Cpt Cheddar Posted November 2, 2011 Share Posted November 2, 2011 Hi This is the story of two 29 year olds with no modelling experience, limited DIY expertise and a make-it-up-as-you-go-along railway. Elements of this have appeared elsewhere but now track laying is nearing completion, now seems like a good time to put it all together in one start-to-now story. When I moved into the current house the back two-thirds of the single garage was converted to some sort of an office. After a year of using it as a dumping ground, it seemed like the perfect option for a railway room! External access, heated, insulated, carpets, all it needed was base boards and off we go. So, March 2011 & the room was cleared... We were expecting a fair amount of weight so used some fairly heavy duty battening and fixings to get things hung. This is Chris getting stuck in... Moving on a day or two and the baseboards were going up. We used 9mm marine ply for strength with some timber cross-bracing to prevent warping. Hopefully as the room is essentially part of the house then damp and cold shouldnt be too much of an issue, but still. When the boards were in, they were varnished for a bit of extra protection. This is the baseboards all erected And a rough plan of the shape. The foreground of the above photo was originally meant to be a trapdoor section for access, however this has since been dropped and made permanent although at present it retains the shape as above. The next post should show the finished baseboards and some temporary track laid out for 'testing'! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 2, 2011 Author Share Posted November 2, 2011 The next stage on the Halt was to get some track down to have a play. I had lots of old & new set track and could just about cobble together a loop and a few sidings. It made for some noisy and limited play but gave us an idea of what the base boards would allow in terms of size. A friend's pendolino made for a noisy but speedy run! We dont have any plans to confine the layout to any particular era or location. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 2, 2011 Author Share Posted November 2, 2011 A quick throwback to the baseboards, found a photo that shows the underneath. The bracing was made from 2x2 planed timber from the local woodyard and all linked up using metal fixing plates and corner braces. We made some wooden legs out of the same stuff and screwed it all into the wall and floor. Should be rock-solid. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 2, 2011 Author Share Posted November 2, 2011 A quick apology - some of these photos seem to be coming out blurry once uploaded - they were taken on phones mostly but look fine on my PC - I'll work on this but hopefully the message is getting across... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 2, 2011 Author Share Posted November 2, 2011 Next job was to think about what to mount the track on. The railway room is a windowless box and any running on the baseboards had proved very noisy. Perhaps in hindsight we would have thought a bit more about elevation however as I've said before, we havent been working to a definitive track plan. We therefore decided to plaster the entire surface area with the B&Q laminate floor underlay that seems to be so popular. So far only one packet has done the lot plus what has been build of the upper level, so cheap as chips really! The advantage of doing it this way is that wherever we lay track the underlay is already in place. Disadvantages seem obvious now! There is no shoulder to use when ballasting, and the track will be at a uniform height with the eventual scenery. Still, this is very much the blind leading the blind and we know now for next time! The underlay we stuck down with PVA, first we made sure to countersink any screws underneath. As you can see, even a cheeky cider played its part in helping keep the terrain flat! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 3, 2011 Author Share Posted November 3, 2011 By this stage we were a bit concerned about a single level layout & i had a bit of an obsession with creating some split level interest somewhere. The obvious limiting factor at this stage was the trapdoor across the doorway which I was under a promise to leave accessible for a buggy (little did chris know why at the time, led to some confusing & one-sided arguments!) Neither of us felt confident enough to commit to a lift-out section, so in the end decided on a single incline which would run around the top of the layout to a large area on the opposite side. This would allow us to plan a station/yard in the future - that has still to be done! First off was sorting out the incline. I did my homework re gradients & we used the set track to have a test. As things stand today we still don't plan on running any great length up to the second level. This is really out of necessity due to the length of the room, and we were keen to avoid climbing on a bend. We therefore had a shade under 3 metres to achieve the height we wanted. We opted (controversially) for a single line up & then round a bend onto a bridge across the short end of the room and onto the upper level on the door side. This is a view of the testing. You can see a pile of DVD's at the far end used as an easily-adjustable base! The Hornby power-track made for an easy way to test it out. Here is a side view of the fixings used to anchor it down. Here you can see the plywood we are fixing to the walls as we go for an eventual backdrop. The next step was to get two lengths of planed timber down and overlaid with some 3mm ply as a lightweight base. This was screwed into some more ply off-cuts acting as a support for the whole job. You can just about see the Kelloggs box-van on one of it's zooms down-slope! Jump forward a few hours and the 'retaining wall' is in place, the foam glued down and yet more 'testing' with some old track. What isn't clear and i regret not taking more photos of, is a short section of the foam Woodland Scenics gradient used to start things off at the beginning. This was the 1:4 gradient and roughly corresponds to the rest of the slope. It made a useful way to ease down onto the flat, although has left us with a load of unused polystyrene! