fit in, and still make it look "reasonably" realistic. Compromises have to be made, of course, but it can work out well. :-)

Nothing done over Christmas, spending the time with my family. But this afternoon got around to spending an afternoon at the club room, making a little bit of progress. There should, and would, have been more progress, but it was quite hard going due to B&Q's particularly bendy nails. That and a bit of extra fettling to get it to fit into the bookcase frame. In this update, the side backscene boards and lighting/nameboard pelmet have been added.

Thanks very much! The plan is relatively straight-forward really. A loop, with three fiddle yard loops at the back. Eventually intending it to be automated through use of an Arduino and some MERG kits, but I'm a few steps away from that just yet! Here's the track plan, with and without the upper level scenery. The buildings are placeholders for now, and the street scene arrangement is very fluid right now. There'll be a few shops and a pub, will see what else there is space for.

Evening all, I've still not finished my other 009 layout yet. A house move got in the way. But while I'm sorting out my storage unit to allow progress to resume on that, I had another idea, as dangerous as they can be... I make a lot of use of Ikea's Kallax brand of bookcases. Quite handy and versatile. And if you leave out a divider, and make a double-width space, there's a good space for a little layout. But can it be a roundy-roundy? These units are only 39cm deep... Thankfully Tomix do N gauge track, similar to Kato Unitrack, with 4.5 inch radius curves. Had to buy it from Japan, but having it shipped across was relatively cheap and painless. So a plan was drawn up (to be elaborated on in a future post), wood bought and cut, and today I set about assembling it... As you see it, it's kept within a 2x1 unit which will be used for outings, but at home it will be kept in a tall 2x4 unit.

Absolutely. Or if you have the cake first, the deliciousness puts you in a better mood to part with money. It's a win win... or a vicious circle.

Finally made it. Wonderful place for lunch!