DomDulley

Good suggestions, Dave. I actually have a couple of three way points in the yard at the moment and I want to move away from them, as I'm finding them a right pain to operate from a control panel. I'm also loath to use a double slip (as much as I would love to), as Peco don't do an electrofrog version in code 100 so I think I will be asking for trouble Your ideas are excellent though, so I'll see if I can achieve something similar with standard points. Cheers!

My layout has recently reached the point where I am able to run trains without them derailing every few minutes, and it is a truly wonderful thing I now want to apply some structure to my operating sessions, which have been very ad hoc to this point. I've read a few articles about operating to a timetable, but what I am really after is some inspirational reading on modern image operations, and how to transfer them to a model railway. I've found a couple of books but they are focused on the steam era, and I model 80s/90s. Can anyone point me in the direction of suitable resources, online or print? Many thanks! Dom

After some head-scratching I've come up with the following plan to suit the available space. Tank wagons will be delivered via the headshunt to the siding below the discharge siding, where they will be marshaled by the yard pilot. I'll also try to add some stores, a lube tank and hopefully a small water treatment plant, maybe utilising an old water tower dating back to when the turntable was used by steam locos. Also a portakbin as an office. I may not use one of the fuel points (FP1). I envisage locos coming on shed to fuel at FP2, then either entering the shed for work or heading to the turntable to be stabled. The long siding at the top could be used as a carriage siding or as overflow for locos that won't fit in the roundhouse behind the turntable.

Fantastic! Thanks Dave.

Another job done over the weekend was fitting a sound ship to another bargain I got a while back - a Royal Mail MPV from Hattons for about £50. It's run in and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the layout. It will need weathering at some point.

Great stuff! Thank you

Thanks Zomboid - so a reversible freight would be prototypical at least. Perhaps I could use it for cement traffic as well as general freight, running the cement trains round it on the way to and from the works.

Thanks Dave - really inspiring Is the pump house the smallish brick building in the first image? I need to research these a bit as I hadn't thought about including one, but of course they're pretty critical!

Hi all, I've recently completed the track laying on my 80s/90s garage layout (or thought I had!), which comprises a lower level fiddle yard linked by a single line incline to a 2 line loop that runs around the walls, with a station, TMD and some non-scenic storage sidings. There's also a single road line leading up to what will eventually be a simple cement works. After running trains for a while I'm considering adding a third line to the main loop, either a relief or freight line (not sure of the difference), so that I can have trains overtaking in the same direction, which is always fun to watch. A large part of me is desperate to start work on the scenery and maybe add the extra line later, but I am also thinking it might make sense to put it in now so there will less to rip up. Either way, I am unsure of the best way to connect the new line to the existing trackwork, points wise, and have a few questions. I will post a diagram of the existing and proposed layouts below for clarity. 1. If I add one more line should it be bi-directional or perhaps just have it as a down relief as this would probably simplify the pointwork? 2. If I added two more lines I could have both up and down, but again how best to connect? 3. Are relief lines used by passenger and freight services? 4. Was there still such a thing as a dedicated freight or goods line in the 80s/90s? Currently traffic arrives up from the lower yard at 1, where it can continue onto the line up to the cement works, or cross onto the main loop moving in the wrong direction on the up line before crossing onto the down line at 2, proceeding to the station or into the bay platform or TMD via 5 and 6. The crossover at 3 allows down line traffic to reverse onto the up line and into the storage sidings at 4, or trains from the sidings to cross onto the down line. 3 also allows for running around in conjunction with 7. In the plan below I've added a third line to the loop but not connected it. Any thoughts or suggestions on this or the existing plan will be welcomed Cheers! Dom

I came away from my first trip to Warley without any new locos or rolling stock, but with a shiny new ECoS 50210 controller, a DCC Concepts rolling road and a Legomanbiffo sound chip. No pictures of the ECoS yet, though after a day of playing with it I'm very happy. I fitted the sound chip to my recent bargain from Hattons and only managed to break one buffer in the process - not bad for me! The rolling road makes running in and programming so much easier. I've been considering getting one for some time and I'm really glad I took the plunge -- there's a lot of programming to do when setting up existing and new locos on the ECoS.

That could be fun too

Thanks for all the info, and the marvelous images. Very useful both in terms of planning and for when I start the scenics. I presume a rake of full tankers would arrive and be left by the loco that brought them either directly at the discharge equipment or at a storage siding? In the latter case a shunter would deliver them to the discharge point, bringing an appropriate number of tankers each trip depending on the number that could be discharged at the equipment each time. If this is correct it sounds like there is some scope for operational fun here. I would probably need 3 sidings, one for the discharge equipment, one for full tankers and one for the empties. This might be tricky to fit in, so I suppose an alternative would be to extend the track well past the discharge point and simply move the tanks along as they are emptied. Not as much fun though!

