The Pilotman

Thank you @Nigelcliffe for your response. If I understand correctly, you’re suggesting splitting the layout into four power districts; is that right? If so, can you confirm that the annotated diagram is what you had in mind? From an operational point of view, I understand that without power districts a short somewhere on a layout stops everything, and that power districts allow running to continue on the unaffected sections. But is there any other advantage conferred by power districts? Do they assist with overall power distribution or is that more a function of booster units? And is there a reason why you didn’t suggest having the up and down lines on separate power districts? I really don’t think I’ll get to the stage where I’d need something as sophisticated as Railcom; I’m expecting the furthest my ambitions will go (and not for some time yet) would be power operated points, route setting and working signals.

Evening all. I am approaching the stage where I will have to start buying the serious electrical stuff for my loft layout and there are a number of questions which I hope RMWeb members can help with. First of all, I’ll describe the relevant details for what I have in mind. I live in Germany but the layout is UK prototype It’s N gauge, all Kato Unitrack It’s essentially a double track loop (each with a seven road fiddle yard), a couple of loops, a five road yard and about 15 sidings. Schematic diagram attached. The up and down lines are connected by four scissors crossings; two on the scenic section and two at the fiddle yard. It will be one person operation. Me. It’s a big layout, just short of 10m long and about 2.5m wide with the operating space in the middle. One complete circuit is about 23m (about 2 scale miles) There are about 55 points; mostly the 481mm radius (#4) but a few 718mm radius (#6), and five scissors crossings all of which will be manually operated for the time being. I have around 60 locomotives (Farish/Dapol/Revolution and some Rapido in due course). All are DCC ready (the boxes are marked either 6 DCC, PCB DCC or Next 18) but I haven’t bought any decoders yet. I don’t intend to have all of them on the layout at once (maybe around thirty or so, but most of those will be waiting in the fiddle yard. I don’t intend to use DCC sound for the foreseeable future. The maximum number of trains that I expect to have moving at any one time is three; one going round and round on each running line and another shunting. That said, there is enough room for two trains to run on each loop (one entering the scenic section as the other leaves it) but I think keeping an eye on four moving trains at once to maintain separation might be a bit much. I’m not on a tight budget so can afford decent kit. So, to start with, it’ll be a fairly basic DCC set up; manual point operation, no sound or signalling to worry about. That might be something to progress to later. My first question then is, with this initial set up, are power districts necessary or desirable for electronic or operational reasons? If so, how many should I have and what would be the most sensible way of dividing them? I’m imagining a typical operating session with around 12-15 trains on each of the up and down lines (each fiddle yard line can comfortably hold two trains) plus another half a dozen locos or so in the yard/siding area. Thanks.

Apart from the EFE Rail PBA “Clay tigers” and the Revolution Cartic at the back, he’s used all Graham Farish stock.

As surmised by @BSW01 it’s definitely a wren, David.

Cyclist chat welcome here:

That video reminds me…. There's a nice nod to aviation history at Heathrow. The so-called ground reporting points which, in reality, are the normal clearance limits for the ground controllers for aircraft departing from runway 09R are named after aircraft builders with the names altered to fit a five letter, phonetic format. If you’re reading this thread, they’ll be perfectly obvious. They are: AVROE, HORKA, OSTER, VIKAS, DASSO and HANLI.

None of the vans are in RES livery and the photo wasn’t taken in South Wales. Apart from that, it’s exactly what the OP was after. 🤣

All genuine doctors? I’m not so sure….

I’ve just received a strange email about a proposal from a member of staff at KMRC. On enquiring about its authenticity with them via a different email address, it turns out that the person in question’s work email address has been hacked. KMRC are aware of the issue and their IT department is dealing with it. Beware!!

Can’t think of a better motto for the hobby in general 😆

That’s good to know. I thought I’d done something wrong.

I don't think it’s 17, David. The pattern of words on the nameplate matches D9010, THE KING’S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERER.

Yes, I’d have been surprised to see that.

To give credit where it’s due; it’s by David Rostance on Flickr. He has hundreds more brilliant pictures there.

August 25th 1981 to be precise.