smallman28

Hope that stuff is on the shelves securely

Honest opinion is that it is over complicated and most of the sidings are not of much use. I had planned to build a 4ftx400mm layout and made a brief start but gave it up and built a basic oval to actually run my trains on rather than just going backwards and forwards. However, the track plan might be worth a look for you.

Newest addition No sound on this one just yet, just got the bare loco and decoder, Bachmann 66065 in EWS re-branded to DB, got it cause it was pre-weathered and relatively cheap at just over £100. Will go with Legomanbiffo sound when the time comes.

Few more little steps forward Phone box now added to the town scene, was looking at lighting this but it was way to see-through even with the LED on the lowest setting I could get, also not helped by the fact that it was virtually impossible to paint it on the inside to reduce it's transparency. Need some street lights still as the lighting is very unbalanced with the majority of illumination being towards the depot end. Got another 4 Accurascale bufferstops so now all the sidings are lit. Also got a Gaugemaster PSU to power the points, I had previously been using an old rechargeable battery I had left over from my days of building RC cars but that was never a long term solution, mostly cause I had no way of recharging it! Still need a fence of some sort between the town and the drop onto the tracks, might get a couple more trees for this area as well as possibly some billboards.

As suggested I wouldn't think about trying to do all that in one go. Get one part up and running first and see how you feel about completing the rest, you may find after doing the first "stage" that your plans were a bit too ambitious and you might want to scale them back a bit. One of the problems with this hobby is trying to bite off too much in one go , getting frustrated and either giving up completely or constantly going back and making changes to the point where you might want to give up.

Just an observation On the point in front of the building is the bottom part of the track connected properly? Looks like the straight track isn't in the fishplate before the point correctly, not on about the gap but it looks like there is a "step" there. Might just be an illusion cause of the gap

Some new to me wagons today, wanted some of these for a long time, remember when I first saw them I was still doing N gauge. Would like at least one more weathered one and perhaps one pristine

Nice space although if it were me and I had that much room I would be going up in scale from 00

New point bedded in quite nicely, think it was a good idea to paint the board black first, helps hide any gaps in the ballasting Also a bit of sun on the layout makes it look totally different, under artificial direct light you can see every little bit "wrong" little gaps in the ballast, slight bit of grass missing, for some reason in natural light it looks different, it all seems to blend together so much better.

FYI, I put one of these in my Bachmann class 37 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254659789160?ViewItem=&item=254659789160 Had to leave the fan out to get it in mind you but the sound is so much better and louder.

Had to replace a point that if i am honest was always a problem that I should have dealt with sooner. Originally it was glued down but when I ballasted around it the PVA mix softened the glue enough that it lifted off the board, I did fix it back down but as a result it was slightly "humped" in the middle where the ballast had got under it. This had the effect of causing the class 37 to stall on the point over the insulated section and the class 68 to short on it, I solved the short by snipping out a section just before the point to remove the power to the V section although it then left a little bit of track "loose" as there was no fishplate holding the join together anymore. I got fed up with it and trying to bodge around it so in a fit of rage (sometimes the best way) I ripped it out along with a couple of other bits of track. I also removed the 3 loco storage sidings under the town area, now there is just a single straight track, again due to issues I had just been living with. Of the 3 original sidings I could only use 2 and only 1 of those correctly as the points were directly after the tunnel mouth and both locos clipped the edge of the inner tunnel walls while negotiating them. When I first built it the town area wasn't there so it wasn't a problem but in building support for the town section at the tunnel end I created the problem myself, also it didn't help by having no locos or rolling stock to check clearances with when it was built. Anyway, changed it over and need to re-ballast it now, but it has improved the reliability of the layout no end and now I can actually enjoy it rather than getting frustrated by it. On a different note I have also built a 4ft x 4ft layout, nothing fancy, just a basic circle with a couple of points on. Only reason was cause I couldn't actually run the trains round as it were, just backwards and forwards. It is surprising how differently the locos behave in terms of the sounds they make when they get a good run, totally different to just going slowly backwards and forwards.

Ordered a 12v 2amp power supply that I was hoping would be man enough to switch the points as well as power the one signal. All the points work fine except the one with the signal associated with it, there is a PL-13 switch mounted to the point motor to switch the signal but the extra "drag" from it is stopping the point firing reliably Therefore I have also ordered a big CDU, 18800uf, that I am hoping will overcome the problem, just have to wait and see now when it arrives. Took the top off the class 37 the other week and proceeded to rip the speaker wires off the circuit board at the same time, took the opportunity to fit a slightly better speaker but as a result I have had to remove the exhaust fan assembly to get the top back on. On the plus side between the new speaker and removing the fan assembly the volume has gone up by about 25-30% and now it can complete with the class 68 although the volume is set on maximum compared to just under half for the class 68

Lights MK2 They help take the edge off the bufferstop LEDs if nothing else. Had three altogether but feels like that would have been too many so just went with the two, same as with the previous lights.

