PaulBee

Hi Mike, no need to apologise and thank you for the info. Sorry to hear your news, I hope your wife's situation improves. Best wishes Paul

No. For me, there will never be too many shunting type micro layouts. I just wish I could get one up and running. I'm on my third attempt in 5 years, but I think this number 3 could be the one (so to speak). I'm just reluctant to post my endeavours until I'm sure I'm going to see it through.

Hi Mike, Thoroughly enjoying your build. May I ask what glue you use to glue the embossed PlastiCard sheet to LitePly? Thanks Paul

Thanks John, all is not lost with the original idea. I kept the box and sector plate from the original plan and being a little lost for something to do at the weekend, made up a new base board. It's still OO (despite my struggles with the smaller scale) but the track is down and wired and retains the 5 3 3 puzzle layout. At the moment I'm leaning toward a general theme of a run down siding out in the sticks, perhaps serving a mineral mining operation. I'll post pics of early progress at the weekend.

Thanks for posting the painting of the mill. Brings back fond memories of my old home town.

By way of acknowledging those who took the time to post on my thread I want to say thanks. The project isn't dead in the water, but I did have a major disaster when it came to attempting to add a paved/cobbled area to the board. I decided to try and create the look I was after, using DAS clay, but ended up making such a mess of it that I eventually had to remove the scenic items and scrap the board. I have spent the time since, following everyone else's endeavours on the forum and achieving nothing myself! Or to put it another way, reverted to type and become an armchair modeller again! On reflection, my MS being what it is, I have found it a struggle working with the 4mm scale, but I don't want to give up on the idea of creating myself a shunting puzzle. To that end, I have recently put together two 3ft x 16in boards to create a 6ft x 16in inglenook 5,3,3 in O gauge. It's early days but I have found the odd kit build in 7mm scale far easier for the hands to manage and I will start a thread when I understand where best to post it. Is 6ft x 16in for O gauge considered ok for this section, I wonder? Thank you again. Paul

Testing attachment function before first post

Hello George, it's a shame to learn of the demise of Grundy Street, but I would like to thank you for posting progress and all the photos showing your methods and processes for creating your great buildings. As a novice, it has given me a valuable insight on how to approach the task. Thanks again Paul

Quite the range of emotions have risen to the surface over the past few days. I'm a bit of a recluse when it comes to my modelling activities. I hang around the forum (probably more than I model) but haven't really had the courage to contribute or post details on any of my mediocre (at best) modelling endeavours. I know just how much time goes in to my mediocre efforts, but this news hit quite hard when I sat and reflected on the extraordinary amount of time, passion, commitment and investment that must surely go in to these show standard layouts. I felt completely numb and very sad, swiftly followed by anger, when news later surfaced that suspects had been identified and later released on bail, to continue with their lives while those affected were left to pick up the pieces. However, I have to say that reading all the sympathetic comments and words of encouragement on here and the Just Giving page really lifted the spirits. What a remarkable group of people there are in this hobby, on the forum and in the wider community.

16...... you have my sympathies Mike. I’m only 6 wagons in to my 8 wagon kit builds, fitting sprat & winkles, paint and weathering, for my inglenook (hence the lack of updates on the layout), and the shed is getting far too warm.

I find your work very inspiring Mike. Hope progress doesn’t slow too much and you feel better soon.

Just wanted to say a huge thank you for posting the link to David’s video. As a complete novice with no experience of rail operations, his video has helped me a great deal and will no doubt prove to be essential understanding for my second project (must keep focus on my first endeavour for now though). Thanks again Paul

Good luck with the house move Jerry. Look forward to seeing more in a few months.

I like this one Andy. Thought about adding a few barrels to the scenic plan and wondered if expanding the name out to Finley Dunnit Brewery might work? Anyway, poured a healthy measure or two of whiskey last night and burned the midnight oil with paints and brushes and came up with this. Needs tidying here and there but I’ve pretty much captured what was in my mind.

Enjoyed the video Luke, thanks for posting. Looking forward to watching progress on the layout.

