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Afternoon, Can't believe it's been 2 months since the first post, lock down is going quickly and lots has been happening. The final baseboard was completed a few weeks ago, this then gave me first chance to properly plan out the station and junction for the three tracks. The conclusion was there is not enough space for a station so this will be relocated to the opposite side of the layout. Track laying promptly progressed along with installing Gaugemaster Autofrogs and their associated wiring. Once this was complete this gave me a complete loop via the lower level. Point motors have yet to be installed. Having a complete loop gave me a change to properly run in my locos - some of which have been sat in boxes for 10+ years without much movement. Its great to see them finally on the move with a decent train (photos to come..) . The running session did highlight two track faults with my gradients, where the rate of change is too great causing some items to derail. The worst fault has been fixed, the other will be shortly. I have used 1.5mm Evergreen strip to create the cant (which scales up to around 115mm in real life, this seemed like a realistic figure to go for based on the track layout. Quick video of the test train over the new curve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqkMTo65UM Thanks for looking, G

Morning, One of my class 37s gained sound recently with a Zimo decoder from Digitrains. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfimk0P5Pdk I can't seem to embed youtube videos - tried changing https to http as per some old topics on the subject. Has anyone got any ideas? Lots of work has been ongoing in the last week, full update shortly. Thanks for looking

Evening all, More enginneering work has been ongoing over the weekend, this time all the supports for the upper level are firmly in place and painted along with the second incline. The incline can just be seen in the photo below. I had a lot of problems with this incline as part of it is also on a curve and some of my measurements were slightly out which resulted in a small dip (<5mm) on the transition between the curve and the straight. At the time I thought it would be fine however it has caused constant derailments for locos. After a good few hours of measuring and trying different packing configurations on Sunday, the fix was found to be some strips of plasticard to pack out the dip while raising the cant (Super Elevation) to ensure the leading wheeldoes not jump off. Next job is to order more ply sheets to start the upper level. A full looking storage yard...

A quick update.. I've now fitted the new Peco ST points in the storage yard to replace the Hornby curved points. While the angle is sharper and the length is shorter than the Hornby ones, all but one loco now can make it into the yard without issue. There is a noticable dip from some locos (Heljan 33s) as certain wheels go over the crossing nose but as the locos aren't de-railing I'm not too fussed. Thanks to Joseph for getting in contact and sending them over. Some more locos have now been DCC'd this week - including my Intercity livered Dapol class 73 which runs so bad I'm amazed at how badly a new loco can run. Does Dapol even have a quality Control?! On the plus side my RES livered class 47/7 runs superbly after 5 years in a box! Finally more track has now been ordered in preperation for starting work on the main lines.

That's a really good point, I have a tamper and my plan was to leave it in that siding and for it to come out onto the main line, down to the station's home signal then the driver would "change end" before going back round anticlockwise. If I put it the other way round then this would certainly give me more scope to run locos/engineering trains into the siding too so I'll be using that idea. Thanks!

A few photos of current progress... This shows the location of the bridge. Behind it is the outer track which runs down to the lower level, eventually this will be hidden behind a back scene. The baseboard along the brick wall is yet to be built. The paint fairy has been visiting and giving sections an undercoat of official grey. Henry looks happy with the progress. Directly behind the first photo the baseboards narrow considerably as they loop round the side of the loft hatch before the lower level track has a set of points (101/102 on the plan) to enter the storage yard. If points 101 are set in normal the lower level line starts to climb to rejoin the upper level. In the future I might extend the yard head shunt and put an additional set of points to help send trains going the other direction. Around the curve the storage yard starts to fan out. I am having real problems with these curve points but more on them to follow... The old red coaches have been very useful for gauge checking, they were the first set of coaches I ever owned at the age of 7. Beyond the yard throat the storage yard can be seen, I didn't bother laying cork matting here as it will just be hidden sidings. Eventually the upper level baseboard will be built on top here. I have yet to finish the incline too which will run up behind the mk2s. Finally the missing section. Loft Flooring also needs completing here though I have fitted the wall baton ready. The imposing water tank which dominates the middle of the loft can just be seen, this is why I have had to make the baseboards narrower than prefered so I can walk all the way around. As mentioned previously the storage yard has been built using code 100 and points from previous layouts. I used two Hornby curved points at the entrance of the yard to save space and did suspect their performance might be poor... How right I was, just about everything de-rails on them. I would say only 1 out of every 10 movements makes it across them without coming off! I am thinking of replacing them with Peco ST244s as I have read they are more reliable. Can anyone confirm and do they have a similar foot print to the Hornby ones? Thanks for looking and stay safe! G

