Ray H

We could always discuss whether we'll have our own layouts finished before Andy restarts on his I've probably got far less to do on my own layout and no house move to contend with and yet I still reckon he'll finish SL before I get anywhere near finishing mine.

I wonder if it is worth getting to know your new neighbours and see if you can piggy back off their Internet connection via Wi-Fi for a few days? Presumably if you're a BT customer you have the benefit of Hot Spots (or whatever they call them) anyway. Congratulations on the house/bungalow front.

I think Andy's slipping. Look at the weathering on the inside of the spray booth. It's nearly as minimalistic as that on the garage doors in earlier shots. And as for the cardboard boxes containing the road vehicles . . . . Seriously, I've never been a fan of heavily weathered rolling stock. Perhaps it is a desire to pretend to remember trains as I would like to have seen them in my younger days. Andy always seems to strike the right balance between the pristine and (to my way of thinking) appropriately weathered. I wish I had even a modicum of his artistic talents which seem to show no bounds. I've just got no artistic talent.

I tried drilling holes directly under the rails and found that the track invariably never wanted to go back down in exactly the same place as before so I reverted to drilling small holes adjacent to the outside of the rails. Of late I've also taken off more of the sleeving, tinned the last few mm of the exposed wire and then bent the tinned end at 90° and soldered it to the web of the rail. The remaining length of the exposed wire is enough that the sleeving isn't exposed above the baseboard surface and by the time the track is ballasted and the rails painted the wire is almost invisible. I wouldn't leave your soldering iron on longer than necessary - i.e. turn it off when you go to lunch and overnight, but otherwise it should be quite capable of being left on for several hours.

Did the bird leave a deposit on any of the goods? Perhaps it was waiting for a passing pigeon special.

Silly question! Look at his avatar. He'll have a mug of tea - got to allow time for it to brew.

Sorry to hear both bits of news - the mag only arrived today so I have but noticed the item, I haven't read it. Not sure there is anything I can say about the property deal though that hasn't already been said.

Andy Just a thought on the DMU front. I think that I read somewhere that you can get a decoder that allows for auto/shuttle running. Not sure if they do a sound version but it might be an option so you can concentrate on the freight/loco side. Nice layout BTW, I can't believe that you haven't finished it yet (says he who keeps finding other things to do to stop him having to finish his own layout).

10,000 posts in one day? That's surely a few too many even for one of Andy's excellent layouts.

How did the person who built your garage know to make it long enough for the new layout? All the best with the new layout. Is it finished yet?

That's yet another reason excuse to include one. Thanks.

It looks as though I can probably get away with it then. There are few buildings on the layout as it is so another won't hurt.

I bought a Wills plastic weighbridge and hut kit when on one of minor spending sprees - one of the last big spenders - thinking that it would be useful on the layout that I was thinking of building at the time. Neither got built. However, I now have a built layout and was rummaging through the numerous bits and pieces and found this kit. This led me to wonder when a weighbridge would be justified/provided. I have a minimalistic goods yard on my layout that will have a small (single) coal merchant's facility and small goods store. Am I right in thinking that a weighbridge would be unlikely in this instance?

Shaun Take a look at the MERG website. I think they have a kit for a flasher that may provide what you want.

Even in this day and age, with all the electronic magic that we have, all you need is the wrong press date and all the will in the world could mean that your public announcement could take well over a month to hit the streets. That's one of the benefits of places like RMweb, it is almost instant. Had RMweb and similar institutions not been available for people to post their experiences, the problem may well have been solved before the matter was raised in print. I think that we (collectively) need to recognise that Forums probably heighten our expectations. One or two dodgy items doesn't immediately sound alarm bells, a dozen may do so. Then you have to decide whether picking a new item off the supply line is the best way to examine the problem or getting hold of one of the reported items. You then have to nail the problem, decide and implement a fix, test the results and only then can you start to go beyond the basic "Hello World, we've uncovered a problem". It will be a while later before the earlier "Hello World" text can be supplemented by further information. I shall probably be buying a Class 40 myself in a few months time. I don't think Bachmann have anything to be ashamed with regard to the way that they have handled the matter. Would a response a few hours or days earlier have really changed things that much?

Each panel is approximately 22mm sq. and there are 16 panels in each pack. They suggest that the panels are glued back to back so you can either have 2 lengths x 4 pieces (on each side of the length) or 1 piece of 8 pieces.

