Ray H

Ray Nice to meet up with you today. Thanks for showing me the way you use the NCE Mini Panel. We spoke briefly about a motorised sector plate. One the layouts - Humber Dock I think - had a remotely controlled one at one end of the layout. It was string powered! I suspect the string was some kind of loop, pulled one way or the other depending on which of the two tracks were required to be aligned. Basic but it seemed to work. I hope the rest of the show goes OK for you.

Cheers Mike. I'm surprised at the last statement. Your smallest radius is slightly larger than second radius curves and the larger radius is fractionally larger than 3rd radius. I thought most locos these days were designed to tolerate second radius and definitely third radius. I wonder how much more the radius would have had to have been to avoid the need to elongate the circles?

Apologies if these have been asked before Mike but . . . . What is the length of the layout? How tight is that semi reverse curve as it leaves the scenic section at the upper level (in the second picture in the series? What are the dimensions of the extended helix? Thanks.

More precisely, how many trains has he boked to deliver it?

Brian The door is a fire door and there are a couple of other reasons not to re-hang it even though as mentioned before it seems odd to have an inwards opening door if you want to escape from the garage. The up & over garage door is all but sealed and is certainly not an escape route (in a hurry). The exit from the garage into the house is into the utility room with its own door into the garden no more than about seven feet across from the garage door. I haven't forsaken this thread, indeed I can even see me making a start on some of the framework to support the layout fairly soon - once I've gone as far as I can with the O gauge Derby Lightweight railcar that I'm working on. Much of the plant that was stopping the advance of the 4mm layout has now gone and provided useful funding for the rebuild. I am still pondering over the radii of the curves on the hidden section. Dropping down to about 2ft radius would give me another 18 inches in fiddle yard siding lengths. That'll be quite useful if I want to use each siding to hold two trains. Another option is to single the double track briefly on the approach to each end of the fiddle yard so that all sidings can be used for both arrival and departure in both directions. I don't think that I shall miss not being able to run two trains simultaneously in opposite directions.

Gordon I think there's every chance that the year could be 2015. In fact I'd like to think for your sake that it is. You've laboured long and hard over the past five years - your figure - and you deserve to see the benefit from it sooner rather than later even if you just lay one circuit and run the same train around. I'm sure that will serve to give you one heck of a boost and enable you to finally be able to show Mrs. S that there is something in this modelling hobby other than frustration and trips to the tip/cash machine.

Paul They certainly operated on the branch, apparently being based at Bletchley. The two railcars are indeed different even down to the pipework on the roof - M79900 fortunately having a lot less than M79901. The hinges have now been fitted and I'm working on the "pipework" on the end so that it can be fixed before the body is sprayed. I'm also gradually preparing the seats for the interior.

The body now sports a coat of primer. The handrails have been prepared but the intention is to hold back on their installation until the lining is complete. I've assembled and fitted two Easy-build bogies. They can be seen in the above image. I've temporarily fitted a basic DCC decoder and the unit potters up and down my one yard long test track. I'm am hoping to fit a sound decoder and bass speaker in due course. The two external wires seen above are the pick-ups from the trailing bogie and will ultimately be linked to the pick-ups on the powered bogie although I have yet to decide how best to route the wires to achieve this. I've also just noted that the body is the wrong way round in this picture which is why the motor can be seen! And there was me thinking that the chassis only fitted one way round. The next job is to fit the hinges to the outside and then . . . . . M79900 appears to have been a conversion from (or at least based on) a trailer car of a two car unit. If the Bachmann 4mm model of the two car unit is to be believed - and I have no reason to assume otherwise - there was minimal "pipework" along the roof of the trailer, unlike the motor coach which seemed to have been adorned with it. Does anyone know if M79900 had extra pipework fitted when it was converted/built? The trailer car appears to have had a toilet which was removed/not fitted to M79900 so presumably there wasn't a need for any extra pipework I'm hoping to encourage a colleague to spray paint the body and whilst that happens I want to progress the interior. Does anyone have or know of pictures of the interior or the cab of M79900?