Hello All, This update has been a long time in the making, and now that we are effectively under house arrest I decided now was the time to start the thread. We moved to our current house 4 years ago and my plan was to quickly convert the attic into a railway space however, best laid plans etc.. it took 3 years to do. Finally I started making some progress just before Christmas when most of the flooring and electrics (power sockets and lights) were completed. Since then boards have started to go down and track laying has followed. This update will be an overview of the layout plan and stock with the following update tomorrow showing photos (layout needs to have a clean first...) A very few people might remember my old layout which didn't really progress (or go) anywhere- Two Bridges. The layout was scrapped last year. I made a good number of mistakes when building it (warped MDF boards, wiring which was too thin... the list goes on). This time I have done plenty of research and have a better budget to build it... First up, the plan. I started with a spec of what I wanted - 2 running lines around the loft, no tight curves on scenic bits, a higher level for scenics and a lower level for storage with the ability to bring trains up and down between levels. I also wanted something operationally interesting as I enjoy being a signaler. My loft isn't massive - 4 meters by around 3 meters with an immovable water tank in the middle. After some calculations I worked out having two upper and lower lines was probably too ambitious for the space and the gradients involved (without making helixes) so settled on a single outer track which could take my trains to the upper/lower levels and two circular running lines on top. To make operation more interesting, rather than having three circular loops I made the outer two a folded figure of eight. This would allow me to operate it at twice the length of a standard loop and trains would "disappear" to the lower level for around 11 meters before re-emerging. As I am modelling Southern Region a large portion of my stock is EMUs so I don't require every siding in my storage yard to have run round facilities like most layouts do. Provisions have still been made for loco hauled and freight through. I did try some free CAD programs but found them too clunky to effectively use. Having said that TRAX Editor is a good tool once you get the hang of it and it did help me refine some details. In the end I used good old Excel to do a lot of the plans and cross sections. First up the Lower Level - 4 long storage roads capable of holding 7-10 coaches each (2x 4 CAR EMUS or a MK2 rake), plus some smaller sidings for loco positioning. The dotted lines show the gradient where the track goes up to the upper scenic level. Most of this is now complete and operational testing has commenced. The storage yard has been built in code 100 flexi-track as I had a lot left over from my childhood layout that had been boxed up for the best part of 20 years. All other track will be code 75 with sleeper spacing corrected. Jobs left to do include finish laying track on the gradients and wire in point motors. On the Upper level the lower tracks emerge either side of the 3 platform station with platform 2 being bi-directional. The lower side with the blue shows where a large bridge will be with an embankment leading up to it. The bottom left side is around the loft hatch so no scenery will be here due to the access constraints. The top of the diagram is the least decided part as I will need to see how much space will be available as I don't want to cram in tracks. My ideas are for a small yard to stable engineering trains. Unless anyone really wants a list I think photos are probably more interesting than a copy/paste of my rolling stock spreadsheet. Most rolling stock could expected to be seen on the Southern between 1980 - 1995. Someone once wrote some simple but great advice on here and to be honest it has kept me going.. It was "Get trains running as quickly as you can". I certainly find it breaks up the monotony/un-enjoyable jobs such as laying loft flooring, building baseboards and crawling round underneath to wire them up! Each new section I build, I lay track then "Test" it with some locos for an hour or two. This strategy seems to work well. Thanks for looking, pics coming soon, G

Sorry if this has been covered already, I did look back and couldn't see any mention of it.. My NSE 4TC arrived the other week, I noticed on one DTSO its says "Network South East" on the side as I would expect, but on the other DTSO it just says "Network" (with no South east). Is this a mistake? Is it just my model that has it missing? Thanks

