RobAllen

I'm actually very happy with the photo I took too. Not often you see the Stove-R out either.

My local line and 1369 looks great! I popped down on Thursday to get a photo of 13268 at the head of the LMS coaches. but I won't pollute the thread with a non-GWR loco :)

The DCC solution I chose is DCC-EX. I didn't want to build it all from scratch, so purchased a complete system from Chesterfield Models. This included a box with a Motor Shield and an Arduino running DCC-EX to connect to the track along with a separate box containing a Raspberry Pi running JMRI as set up by Steve Todd. With the power supplier as well, I decided to put it all in a wooden box to keep it all safe and together. The iPhone is an old one that I had lying around. It runs WiThrottle. The system creates its own WiFi network so the phone automatically connects and is ready to as soon as I turn it on which is nice. I run JMRI by VNC from my computer to the Pi. It all works nicely and even provides a separate programming track output in addition to the main track. Quite pleased with the holes that I drilled. Turns out that using a rule and pencil first helps!

I’ve always got time for a 7F. 13806 looks good.

I intended to do some wiring today, but I don't have the right bits, so I have ordered them. Instead, I decided to cross the next baseboard join. There's only two for this one. Firstly the pretty straight line to the industry: and then the curve… I bought some templates from WHWW and used the 638mm one: and of course am now waiting for the glue to dry!

I'm hoping to attend on Saturday.

After this weekend's work, the track in the station is laid: All droppers in position too, but no point motors yet: I think that I need to sort out the DCC buses (track and accessory) next which will require working out a solution for joining the wiring across the board given that I can't get at the underside until one board has been disconnected.

I looked at those, but couldn't work out how to use them with angled and curved track. All 4 done now though!

In my modelling neck of the woods, Mangotsfield immediately comes to mind. They rather optimistically built 6 platforms at this junction station.

Remind me again why I thought separate base boards was a good idea?! This sort of thing is harder than it looks!

Great progress Dan

Nowadays is that we think that someone shouldn't lose an arm or die on the job because of a preventable mistake. Different times.

Fantastic Easter weekend, but back to the grindstone today. Our eldest son was home so that he could use our driveway to update stuff on his car. He seems to have finally solved a rattling noise that had been annoying him! He's back in early May to replace the some important belt or something (can you tell that I'm not a car person!)

Taking advantage of the bank holiday, I laid the first three points. Looking at the plan, I decided that starting from the end of the curve made the most sense. First thing was to lay them out and check: Which immediately showed a problem in that the point into the goods yard crossed the board join! I immediately worked out that I had picked one of long ones destined for the crossover at the end of the platform rather than medium one for the goods yard. Dug it out and it fitted. I'm using the Peco bullhead points and added droppers. There's nowhere obvious to solder the droppers and you have to cut the webbing somewhere. I picked a place where there were two other pieces of webbing to hold the sleepers in the right place. One of the nice things about the unifrog design is that Peco have already connected every rail, so I figured that it didn't really matter where the droppers go. After drilling a 9mm hole for the point motor and smaller holes for the droppers and frog wires, I glued them down the copydex and put some weights on: Will look at it tomorrow evening and see if they are stuck down okay. Hopefully, I can continue next weekend.

Thanks. Best of all notching means that I can defer the decision!

My colleagues still haven't caught on that my understanding of this truism is why my estimates are much closer than theirs. I'm still wrong of course because of Hofstadter's Law which states: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

I find that I only comment if I can want to add to the conversation with a suitable comment, answer, or question. I will react to the post to signify that I like/agree/support/etc the post as a way of signalling to the poster that I read their post and appreciated it.

Thinking about laying the straight track, is there any benefit in cutting the ~1m lengths of track down to approximately scale 45' lengths to create the look (fishplates) and clickety-clack sound of track laid in 1920? Maybe a cosmetic fishplate and cutting a notch into the track (assuming I can find a thing enough cutting disk would also work?

Put down the underly today. This is 3mm XPS underlay insulation glued down with Copydex and painted a dark grey so that there isn't a bright green in any gaps in the ballast! I rather quickly worked out that 126cm above the floor was a little too high for me to work comfortably, so used the floor and worked on two boards at a time. Now I'm waiting for the paint to dry, before I drill holes for the droppers and then lay some points and track.

Visiting Yorkshire today. Having taken this photo, I’m not expecting to get another one as good all day…

Page 283 of The Somerset & Dorset Railway Bath to Bournemouth by Derek Philips has a photo of 18805 near Highbridge on a freight train. The caption is: "More used to tackling the steep gradients of the Bath extension than the less taxing Somerset levels, 2-8-0 13805 works tender first near Highbridge with a goods train on 23 July 1937" I'm using this photo to justify 7Fs on my Holcombe branch :)

Nothing so grandiose. It's a bit of ply with two bit of 2x1 on each side. The track's merely held down by three wood screws and the buffer stop is a nail. I intend to mount the electromagnet's power connector and push button soon though. I'll also sort out another power connector for the track so that I can use it for DCC programming. I suspect that I should get a different shaped connector for that one and make it common with Holcombe.

Morning all! I'm back from conference and so have a mountain of paperwork to catch up on…

After I “finish” Holcombe (so that I have some actual experience in layout building), I would love to follow in my dad’s footsteps and model Bath (Queen Square). He did it twice: once in OO and then in O and they are very different from each other due to space considerations. I’m equally aware that my efforts wouldn’t be a patch on @queensquare’s, but it would be fun to build and operate a 1930’s version! (Not to mention the minor problem of not having the space to even contemplate something like Bath, of course!)

I enjoyed reading the article on the plane home from Amsterdam yesterday. Excellent layout.