MattWallace

Awesome stuff! Any plans to convert more things?!

I think there's a massive void! I went up to the Abergavenny Train and Toy fair today and was very disappointed. Even on the "second hand" stalls it was pretty much entirely Steam or Blue Diesel for locos and the rolling stock was even older! Of the three layouts there, only one was actually running (a very good steam-based model of Abergavenny Brecon Street) and the other two were a small steam layout and a 15' viaduct with a 158 looking like it would be on a shuttle as opposed to any kind of "driver controlled" operation. I can't remember the last time I saw a present-day layout of any kind, it's as if most exhibition modellers decided that the place to stop was somewhere around 1995 because nothing since then was worth modelling. Admittedly there are a few excellent exceptions to the above, however they rarely seem to be on display near me. One of the reasons for building my oil terminal is that I hope at some point someone might think it good enough to display and I can start adding big smelly multi-coloured (Colas/GBRf/Freightliner) diesels to what seems to be a sea of BR Blue, BR Green or EWS Maroon! Anyway, enough ranting, the pallets look brilliant as does the rest of the layout, Matt

These boards look amazing! I've also kept my baseboards down to 3' long for exactly the same reasons - I also have a Citroen C1! I'll follow this thread with interest Matt

I had to check the date on this one and make sure it wasn't April 1st! Is that really an MPV on the logs? If so, will this be a regular working do you know, and is it only around Barry that it will be in service? I see the Colas 56's pass me on my daily commute from Newport to Cardiff, I'd keep a closer eye out if I knew this was coming through! Great layout updates btw, wish I had the time to dedicate to my layout...

Hmmm, better get down to IKEA - I think I might be driving in to work in Cardiff on Wednesday

Words fail me. This is magnificent. Well done.

Hi Eric, I've not had time until this week to catch up on RMWeb, however I'm interested in your approach as I am also planning on using an RPi (actually a Banana-Pi which has more RAM and a fast processor than the Raspberry) to run my layout eventually. I wrote a script some time back called JMR-Pi which may help you with configuring your setup. The code is freely available at https://github.com/proffalken/jmr-pi and I'd welcome any improvements Cheers, Matt

Nice, thanks

Great stuff, I don't suppose you've got a track-plan have you?

Thanks

Totally inspirational, what size is this out of interest? Thanks, Matt

Yay! Another South-Wales layout! I'll watch this one with interest. Matt

Love the use of flexi-trunking to get neat cabling, might give that a go myself!

That's a hell of a lot nicer than any manual control panel I've ever built!

Sorry to hear that, I've been there myself with a cat in the past and know how it feels. Hope you're ok. Matt

Z-gauge motors and an N-gauge DCC Decoder? I'm constantly amazed that none of the major manufacturers are shipping a DCC Crane given the fact that the Heljan ones regularly go for well over £700 every time they turn up on eBay...

What about a wasteland of some sort? Abandoned trollies, burnt out cars etc. etc. ? (and yeah, working from home means you get quite a bit done during your lunch break doesn't it? )

That's amazing, I'll have to track down acad and see if it plays well with the DXF export from xTrckCad

Thanks

Heh, I was talking about the "working crane" mentioned earlier on in the thread. The blue one looks ace, I was hoping you'd found a way to motorise it that you could share with us all!

What's the crane? Is it the Heljan with some modifications or is it scratch built? Thanks, Matt

Dave, this is amazing! Did I miss the size of the layout and a track plan? If not, is is possible to see them? Thanks, Matt

So we ignore the steam era-releated ones and just use the last few instead of the phrase "Modern Image" I left the steam ones in for reference, I really don't want to start trying to define the "Steam Era" as well...

Sure, but I feel that it gives a better guide to when the layout is based than just "Modern Era"....

So, it looks like it's about time I changed the name of my layout again... To be honest (and I realise that all these things are purely personal) "Modern Image" to me should be anything that happened in the last 5 - 10 years. I say this as someone who was born in the early 80's, had no idea until he read this thread that there were historical connotations and is about as far from a "kettle-watching rivet counter" (did that offend enough people?!! ) as you can get. I love model railways, I like trains and I've really enjoyed coming back to the hobby in the past two years and especially discovering the communities such as this one, however for me "Modern Image" does not include Blue or Green diesels - they have their own eras ("Blue Diesel" and "Green Diesel" respectively), nor does it include "Triple Grey" (In my mind that belonds to... yup, you've guessed it - the "Triple Grey" era), it is everything that gave us the various TOCs, from Arriva Trains Wales to Virgin via GBRf, DRS and Freightliner to name but a few. When I look to buy a model railway magazine (and I don't have any particular loyalty), I'll look for magazines that state "Modern Image Weathering" or similar. I then get quite disappointed when I open it to check it's worth buying when I find out that we're weathering a 1980's box van and not a 2003 KFA or similar. The "Scratch Build A Modern Image <insert building type here>" are also often 1960's-style pubs/signal boxes/etc and I've often found that "modern image" vehicles appear to include Ford Anglias and Bedford TKs! Hattons use the following Eras which seem to be a better fit in my opinion: UK rail era 1. Pioneering (1804 - 1874) UK rail era 3. The Big Four - LMS, GWR, LNER & SR (1923 - 1947) UK rail era 4. BR steam. Early Crest (1948 - 1956) UK rail era 5. BR steam. Late Crest (1957 - 1966) UK rail era 6. BR Corporate Blue. Pre -TOPS (1967 - 1971) UK rail era 7. BR Corporate Blue. Post -TOPS (1972 - 1982) UK rail era 8. BR Sectorisation (1983 - 1994) UK rail era 9. Post-privatisation (1995 - 2011) as there's a slot for just about everything - for example, Marshfield "Modern Image" layout would become "Marshfield Era 9 Layout". Maybe the hobby should move in this direction as well? Matt