jbe Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 My local village is holding its annual fete (in aid of local charities) on 26th June and I've been asked to provide a model railway again. Last year I took my layout Khan (Khan on RMWeb), but I feel I ought to bring along something different this time.I have thought about what I should build and came up with the following: it should be a way of raising funds at the fete it should be 'hands on' it should reuse stock I already have it should (as far as possible) be cheap to build, using materials to hand Like, I think, many others, I couldn't resist the Bachmann On30 Shay loco so I have that, a few wagons and a bit of trackwork. I also have some dense floor insulating foam board I used for scenery on Khan, plus quite a lot of planks of wood, etc left by the previous owner of our house. To be able to raise funds for the fete, there needs to be some element of competition and control by the participant, so I have decided on a 5-3-3 Inglenook with, say, 10 mins for £1 and a prize of £5 for getting the wagons in the right order should be OK (but any experience with this is gratefully received). This will all fit in to a space of 200cm x 40 cm which will fit in one piece in the back of my car.Starting from scratch today I have cut up the foam board, the wood for the backscene and the reinforcing girders under the foam board. Next job is to paint the backscene and the 'baseboard' before assembly.I hope that the combination of a deadline and recording progress here will shame me into completing the layout on time!Julian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbe Posted April 27, 2011 Author Share Posted April 27, 2011 Some more progress to report, but first I should add one more design consideration which is that I have quite a lot of ground scatter left over from Khan so it will be another desert scene and, given the rolling stock, set in the south west of the US. The backscene has now been painted (but not yet fitted to the layout), but I wonder if I need to paint on some hills, as the horizon is rarely flat . The baseboard has been painted (to cover up the blue foam) and attached to timber beams for stiffening. The track has also been cut and pinned down. This needs to be reasonably precise in order to conform to the Inglenook rules and make cheating impossible. Happily it all just fits in the length available, while allowing for clearances between vehicles in the sidings. Power is simplicty itself, just two wires and the first train has now been run! Next jobs are to start on the scenery and ground cover (including the ballast for the track). Julian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
moorlander Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Good luck with building your layout to a deadline. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbe Posted May 8, 2011 Author Share Posted May 8, 2011 A bit more progress to report. A start has been made on forming the landscape at one end of the layout. By using more of the blue insluation foam I have created a valley at one end through which the line runs. The contours of this have been modified using plaster in preparation for painting and then adding scatter. The Walthers walking beam oil pump ('nodding donkey') arrived promptly from Caboose Hobbies in Denver along with a few more wagons. Promptly but expensively, as the only shipping option was DHL ($60) and then adding VAT (£20) at this end. However, it did work out a bit cheaper overall. The next steps will be to build the rectifier/controller for the power supply to the pump and to start on the Evergreen water tower kit that has been sitting around for a few years waiting for a layout to build it upon. Julian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Kris Posted May 8, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8, 2011 Nice looking nodding donkey, but that shipping, ouch. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbe Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Sorry for the long delay in posting. A whole load of other commitments including exhibiting Khan a couple of times got in the way. My first attempt at electronics, building a rectifier controller for the nodding donkey was a miserable failure. The circuit design was taken from this quarter's O Gauge Guild magazine, but there were a number of problems which I would never have solved without the help of one of the members of the Farnham club (thank you Eddie). The first problem was that the power transistor listed in the parts list did not match the one illustrated. This was easily solvable by using the internet, but the second problem was more serious. The article was well illustrated with a photo to show which connections on the control transistors are the base, collector and emitter. The problem was the labelling was wrong for the specified transistor and as an absoute newcomer to electronics there was no way of working this out, except that the circuit did not work! Happily Eddie did know the solution and now I have a working rectifier controller that makes the nodding donkey nod. Ground contours have now been added using Sculptamold on the previously built up surface. A covering of various grades of sand added to give texture for the surface and a start has been made to ballasting using barbecue ash (not visible in the photo). I have learnt that diluted Copydex (plus a bit of washing up liquid) is much better for ballasting than diluted PVA. It results in a degree of sound insulation and a very small amount of flexibility in the roadbed which is a good thing. It does look very ugly for 2 to 3 days while it dries, but the final result is good. I can also say that the reverse is true for ground cover ,where PVA is much better at 'grabbing' scatter material and binding it to the baseboard surface. As time is running out I abandoned the plan to build the Evergreen Water Tower kit now, so I decided that I needed some kind of wooden shelter on the layout so set to work designing and then building one, again for the first time. Happily this has been much more succesful and after drawing out what I wanted, the NWSL Chopper was very useful in cutting coffee stirrers, strip wood and rocket sticks to the correct lengths and angles to enable construction. Next will be finalising the ground cover and ballasting, finishing the shelter, adding the backscene and arranging the rest of the scenic details. Only eight days to go to the show and I have to go to Berlin on business and Gloucester for a funeral next week......it is going to be tight. Julian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbe Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 So today is the day of the fete and everything is more or less ready and tested. The layout is packed up in the car and off soon. It has been christened 'Meon Flats' as we live in the Meon Valley and it has a suitable ring to it. To round off, here are a few photos, with maybe some lessons learnt to come at the end of the day. Julian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbe Posted July 9, 2013 Author Share Posted July 9, 2013 So, just over two years after my last post, I thought I would record the end of this model railway. The purpose of building the railway to raise money at a village fete was more or less a complete failure. While the layout worked well, hardly anybody wanted to play and the charities being supported would have been far better off with me just donating the cost of the bits I bought for it. I took the layout out a couple of times more, once to an 0 Gauge open day at my local club (Farnham), where I got surprisingly positive comments from visitors which was heartening. Ultimately it has become tatty. I will never use Copydex again for balasting as it has shrunk and peeled making everything look very untidy. It had also become some kind of spiders adventure playground. So the time has come to take it all to pieces. The track has been lifted and the points recovered, both for re-use on a new 0-16.5 layout based on the W&LLR, called St. Mary's. The building of that is being recorded on NGRM-Online for anyone interested. Two final view shots to mark the closure: Julian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danemouth Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Julian, Sorry to hear you didn't get the success you wanted with the fundraising. However you did gain valuable experience - I did contemplate Copydex on Danemouth but now I'm glad I stuck with dilute PVA. Best wishes, Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfsboy Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Nice layout but the great unwashed need something going round and disappearing into tunnels .My local model shop years ago in the 60's had a roundy layout in his window ,nicely made , that was coin operated out and went into a tunnel which fascinated kids ...and me .Even local yobs ... OK me and my mates ,would shove a penny into the slot on the way home from a bout of under aged drinking in the Fairlop .in fact it was a good test to find out if we could still get a key in the door .Good try though and your thoughts were in the right place so house points gained in the class book of life .. forgot to add .The enterprise was a 'good regular little earner " to quote the shop owner . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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