I live about 10 minutes from that bridge

Need to replace the lights I had already fitted, they started behaving a bid odd and were flickering and a lot dimmer than they were to begin with. Not really sure why as they were supposed to be usable on either AC or DC and a wide range of voltages, perhaps wiring them into the DCC bus wasn't the best idea after all I will more than likely just replace them with some more Woodland Scenics ones seeing as I have the transformer already to power them with. In the meantime a few moody shots of both locos

Spent the day "tidying" the wiring for the lights, if you can call it tidy Power goes into an expansion hub first...... ......and from there out into two light hubs, this is where the lights plug directly into. Each port has it's own brightness control and if you plug a switch into the CTRL port you can switch the entire group of lights on/off. The light hub for the depot area is underneath the board, this one is for the town area. Lots of hot glue to hold the wires in place, useful but messy! The spare port on the town hub will be for some street lights that are to follow. I might put another hub in as well yet as the middle of the board might get a couple of lights purely cause it is so dark compared to each end. The whole system is pretty good but some wires are too fiddly and some are waaaaaayyyyyyy to long!

Wiring them up properly will have to wait for another day, just too hot at the minute to do anything other than sit in front of the fan

Well I know I am late to the party but got my Dapol class 68 today. All I can saw is wow, presentation beats Bachmann hands down and the loco feels so heavy compared to the Bachmann class 37 I already have. The sound was deafening loud and I have turned it down a lot and it still drowns out the 37, I think the 37 needs a much better speaker though, pretty sure that is what is holding it back. Was also surprised by the length of the 68, for some reason I had it in my head that it was shorter then the 37, don't why I thought that though as I never checked the measurements, perhaps it was the BO-BO wheel arrangement that made me think that.

Yep, been there many a time. Started many a layout but rarely completely finished any before moving onto something different, I think of all the layouts I have done I have probably got three at most finished and two of those three are ones I am doing now, cause as we know no layout is ever completely finished

Ordered a load of the Woodland Scenics lighting stuff. Put the 3 lights in the depot area, got some nano lights that will light 3 buildings in the town area as well as a few others. The wires on the lamposts are so dam fiddly and you can barely see them They connect into an adapter that then allows them to be plugged into a "hub", each hub has 4 ports and cause the 3 lights are connected together they only take up one port, leaving 3 free. Each port also has it's own brightness control as well. Got some stick on LEDs, might use one of them to light the fuelling point but they are a bit bulky looking so we will see.

Yeee, I know. There are a few little voids in it already.

No big revelations, just made a new piece to go on the end of the board to cover over the various bits of wood Bought a small table saw yesterday so more confident in cutting wood straight now so may well be making a few other bits and pieces over time. Started to paint the edges black as well, may cut hardboard to cover this but at the moment it is just the polystyrene used to make the banks that has been painted. The gap is where the DCC panel used to be before I moved it to the back. On a side note I ordered a Dapol class 68 this morning, the plain blue DRS version with sound, I wanted the compass version really but will buy a different body at some point and swap them over.

Made a bit of a start, got the points down along with the bits of set track used to join them together. The rest of the sidings will be made up of flexible track. The 3 way points are quite funky, never seen quite such a complicated looking point before and took me a minute to work out each direction on them. 5 power feeds in so far with 4 to go, then just need to connect them all up and hope it works

Few layabouts in the alley up to no good. They are HO rather than 00 so are noticeably smaller, so I am considering them as the local "yoof"

Yes, this is going to be my third layout! Only doing it as I had placed an order for a baseboard which I then cancelled, but due to a mix up it was still sent out to me. I offered to return it as at the time I wasn't home to refuse the delivery and it got signed for before I got the message informing me about the mistake, but they said just keep it. So I am going back to the plan I had in mind before I built the much smaller Deadend Lane This is based on a 1200mmx400mm board and will be a variation of this I am planning to have an elevated track section if I can squeeze one in, it all depends how much space there is once the bottom section is done. Track will be a mix of Peco set track and streamline for the point work. No solid plan as always so will be making it up as I go The name came to me just before I started watching The Simpsons on C4 so lets' see if any clever people can figure out the choice of name.