mango

looks fantastic so far, love the minature in minature model engineering where do you get those cartoony figures from?

Longtime no see, I have been working more on the layout including wiring, buying a gaugemaster combi controller and some scenery work. Today I spent a few hours weathering up these small box cars using a mix of watered down acrylic paints, chalk pastel and hairspray. Considering their size i don't think they look too bad especially in the setting sun, its amazing how much more real these toy trains look when they get some real lighting.

Has anyone got recommendations for North American themed card kits in either HO or N scale?! Preferably ones I can print off similar to ScaleScenes. Please drop some links in this thread, cheers in advance!

Thanks for the help everyone, I went on and have finally got around to fixing it. Didn't take too much brain power. I really recommend this video if people need help with electro frog points. as you can see from the thumbnail his explanations are intuitive for visual learners like myself!

Okay, after writing this post i have figured out whats wrong.. I need to split the track in the appropriate places to ensure the electro frogs dont short the circuit. Are there any good websites/resources that will help me understand the electro frog theory?

I need some help, my locomotive wont run on the current wiring set up i have drawn out below, apologies for this weird non conventional diagram but hopefully you can make some sense of it. I'm using electro frog points on a layout with two boards that will join using a plug together chocolate block and be powered by a DC Hornby controller. Yes my loco and Hornby DC controller runs normally on a straight test track I've built with no issues at all but when I hook them up to my layout they dont work. If there are any improvements or mistakes i need to rectify then please let me know. Cheers for your time! Heres a link to the build thread under the Micro Layouts catagory - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/150773-north-american-inglenook-n-scale-wpb/

I've got all the track and points layed today, I had to wait a bit until I acquired some short set track pieces to bridge the gap across the board join. I completed this in about four hours. Now onto the electrics and wiring this up as simply as possible.

Cutting track and getting ready to lay switches! Being as my partner is coming home soon it's time to tidy up a bit and get these boards stacking in the box. I've used scrap ply and bolts to create bridging ends that sandwich the tracks together. This will protect them and the low level scenery later on when I get onto it. With the bolts done up tight the whole thing just about squeezes in the box, like I mean is scraping the edges. Next time I'll make sure I generously compensate for this but being as it's mine I can get away with it. In the negative spaces in the box you can see I am able to store all my boxed rolling stock in the lower half, and the top half will be for large scenery, power control and what ever else I'd need to exhibit it! Crit and feedback is welcome!

Trackwork is mostly complete minus the sections that will run over the board joints. I have put together a track cutting jig that helps me use a hack saw to chop the rails. Yes it's a bit crude but it got the job done and saved me like £13 on the actual tool. I plan to use the shortest sections of n scale peco set track to bridge the gaps across the board as it is far more durable than the Flexi track I already have.

Picked up the track from leicester's model shop aptly named the signal box. I'm using electro frog switches and code 80 track, I got a length of concrete to add some visual difference. You can see the vague track plan coming together, I'm just figuring out how long the headshunt needs to be to successfully run an inglenook layout. I think the less cars that can be pulled into the headshunt the harder the puzzle is?

New Year New Plans I bought a wrapping paper box before christmas and I am now building a n scale North American inglenook shunting layout across two boards that will fit in the same box. I have built the boards out of scraps from my previous layout hence the bits tagged on the end. More to come soon!