Surely it is not just the electrical connections that need to be tested before the track is ballasted; the alignment is equally as important. Tighter curves more common with R-T-R track are renown for causing alignment problems at rail ends (which don't always occur at baseboard joins where the rail is supported differently. I'm grateful for all the suggestions and comment but I remain convinced that something as light as chinchilla sand is never going to be a workable option unless the adhesive is applied after the sand and the basic appearance isn't too critical. That is, unless someone can find a practical way of securing what amounts to about a 2mm thickness of the sand grains each measuring no more than about 0.1mm in diameter. I should add that the congealed sand in the initial test piece produced by the more usual method of applying glue to ballast has also now broken down, presumably because the sand grains are too fine for the PVA to reliably adhere to it.

Steve Thanks for your comments Barry's process only works if the track is not down already. I wanted to test everything worked before I started ballasting and didn't want to have to lift the track after the testing so that I could ballast it. That would have defeated the purpose of the testing in my book.

Gordon Many thanks for going to all that trouble. I'm convinced that the main cause of my difficulty is the lightweight nature of the sand otherwise I can't believe that the vac would manage to uplift stuff that had had several previous close encounters with said vac. I've surrendered and decided to use some Fine (possibly N gauge) cinder ballast to ballast the track and to have a thin layer of plaster over the adjacent ground. Many thanks once again for all your trouble.

A slightly expanded table would be useful although as has been suggested I could probably work something out in Excel. I wonder how accurately enough we can measure time to get other than a fairly basic idea of the speed especially as I presume the time has to be measured between two fixed locations with the loco already travelling at the desired speed when it passes the first and not starting from stationary. I think it may require some electronics to do the job properly.

It certainly appears that way from my experiments.

The camera can lie! This is the result of the most recent test and the camera all but gives the impression that the "ballasted" area is reasonably level. It isn't. The glue appears to have dried into blocks, some with dimples and some without with the result that the ground between the sleepers would do a good job of emulating the Sahara sand dunes in places. The picture also suggests that the sand has taken consistently. Again, it hasn't. There are numerous patches where all that is visible is the dried glue; the glue hasn't grabbed any sand. What is equally baffling is that the yard area away from the track where I'd spread a reasonably thick layer of Febond (thick) PVA and then covered it with sand, is showing signs of the glue not holding the sand despite it being dry for all but a week and the sand having been tamped down whilst the glue was still wet. From time to time I pass the hand-held (not that efficient) battery vac over the layout to pick up all the excesses of the sand which seem to get everywhere and oddments that shouldn't be there. And each time a little more (of what apparently isn't) glued down sand disappears from the surface exposing patches of bare card below. Finally, the reasonably smooth texture that I was hoping to achieve - for I reason that other than ruts and general unevenness of the ground, the area would look reasonably smooth when viewed at a scale distance away - is looking quite coarse. I fear the time has come to re-think the concept - I still wonder if a fairly runny mix of plaster would produce the desired effect - and thank Gordon for allowing me to raid his excellent series of postings and consider using a different thread.

Gordon. Many thanks for the time you're taking on this. I've tried two scenarios. The first was to tamp down and then try a reduced suction from the vac. I probably got too close but any further away and the sand didn't seem to want to know. It was an improvement on yesterday but still far from perfect. I've since done as I've said that I would do and left a section with the sand on the glue until the morning. One thing that did make me wonder is whether the sand is too fine & light to break the surface tension unless it is tapped down. I may find that answer out in the morning when I brush off what I just did as I haven't done anything other than sprinkle the sand over the glue (and a not excessive amount at that).

Ugh! I've been a tad diverted this morning and had just decided to tackle the bigger experimental area on the layout. Alas, when I got to what I did yesterday I find that the glue has effectively solidified albeit having shrunk slightly and is visible through the thin layer of sand. I was about to give up when . . . . . I recalled that I said yesterday that I thought that I might have brushed the excess off too soon and this may account for the thin layer that is now apparent. However, even allowing for that I'm not sure that there has been any capillary action but I shall now return to the layout and try the bigger area as previously indicated and see what that turns out like if I then don't disturb it until tomorrow morning.

I tried again this evening on a micro section of track. I applied the PVA and then the sand which I left for about 2 hours. I then gently brushed the excess off with make-up brush - not mine I hasten to add. I probably didn't leave it quite long enough but the early signs are that it is a vast improvement and more in line with what I was looking for. I'll try again tomorrow covering a larger area and leaving it longer before attempting to remove the excess and report back.