ChrisAdams

Awesome, thanks.

Hello, I was wondering whether anyone had any tips on the best way to have a break in the track where a baseboard comes apart... my layout is currently running round my garage on 4 separable baseboards. I need a easy way of disconnecting the track in between the baseboards so it can be easily moved. At the moment I have just cut the track and re-joined them with fishplates however i can see this becoming probalmatic once I start ballasting etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks

As the weather wasn’t so great today spent half hour sorting out a small issue that has occurred due to poor planning on my part. The “branch line” siding for the station isn’t long enough to hold 2 coaches and an engine without encroaching on the holding siding next to it. Just added a spare length of track to the siding. Now this is done I can sort out making the station etc. The lengths no longer match but hey... who’s perfect.

Had a productive bank holiday. Installed a CDU for the point motors, I wanted the two crossovers to have both points operated by one switch. This should see to that, also as the kids are going to be using the layout this should prevent any motor burnouts due to held switches Wired up 5 more point motors and also got some insulators sorted for some of the sidings. Having a couple of issues with the frogs not being live for some reason. Next time I have the boards up some cable tidying is in order.

Finished wiring up the inner line today which also included the installation of two point motors. I’m using Gaugemaster PM-1s. These have been wired in up to a Peco SL-E99 three way turn out. Mainly because this point doesn’t work until point motors are wired up to make the frogs live. The rest of the points will slowly be wired up over the next few months. I also made a start on the control panel. Pretty basic compared to some I’ve seen but it’ll do me just fine. Just simply printed off part of my Anyrail design, laminated it and stuck it down to some random white sheet metal I had. In the long run this will be covered by some type of scenery.

All of my rolling stock and engine purchases so far have been second hand off eBay. Finally purchased something new... a Hornby 0-4-2T 14XX and GWR Autocoach which will eventually service the small branch line I plan to have. Whilst that was having its first run around I tried to rekindle my old air fix skills and put together some Peco SL-41s Hopefully the job for the weekend will be to instal two point motors on the 3 way point on the inner line and finish wiring up so that line can become operational

Quick update to show the layouts current state in its entirety.

After an evening of wiring up the layout, I have decided that I will probably never go into DCC! Wiring up a DC layout has made my brain hurt enough. I dread to think the complexity of a DCC layout. Anyway, the outter line is fully wired up and operational. Got about half way through the inner line. A view of the underside of the busiest base board. Did some googling about the best way to go about it and there were so many variations I just went with my own instincts. One issue I now have is that all my sidings are now live. Not too sure whether once I have attached point motors with polarity switches this will change. If not I guess I will have to put an on/off switch on the power wires to each siding. Unless there’s a simpler way........

Laid a few more bits of track tonight. I cut the end of my finger of slicing the cork up so I can now officially say my blood, sweat and tears have gone into this layout. These are the engine shed sidings, haven’t actually got the shed yet so they may change in due course. There’s a Metcalfe shed I like but it’s only a single track, I’m hoping I can just buy two kits and join them together with a bit of modification. And these are the lines for the station. The far siding won’t have access to a station and will probably just be used for coach storage maybe. This is it all together, on to the wiring next.

Both main loops are nearly finished. Just a couple of lengths left to lay on the inner track I’m keep getting side track by other little things. Realised the two sidings I was going to use for coach storage weren’t really long enough. Also made apparent by the head shunt being longer than the siding that would need to feed it. So took the track up and relayed some new ones. Before and after pics below.

Yesterday I realised that no matter how hard I try to follow the track plan I did, the stark reality of it is that it’s never going to be exactly the same. After cutting the flexitrack to the right sizes it came up about 60mm too short as I came to join the loop together. That was the first problem, second problem was that the point that will eventually lead to some sidings ended up too far along the base board. Meaning the curve that continued on from it was to sharp and didn’t look right. So decided to scrap the original turnout and opted for a curved one. This made the overall bend flow a lot nicer and was (to me at least) more aesthetically pleasing. No doubt these will be the first of many “adjustments” I have to make around the layout.

So started laying some track last weekend. I am slowly realising the monumental task of wireing up a layout with electrofrog points. All the track I am using is Peco Streamline 100 and all points are electrofrog. I did get impatient after a while and wire some of the track up just to see a train running on it. Thinking I may swap the pos and neg wires as the black will be less visable on the bottom rail. Not really sure how you measure the radius’s, I’ve got what they should be on the plan. I just measured out where the points should be on the baseboard, fixed them down and then put the flexi track in between. I know some trains don’t run round corners that are too tight. I’ve run a couple of locos and rolling stock around the ones I’ve done and nothing derails. It will be a while before I start ballasting so I hope to find out if they are too tight before then. Any tips on this would be helpful

Even though these post have been uploaded in quick succession, the baseboard was made about 3 months ago. After finally settling on a layout I priced up all the track I’d need to get started and realised this was going to be a more expensive venture than I had originally thought. Luckily enough, it was my birthday last week and I had handed over my list of part numbers (wishful thinking) as there was nothing else I was after. Well after unwrapping every individual piece I was left a very surprised and happy bloke as I looked over my presents.

The only track I had available after sorting the baseboard out was a Hornby Starter Set, after some nagging from my eldest I layed it out just so he could get a train running round. I was still tinkering with the layout design at this point, it became easier once the space had been defined and I had a visual representation of how big the layout was actually going to be. I have decided not to post the layout design. Mainly because I’d like to find out its faults through the building and running processes rather than having them pointed out. For now, this single loop will have to do.

Welcome to my blog. Just a place for me to document my progress of building a model railway from scratch. Apart from some distant memory’s of playing with my Dads layout, I am starting out with very little experience so please excuse any novice mistakes I make along the way. The layout itself is completely fictitious. It isn’t based on any real railways apart from the ideas in my head. A while ago I posted a thread asking for advise on baseboards and layouts. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129643-layout-design-suggestions/ I received a lot of helpful info which pretty much sent me back to the drawing board. I took the advice about having a modular baseboard and so a couple of months ago we built 4 sections that would run around half of the garage.