Thanks chaps, it's good to know I'm not way off the mark.

Hi all, Apologies if this has been asked before, but I'm having trouble finding out much information about it. My layout is set in the 80s and 90s, and has a medium sized TMD with a two road shed, a fuel point and a few storage sidings. I need to modify the track plan before starting the scenic work, and I want to add a large diesel fuel storage tank with appropriate pipework to fill it. My question is, how would these large tanks be filled? I assume a small rake of TTA or TEA wagons would be delivered to the depot, released in a siding and then shunted up to the trackside pipes where their contents could be pumped into the large storage tank. Am I on the right track? (No pun intended.) Any details about these operations would be much appreciated! Many thanks, Dom

I've built a tunnel portal in preparation for adding foam between the trackbeds. I also managed to fix my broken HST, which took a spectacular tumble a few months ago (and instigated the reconstruction of half the layout). It seems to be running well, thank goodness.

I used two 3-way points in the depot and I really don't like them, so I think I'm going to rip them out. This is the new plan I am thinking about, which is a bit less busy. Any observations would be welcome. I want this to give some operational interest. I've always wanted a turntable so the backstory is that this was a steam shed which has been converted to a TMD. There will be a couple of segments of roundhouse around the turntable, which will be used for loco stabling. The siding at the bottom by the fuel tanks will be used for bringing in TTAs, and the line below it as a headshunt for the turntable. There is room for more stabling around the shed, which will have a crane hoist and sanding plant in front.

Thanks very much The main reason I wanted to know this was because I very optimistically added not one but two(!) three-way points to my depot, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get them to work from my control panel, and have to operate them via macros in my NCE PowerCab. So I'd like to create the equivalent of a macro (I guess a route is the same thing) when I get the ECoS, and hopefully fire it from the push of a physical button on the panel. However, now I'm actually considering getting rid of both 3-ways and reducing the amount of track in the depot anyway, but being able to pre-select routes is something I'd like to do in the future anyway so it's good to know I can. The occupancy detection is great too, and I've been having run watching YouTube videos of locos running automatically, which is also something I'd like to do at some point. All very exciting!

Yes that's what I meant. Sorry if I wan't clear enough I will look into the ECoSDetector and price everything up! Thanks very much, Dom

Just a quick running session this evening. Class 108 disappears into an unfinished tunnel. I need to remove some decals and probably renumber this to something more appropriate to the south west. This one is fitted with sound and when I first installed the speaker it was barely audible. I fitted it with a bass speaker and now it's much better, although still quieter than my other sound-fitted locos. It does sound great though, particularly when clanking to a halt in the station. Bont-y-Bermo is my only class 37, something I'm keen to rectify. Also with sound. I am in the process of fitting Kadee couplers to everything and getting them all at the right height is a real pain, so limited stuff to haul at the moment. Sorry about the photo quality - I'm just using my phone. Any tips will be welcomed.

Hi all, I'm thinking of upgrading from my trusty NCE PowerCab to an ECoS 50210. I would like to keep a physical control panel and set routes from it with a button press. How easy is this to achieve with the 50210? Thanks in advance, Dom

I was planning a big running session today, but then realised there was still one job I had left to do first. I've planned some storage sidings coming off the main loop (in blue at the bottom). As the sidings are in a non-scenic area I thought I'd use solenoids to control the points rather than the DCC Concepts Cobalt Digital IP point motors I have in the scenic areas. Because I want to be able to control them via DCC I bought a DCC Concepts ADS-8sx, which is a neat bit of kit that basically allows you to assign decoder addresses to up to 8 solenoids. I haven't laid the track for the sidings yet but the points leading into them needed to have a solenoid fitted, so I spent some time wiring everything up. My daughter taught me how to plait wires, which makes things much neater. The ADS-8sx was simplicity itself to wire in, but the solenoid was a nightmare. After the joy of installing the Cobalts I'd forgotten how fiddly it is to fit a solenoid. Now I've done one hopefully the others will be easier! Anyway, it all works now so I ran my class 108 DMU and a class 50 with a couple of the HST's Mk3s attached around for a bit with no problems, but forgot to take any photos I did get a couple of my old green Deltic. I stuck some cereal box up to try to mask off the tunnel entrance a bit. I'll try to coax some more era-appropriate stock over the dodgy points of the lower yard and up onto the main loop tomorrow.