Is there a green with envy smiley? Even more awesome than the last time I said it.

That's a lot creamier than I thought you meant! It looks almost yellow to me. Apologies, I thought you were talking about something that was more milky coloured.

I wish I could summon up the same enthusiasm to get started on my garage based (new) layout. I'm not being idle, I just seem to keep finding things that are (slightly) more appealing. What you've done so far looks brilliant and I for one would have chickened out weeks ago with the current temperatures (or invested in a mighty powerful heater).

Is it just a case that it needs weathering to tone it done a bit? I doubt anything would have stayed too pristine in that environment for too long.

No, it'll be a certain Mr. P waiting to take a picture of a blue sausage van diesel.

Glad you got it sorted.

Andy You have two point motors for the single slip. Each will need to switch the polarity of the frog that is furthest away from the blades that the motor is moving. Have you picked up the correct terminal of each switch within the motor as the common? The common is the terminal connected to the frog.

Grass by Monday, S*u*a*e* by Tuesday then? Glad things are going well.

Andy What happens if you fasten to of the micro magnets under the metal bar from the back of the badges? Does that magnetise the bar sufficiently to uncouple the Kadees but not too much to cause the wagons to tip? You may have to play around with the spacing of the magnets under the bar. Its only a suggestion, its not something I've tried.

Can't you get the squaddies to clear the shed for you whilst they're waiting for the next train from Bitton?

Sorry Re-reading what I wrote sounded a bit authoritative. It wasn't meant to. I picked up on your comment about using a blunt saw and I'm convinced that the saws we had at school must have been blunt because of the way we misused them. I'm sure that they severely dented my confidence and that in turn led me to hate woodwork for much of my life. It was only the impulse purchase of the new saw that seemed to change things, so much so that when that saw got blunt I insisted on buying another that was exactly the same. I'm certainly less reluctant now when it comes to woodworking and will even use the hand tools in preference to their powered cousins at times. I didn't mean to offend.

Andy I left school unable to even sharpen a pencil (as far as my woodwork teacher was concerned). I couldn't cut straight to save my life. A few years ago I bought a new (hard point) saw on the spur of the moment. All of a sudden I can (usually) cut straight lines and if I try a little bit I can even do a reasonable job of cutting wood (fairly) square. That doesn't stop me getting the sizes wrong, but those cuts that I do make are acceptable. I'm even beginning to enjoy woodwork - which is good as I have to build the baseboards and supports for my new layout soon. Can I suggest that you get a new (sharp) saw. You might even find that you don't need to stop for a rest so often! I did.

I'm not sure of your planned order for doing things but . . . . Could you leave the layout where it is in the short term and build the baseboards/supports on the other side of the shed? Then transfer the existing layout to that side and rest it on the new baseboards with a short partially curved temporary add-on to go between the existing station and some cassettes - with the cassettes only needing to be in place when you're actually running (although I'm not sure where you can lay them when you're not in use). That would keep the existing railway running and the short curve section of, say, about 30º, should throw the line away from the shed (window?) wall to give you about another 1ft on your cassette length. You'll then be free to build the rest of the baseboards at a steady pace and do all the track laying in the knowledge that when the existing layout does finally go at least you'll only need to slap some (temporary) track down to complete the loop. You can then gradually replace this temporary track with the permanent successor.

Tops marks for that. Much easier and probably safer than having trailing leads. One to be copied by me and a fair few others I suspect. Are you going to be lucky enough to survive with only 12 inter-board links?

Brian Could you add a curve on the end of the layout that could possibly be hinged if there's not room for it to remain up, and then have the cassettes linked to that?

Slow down a bit Andy, we might make page 200 before you run a train all the way round the layout. We've done s*u*a*e* to death, how about your fleet of mineral wagons to while away a few more pages. Go on, you know you can do it - with a little help from your friends on RMweb.

After reading your most recent post Gordon I think the oversight recorded earlier is a mere trifle compared to getting that final baseboard sorted but I'm sure it'll will be built with your usual thoroughness and be like everything else on your layout - a credit to you (and the envy of many of us).