A modern image layout

[TT-Pete]

I did not want another project, but these things just kind of turn up by themselves; having recently restarted work on my 08 shunter I had a vague thought that I won't have anything to run it on when finished as my main TT layout is still years (decades?) away from completion, so maybe an innocuous little shunting plank in the meantime might be appropriate?

 

So anyway I'm standing there in the second-hand model railway section of Frome Model Centre one Saturday morning (well worth a visit if you're ever in the area) and I'm looking at a large lot of buildings and scenic stuff that's been salvaged from some layout being broken up. I note that there are some interesting scratchbuilt low-relief house/terrace ends and retaining wall oddments. Not too badly made but all open to improvement and a bit of repainting/weathering. Price is either 50p or £1.50p per item.

 

Now, why can't I be like "normal" people and say "Hmm, interesting" but then nonchalantly drop them back into the carton and walk out of the shop to rejoin the family, rather than unthinkingly scooping up an armful of the things and gleefully scuttling towards the till with nebulous ideas about dioramas and/or backscenes for shunting yards already forming in my head? It's a sickness I tell you. There should be a helpline - Thinking of starting yet another modelling project when you've already got a cupboard-full of half-finished ones at home? Call this number - help is at hand.

 

No such luck, getting home a baseboard comes out of the garage that had been part of a layout I was building some time ago, but only out of the idle curiosity of wanting to see what my purchases looked like in situ, you understand?

 

This board was 1 of 2 and was going to be the station/MPD end of the layout but I only ever got as far as laying two platform tracks and the station throat. Even though my purchases are nominal "OO" they could look ok in a TT backscene - and before I even know it, I seem to have a pair of pliers in my hand and am lifting the old track. I think I may have just accidentally started building a layout...

 

In for a penny... Next I delved into the 12mm gauge trackwork box for a few points and track oddments to map out trackplan variations around a hidden fiddleyard screened off by a backscene, and front of house headshunts and a fan of sidings. Or something like that. But in any case it doesn't matter as I tell myself that I am definitely not starting building another layout. Nope. So feeling virtuous everything is boxed up and put away again.

 

But then a few weeks later one of these turns up in the post -

 

Damn. I take this to mean that I am building a layout then.

 

So the concept, given the initial class 08 motivation and the limited space, is going to be either an MPD or a goods yard to shunt things around in,  things like parcels traffic, vans, coal wagons etc... It might also be nice to include an ECS (Empty Coaching Stock) or loco stabling siding.

 

I'm leaning more towards the goods shunting yard concept. As each move would require using a headshunt to reverse at least once, headshunts need to be able to take max 2 coaches plus loco, or 4 wagons plus loco, so be around 50cm-ish long. With the board 128cm long by 50cm wide (4' 2" by 1' 7") it is going to be too short to have enough room for the pointwork, but this is solved by chopping the end off the second board and grafting it on, so that I now have a 154cm by 50cm (5' by 1' 7") board which accomodates the pointwork with 50cm headshunts and some sidings -

 

Just need to stick and weigh down a bit more cork sheet underlay and I'll be ready to start laying track. :^)

[Robert Shrives]

Slippery slop time ..... have a fun ride . Like you I have thought about the help line but it seems to be "engaged" most of the time.   Looking forward to see how this develops. I wonder do you get more inches of track if it was laid in part diagonally on the board ? 

Robert  

[TT-Pete]

@Robert Shrives Slippery slop? Yuck, I've only just had me tea... I think that diagonal idea is going to happen by default - I want a 2nd siding to branch off from the loco stabling siding (the long one in the middle on the left) which is going to push the two lower sidings downwards at an angle. There's still a lot of empty space in the middle though.

[Robert Shrives]

What is an "e" among friends sorry hope tea still ok.  

Middle space could be dummy sidings for end of carriage sidings or perhaps a Marsh Mills style store of locos waiting last call to Swindon, just as a display area. Along with a view blocker building to hold the control panel perhaps. 

 

Robert 

[TT-Pete]

32 minutes ago, Robert Shrives said:

What is an "e" among friends

Gosh, so were you also part of the '89 Manchester rave scene then?

 

I've got a few ideas for floor fillers in the middle, dependent on whether coal/cement/oil traffic, but just outlines at the moment. The control panel is a separate hand-held unit and connects by a pair of 25 pin computer peripheral cables. More on that next.

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by TT-Pete

[Robert Shrives]

 me !   1989 was busy in TLC on Ffestiniog Railway no time and certainly no money for raves , but I do recall some 12mm points from 3SMR landing !! -sign of a truly misspent  youth.. 

[whart57]

At least your slip from the true path is still in the same scale. I'm spending far too much time on a small (40cm long) plank of 1:32 narrow gauge. It is 14.2mm gauge though

[Robert Shrives]

2 hours ago, whart57 said:

At least your slip from the true path is still in the same scale. I'm spending far too much time on a small (40cm long) plank of 1:32 narrow gauge. It is 14.2mm gauge though

I am sure the various deities available will be forgiving ...

 

[TT-Pete]

I am absolutely resolved that this time I am going to try to be neater and more organised with my wiring. <chortlesnort>

 

 

The portable control panel is an mdf box about the size of a large laptop and painted black. A gaugemaster walkabout controller is connected to a DIN socket on the side. It will eventually have a panel on the front with all the switches for points/isolation etc. it is connected by two muticore cables to two 25 pin sockets hanging underneath the baseboard, so giving 50 channels between controls and layout. A gaugemaster transformer giving 2x 16v ac is mounted in a water-proof circuit box and a re-purposed LED lighting driver gives 12v dc output which will power stall point motors on the layout.  

 

With now having power from underneath to track level, I'm very curious to see what you can squeeze into a 50cm headshunt. Quite a bit as it turns out;

 

 

And a bit of a test to see how lightweight 6-wheel chassis handle Tillig scissors crossings (hmm, I think they will need quite a bit of weight on them).

 

Now, next job is to lay and wire the fiddle yard to this "back of a fag packet" trackplan.