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 3, 2011 Author Share Posted November 3, 2011 It was at about this stage, with the incline fixed in place, that we started to turn towards sorting out a track plan. This is still a pretty fluid concept. We had no particular quibbles about period, location or rolling stock etc. My main wish when starting this was for some decent continuous running with a few interesting bits of scenery e.g. tunnels, bridges etc. This is the latest idea for the track plan. It only shows the lower level, the incline and bridge end on the right hand side - the upper level is sat over the top of the 'south' side of the baseboards. We have used XTrkCAD with limited success, but as we are only using this for a rough guide then it's not too much of an issue that we can't really work the software! At this time we decided to use Peco code 100 track with wooden sleepers. I briefly owned electrofrog points but was a bit overwhelmed and so we are now working with insulfrog, albeit soldering the usual modifications on. Any thoughts on the plan are welcome! Some of it is too late to change, but not all! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 Nice lot of room to play with - look forward to seeing how this develops Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 4, 2011 Author Share Posted November 4, 2011 So in keeping with getting all carpentry out of the way, after the incline came the elevated corner moving into a bridge across to the upper station. The incline will disappear into a tunnel under a hillside, around the corner and then across a bridge into the station. Hillside primarily as I'm under some pressure to have tiny sheep on it somewhere! We're a bit concerned as the transition from the incline goes almost directly into the curve, so access to the track will be built in for the inevitable troubles. Nothing overly technical about this stage of the build. Our usual format of screwing some battening into the wall, then resting some ply on top screwing it into some kind of support underneath. Below can hopefully be seen Chris' ingenious craft-knife modelling into some polystyrene packaging blocks. These slot in underneath so are load bearing without adding too much weight. Current thinking is that these will be modelled into a retaining wall. This then leads into what will become the bridge into the station. This is a thin strip of 3mm ply resting on battening. A Metcalfe stone viaduct kit will be adapted for the purpose of concealing this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRat Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Good luck with your first layout Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 4, 2011 Author Share Posted November 4, 2011 Thanks for the messages - I think that even at the 6-month stage there are things we would do differently again, but it's entirely likely that the room will be required for something else in a few years and the whole project moved, so as a learning tool we're doing ok I hope. The next stage was to get the upper level, or 'Mindesten Halt' (named from the back of a crisp packet - guess the flavour!) built. At the time this was intended to be the only destination for the incline and hence was made as wide as practicable to allow for some juicy pointwork and some added interest. Standard Mindesten-formula, plywood, wooden supports and some battening - cover it all in underlay and bob's your uncle. Then the felt..... And finally chisel away a section of the sub-structure to allow for loco's to actually fit underneath! Nobody mention pantographs.... It's probably worth mentioning here that parts of the track are down! We have done parts of this before completing the structure, only in order to simplify things a bit re where supports etc are actually needed to be placed. The main 'up and down' express lines are now laid with associated pointwork. As i think i mentioned somewhere earlier, this is Peco code 100 streamline with insulfrog points. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 The next job was the first bit of track-laying. The first task was to modify the points. We used off the shelf Peco points. As I think I've mentioned, despite shelling out for a full set of Electrofrog points i eventually decided that i couldn't get my head round the wiring involved to prevent short circuiting, and so replaced them all with Insulfrog. Ebay came in very handy there! We used a combination of insulated and conducting fishplates. I did a fair bit of reading and decided that in the interests of reliability we would modify the points by soldering a piece of stripped wire to prevent the contact between moving parts and stock rail degrading over time. We also used insulated fishplates leading off the frog, and connected each point up to the power supply individually using droppers to the Bus wires - more on that in a minute! Some intricate turnout soldering - only time tweezers have ever been useful! Once we had the points ready to go, we linked them up and laid each pair in one go. We used PVA glue to fix the track long-term, and track-pins half-hammered in for 24 hours to secure them while the glue dried. This method saw us through for all the track laying. Once the points were in in their respective positions, we used flexi-track to link them up, cutting to length where required. This required the temporary removal of a large number of sleepers which are yet to be replaced! Once the track was all down and glued, we soldered (carefully) to the outside of the fishplates to improve the conductivity and also to help them hold the flexi track in position. This was completed for the two main running loops and the link to the incline in the distance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 Despite soldering fishplates together I still wasnt happy relying on these for ensuring electrical flow. We therefore decided to go down the sensible route of linking most sections of track (and every point!) to some Bus wires running underneath the layout. There are numerous useful Youtube videos explaining the process of stripping wire, crimping the ends and soldering it onto the track that helped massively here. The only point of any note is that due to another deficiency of planning, we ended up soldering these to the outside edges of the actual track rather than the fishplates where they would have been better concealed. Oh well! Also on Youtube I came across the technique of using 'suitcase' joiners for connecting the droppers to the Bus. After a long saturday morning visiting various electrical outlets and most of the CM23 industrial estates only to be laughed off by smirking tradesmen, I eventually stumbled across the very things in Halfords. I think they're also known as Scotchlock connectors - in any case they saved me lots of time and seem reliable. And a slightly more complex