Merriville - OO BR(S) and LT Layout

[OliverSR]

Hi all

After a house move I have now settled in enough to start sorting a layout for myself. Using the old boards from Lots Road as a basis the plan is to make a small roundy-roundy layout with two running lines, a merging branch line and a lower Underground shuttle line. This should allow me to get what I want out of a layout in the space I have to work with as shown by these early SCARM renders of the approximate plan.

I appreciate this may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I very much enjoy this type of layout and will hopefully be posting a update for anyone who wants to follow this layout build. Finally for now an attempt at a arty image of the undercut section from Lots Road which will still have a presence on this new layout.

OliverSR

Edited June 19, 2021 by OliverSR

[OliverSR]

I have been busy adapting second hand baseboards and roughly laying track out and this is the result. Some of the board tops still need fixing down and tweaking and permanent supports for the incline will need to be done before I can think about tracklaying but it is still nice to see things starting to take shape.

Once I’m happy with the baseboards then I will add cork underlay and start on the track and wiring. Hopefully before too long I will be able to run some trains for “testing” purposes.

OliverSR

[OliverSR]

This week I’ve been able to put some serious time into the layout. So far the incline section has been built up more permanently than the card cubes it rested on in the previous photo.

Cork underlay and the track secured down along with wiring the section and fitting ModelTech RailAligners on the board joins. Also after reading on @TurboSnail’s workbench about some cheap Hornby 4 wheelers these two(soon to be three) look quite at home behind a District Railway loco and a temporary brake for rake sizing reasons.Here is a quick video showing various trains working the incline representative of the sort of trains I intend to run on it.

Hopefully more progress before the week is out, bring on the upper circuits next!

OliverSR

Edited July 20, 2021 by OliverSR

[OliverSR]

Since I had the week off and intended to get as much done on the layout as possible last week here is how I got on. Mainly due to the heat not as much as I’d like(soldering in the heat is less fun than normal) was done but still made significant progress towards a running layout. Cork underlay has been added under the scenic side and this has been painted with hobbycraft dark grey acrylic and now looks a lot neater. The fiddle yard section has been mostly corked too but I ran out of cork so one corner still needs it. The RailAligners have been fitted on 80% of the boards but I decided to make the section above where the LT line passes under removable to help with maintenance and derailments. So far during my testing with both steam and Multiple units I have had no derailments so fingers crossed the track work is decent. Finally I’ve been fitting servos to the points which will be controlled by my NCE Powercab. I opted to use a system bought from Chesterfield Model Miniature Engineering which seemed good value to me while being plug and play and had room for 16 points which by coincidence is my layout total. I did some tests with standard set track point and then removing the springing mechanism and with servos it looked a lot better to me if I removed them for the scenic sections. These were then fitted with servos which I used with some mounting kits bought off eBay. Basically neat aluminium brackets but due to how close I had a few to the edge of boards/undercut I had to trim down a bracket or two which the dremel handled admirably. Finally with the powercab I was able to link up crossovers via Macros so I can switch sections at the press of a button which I’m rather impressed with. Here is a video showing the whole point process.

So still to do before trains can run is…

finish one corner of cork underlay and RailAligners to lift up section

fit 4 remaining servos.

solder all droppers to track

sort the BUS wire

Not there yet but a lot further along than I was a week ago. I was a bit lax on pictures so these not great photos showing the current state of the layout will have to do.

That’s all for now but I hope it won’t be too long before I get more done on the layout.

OliverSR

[OliverSR]

Over the last weekend I have cracked on with my list of jobs for the layout in fact I have pretty much done all I listed on the previous post.

All track sections have droppers fitted which have been connected to the bus wire via some neat little WAGO 222 type connectors which save the need for soldering and with a box of 50 connectors for just under £10 on eBay not too bad on the pocket either.

It’s a bit messy in the fiddle yard areas due to board supports but no one will see it when a back scene is up so I, not fussed as long as it works. I have also made this lift away section to go over the LT line to aid maintenance and access if things ever derail(hopefully not often though). This was made with bolts fitted for vertical alignment and RailAlligners on the edges. Some old door handles allow me to lift it easily and I have fitted a plug for power and a draw bolt to lock it into place. So far it seems to be working fine with even my largest locos at decent speed not having issues with it.

Now I have power hooked up to all running lines as well as the servos all connected to the point controller via servo extension leads bought from Amazon. The point pins have been trimmed down and I have been able to get on with the important task of rolling stock testing(playing trains). I plan to give all my rolling stock a run across the layout to fault find any areas to fettle before I finally fix down the tracks.

I should also think about signal placement, I plan for these to be Eckon/Berko type signals which I’ll connect up to the powercab.

All in all I’m happy with how things are progressing.

OliverSR

[OliverSR]

Lots more testing of various rolling stock and many minor tweaks to track work to avoid derailments but also a couple of visual things I’ve done.

The old backscene boards from Lots Road have been reunited with the boards albeit with some modifications due to the new trackplan. The idea being to use tall buildings and greenery to hide the holes in the sky.

Secondly I fitted some hooks to hang a LT destination board I own and think it’s sits there rather well.

You may have noticed the rolling stock is looking rather IOW based as I’m waiting for a recent EFE Rail release and with the backscene now in place some trick photography it almost looks like a finished scene if you don’t look to closely.

That’s all for now

OliverSR

[OliverSR]

Not got a awful lot to show for the layout recently but I have been working my way though my stock and pretty much all of it is running without issue on the layout so soon I’ll have to start sticking some track down. I recently went to a toy fair and the three counties and came away with these goodies which I'm hoping at less the signals will be useful on the layout but with replaced LED’s.

I have been wiring up a load of LED’s which I will be using in some existing Eckon signal kits I have which had the older bulbs and I prefer the colour of these new LED’S so will probably fit them to all signals. I also acquired a ratio signal gantry to have a look at potentially using over part of the lines. See below for madly colour coded LED wiring photo.

One thing I'm struggling with in platforms(replacing temporary card ones in the test videos)as they need to be quite wide to support buildings and also curved. Ideally I’d like a laser cut kit but none of the once’s I've seen do platforms of this type so maybe I’ll have to try and build a wooden one and clad it in brick sheet. If anyone has recommendations please do comment.

Finally here is a short video of me testing a longer train which still didn’t derail so I think the track work seems to be holding up well to my testing.

OliverSR

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by OliverSR