Thanks, I must have lost concentration and missed that part but it makes sense now. Regarding automation, I need to have a good think about this. With multiple throttles possible via Rocrail/ipads I am wondering if I could achieve nearly the same thing by setting a loco to a sensible speed and just letting it go in a circle around the loft while I control other trains manually around it. It would save a lot of time, effort and wiring. But you don't know until you investigate these things and the above is all definitely food for thought. If I decide against automation I will still install isolating fishplates for blocks as per my block plan when track laying to cover a future switch to automation later. Finally thanks Paul for the tip. Did a bit more research via Brian Lambert's site and will fit some of these. Did you fit them to both your accessory and track power bus?

Thanks both for your excellent and speedy replies . I was watching a video on youtube about using DigiKeijs with RR&Co http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZksqVYMvz4A. It shows locos in each sections and as far as I know the chap isn't using any other form of detector so maybe it's just a RR&Co feature? Regarding the points, the Cobalts will be controlled by the Z21 via the handset/Rocrail, these will be on the main lines. The 4 road storage yard under the layout will be controlled by Hornby Solenoids and will be operated by their own non dcc local control (Hornby R044 switches) - much like a separate small ground frame in the real world! And yes, main controller = Z21. Thanks for the explanation, a lot of things fell into place after reading that in my mind. A Roco 10765 or LDT DB-4 booster seems to be the easiest way to separate and will be useful to have when I want to power signals.

Hi Guys, I am in the process of planning my next loft layout, and would really appreciate some assistance for the couple of questions I have been unable to find answers to. I have highlighted my questions in bold for those who want a quick read. A little background on the layout I plan: My loft space is 4x5mtrs. Basically I plan to have 3 loops round, over two levels with the lower level mainly containing a storage yard for my stock). I’m not going overboard here and my plan is very restrained and priced for what I can realistically afford. The top level will have around 15 Cobalt IP digitals, block detection (more on that later), while the lower level will be for storage where I plan to reuse old Hornby points and motors which I already have to save ££s. The points will be set up in a local non-DCC arrangement, track will still be powered via the main controller though. I’ve been very busy researching DCC systems and I have decided that Roco Z21 is the system for me (right price, like the interface, enough options for expansion). As I already mentioned I am planning to use Cobalt Digital IP. I have read that these can be prone to digital interference so I was planning to run separate Cobalt power bus to them. My first question is on the Z21 how do I run a separate track power bus and a Cobalt bus to avoid any interference? If I run two busses but connect them to the same DCC output on the Z21 is that going to defeat the point? Is there something I can buy to do this? Edit: this next question I answered myself while typing, though if anyone can confirm my assumption is correct that would be great.. Secondly block detection: I plan to use Digikeijs DR4088RB for this with Rocorail to do some automation. As I understand it, if you have a piece of track/yard which is not under block detection a train basically goes off the map. If I bring a train out of the yard (non block) onto the main track which is under block detection it will recognise a train is in that section and what it is by the decoder address(?). Eg. If I brought out my class 31 to the main line, then clicked class 31 automatically run to block B, it would know the Cl31 is in block A and run it to block B. Thirdly, there seems to be little documentation of people using Z21s with British signals and so it is currently my area of least knowledge. There are some videos on youtube by “digitalcareline” using Uhlenbrock modules. First question, I’m pretty sure I need a separate switch module and can’t programme signals into the same DR4088RB I am using for block detection. No mention in manual so presume it’s not possible. If that is the case then the DigiKeijs DR4018 is what I would go for. Has one one tried one of these with Z21 and train tech signals? Thanks for any help

Something I did on my layout was to separate two sleepers and put the wire dropper on the base (underside) of the rail. That way even if the solder is a bit larger its much harder to see once ballasted.

Great layout, I've enjoyed spending my morning reading through this thread. Definitely inspirational stuff.

Had an enjoyable look through, some great details Will try my hand at modelling some lubricators too

Very nice thread, some great details... From another Mr Makin!