section involving points, but still reasonably quick and easy thanks to the suitcase connectors: Next installment brings us more or less up to date with the beginning of 'enclosing the Halt' and extending the upper level for the last-minute addition of a fiddle-yard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted November 16, 2011 Author Share Posted November 16, 2011 Things have moved on since the last update - perusal of the forums made me realise that with a bit of jigging, it was possible to shoehorn in a continuous run around the second level. First step was to extend the upper station area along the full length of one wall. Here as it was originally planned: The front wall operates on hinges to allow access for derailments. There will be three main running lines disappearing underneath so there is quite a risk! There is a 1cm lip at the top. And now looking the opposite way, with the extension in place. Tea in shot! In the above photo in the distance is the bridge across the short wall. This links to the next shot, with the approach to the incline concealed underneath. The upper level then turns rather sharply above the incline before running in front of it down the long side of the room. Overhead railway! The incline emerges further along. This then runs around the bend at the top of the photo before emerging onto the raised section parallel with the track from the incline. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Well done on taking the plunge, looks like lots of fun has been had so far! In your swap to insulafrog points you have actually done all you would have needed to do for electrofrog! You don't need the isolators on the frog rails with isulafrog as they are already isolated. You can simply do the bonding so well illustrated in your soldering picture and then put 2 insulating joiners on the frogs if you decide to try some electrofrog. No need to do anything complicated, many layouts have run for years without any modification to points at all! I made all the mods for DCC in N only to discover some were unnecessary! What plans do you have for structures? Now you have a track plan I would think about them now so that enough space is left for them especially if you are going to use ready made ones. I would also ensure that you can reach the track under the high level for cleaning and the inevitable derailment (Murphy's Law) that might happen there! Good to see a relaxed and fun based approach here too, enjoying this thread so far! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted February 11, 2012 Author Share Posted February 11, 2012 Things have moved on (slightly) since the last update. The lower level track is now virtually all complete, and the unnecessary foam has been removed. The result being a set of tracks that almost looks like it was planned that way! Here are a few snaps: The vast majority of rail droppers are in place and soldered in, with a few left to complete. Next step is ballasting. Or maybe to attack the upper level however I'm slightly nervous of that due to a few doubts over the track plan. Here is the latest iteration: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart-AU Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Hey Great job so far, love the noticeboard.. all the important stuff stuck to it.. Stuart-AU Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Alder Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Coming along nicely- keep us posted. Cheers, Richard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold McC Posted February 12, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 12, 2012 Coming along great - you've achieved a lovely flow to the trackwork! Following with interest! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
theoldmansminion Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 hi, very good so far, it amazes me, what skills this hobby brings out in people bit concerned with the big red radius warnings on the track layout plan, unless this isnt the finished version, then skip what i've said Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 Looking great! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted September 29, 2012 Author Share Posted September 29, 2012 Hi all The layout has moved on a bit since my last update. Ideally I'd like to tear up a lot of the track and start again with a bit more thought given to the trackplan - i doubt i'm the first to say that on here! Unfortunately there's no way i could afford to do this and write off so much track (ballast is mostly complete....!) and so I'll make the best of what i've got. Anyway..... My last post was pondering the raised section. I wrestled with this for ages, and in the end i decided that i didnt want to make it over-complicated and store up trouble in the future with unreliable track work hidden away. Before that though, I had done some ballasting... Followed by a bit of platform building: Buildings are for illustration only! The raised section has now been scaled back from this: To this: All feedback greatly appreciated, great motivation! Stuart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold McC Posted September 29, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 29, 2012 Looking really good!! Which Ballast did you use? Looks like woodlands medium grey blend? I love the platforms - look very very well! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt Cheddar Posted September 29, 2012 Author Share Posted September 29, 2012 Hi McC - thanks for your comments re the platforms! They are bare again at the moment until all ballasting is finished, but as they're the only bit of the layout to have any scenic work done, I'm forced by default to be proud of them! The ballast is indeed the WS medium grey blend. The B&Q laminate floor underlay has made a pretty decent shoulder IMHO, but it'll look better for some weathering and weeds! After over a year I'm pretty excited about getting stuck into some scenery and turning what is essentially a large train set into a railway! Stuart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueeighties Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 Excellent stuff, the layout is coming along nicely. Are you installing point motors? I know it's in hindsight, but after taking the time to modify your turnouts for more reliable operation, it would have been an easy job to wire electrofrogs in. All good experience and progress though. Regards, Lee. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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