Hello All, Here’s a little update on progress of my first layout. I’m learning a lot (read making lots of mistakes) mainly how not to do things in the future! I initially printed out some ‘brick’ sheets to manufacture a low relief retaining wall and building to go along the edges of the base, but I’ve had real issues getting the scale right. In the end I purchased a pack of resin walls and building. At least now I have a reference point. I still don’t have a reliable auto uncoupling system for the shunting puzzle, but my experiments continue. At the moment I’m surrounded by scrap pieces of wood and track as I tried to perfect ballasting. My collection includes a variety of ballast materials, most of which ended up looking like clumps of something indescribable and few that never set. I purchased a small pack of ballast material and now have a test piece that looks ok and even managed to mix up a glue/water/washing up liquid mix that set properly. Once I’ve settled on a coupling method I will start ballasting but in the meantime I have some walls to paint and a few wagon kits to build. It looks very much like I will finally be producing a working layout so I should name the project. An suggests? Paul

I'm struggling a little with my new NCE too. The manual isn't exactly newcomer friendly. You will find a few NCE user videos via the link below For example, programming cv's https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Esbj956Wz3Q Hope this helps Paul

Thanks for the comments and pointers Marc, a number of which have already surfaced. The 'scrap material' mock up was a fixed plan in my mind as was a 5,3,3 puzzle but I didn't want to restrict myself to only short wagons and locos to facilitate it. I was struggling to make it work, I dismissed a 3,2,2 puzzle and so I very nearly did exactly what you cautioned against - making it bigger, scraping the box idea, adding length to the baseboard, and so it went on! I resisted - but only just! By being more openminded about the overall look (and raiding the scrap cardboard stock again) I have been able to keep my 5,3,3 plan, allow the operation of standard size wagons and multiple loco options (from a small steam Sentinel to the larger diesels), facilitate uncoupling on straight (ish) track and keep it all in my original box/baseboard/sector plate creation. I had planned to ballast this weekend but I'm still testing out various uncoupling methods to find the most reliable, which at the moment is leaning toward the 'staple' method. Hopefully I'll be able to post a few update pics after the weekend. Thanks again Paul

Looking forward to following your project.

Hi All, Just a quick update. Remarkably, thanks to the inspiration provided by all the posters in this section, I can report ‘track laid’ If I’m honest, I wasn’t sure if this idea would end up as another ‘false start’ but the track is down, painted and wired. A wagon arrived today and hopefully a loco later this week.

Like your work Jerry. Hope you feel better soon.

Hello All, Thank you for kind words and encouragement. I hadn’t considered the plastic box ageing (and it was a cheapie at £7 off Amazon). I’ll keep a look out for off cuts of ply in case I need to make a box for it. To answer an earlier question it’s 00 but setting and era will be freelance in the very broadest term possible. I’m afraid I lack any knowledge of railway era/historical reference. I’m a fan of the mechanical aspects of locomotives (and enjoy seeing working steam and old diesel locos) and I enjoy making/creating things, so decided long ago that I would like to combine it all in to this kind of project. I’m open to suggestions regarding what others think will be a reliable, slow running loco that will offer fine control for shunting in a restricted space and can perhaps work to an era from there? I’m pleased to report that Phase 2 is now under way, the removable sector plate. I tracked down a piece of aluminium channel that fitted the bill, a scrap piece of PCB that allows the channel to glide side to side smoothly and an old rc car steering Servo horn from my odds n sods bin, that performs well as the pivot point. It’s now assembled and works very well. The leading edge of the channel has a lip to keep the channel height aligned when the loco runs on to the extended ‘overhang’ and I’ve left the channel length alone for now, until I have a loco and 3 wagons to test the length required and I can then trim to suit. The weekend is set aside to work on countersinking the screws used and alignment and track power options. Here’s a few pics

Hello All, I’ve been following members workbench and layout activities for many years now and I’ve dreamt of starting a project of my own. The dreams started small, but always grew to epic proportions (soon outgrowing the very, very limited space and budget available), then vanished as nothing more than a pipe dream. I never got further than the dream although I once sketched something on paper! So, in an effort to avoid yet another false start I’ve decided to record my first railway modelling adventure here. I wanted something I stand a chance of completing while learning some modelling skills along the way and something to use when completed. Hopefully in this post I’ve included a few pictures of my first steps. So far I’ve only managed to buy a cheap box, make a board to fit inside and mock up my idea in scrap cardboard. I’m probably being a bit over optimistic with the space available but at the moment I’m trying to squeeze a 5,3,3 shunting puzzle in to the space (725mm (l) x 230mm (w) x 145mm (h))with the help of a removable sector plate. Once I get track and a few items of rolling stock I may have to downgrade this to a 3,2,2 Either way I hope to end up with a functioning shunting puzzle that will be easy to store, keep covered when not in use and allow me to learn some modelling skills. Any input with be most welcome. Thanks Paul