Revolution Mike B

Ah Ha!!!!! Found you!!! Jeez mate, I've got so much to do to catch up with all this. Looks really good Stu, I'm properly impressed. Mike

Hahaha. Yes Chris, it does - I've had a few! Buy a V3 V Limited, awesome car but quite expensive now considering you can pick up a jap spec WRX classic for £1200

Your thread has just brought a massive smile to my face Chris. I'm not normally one for small set track roundy roundies but your enthusiasm to take this to another planet is brilliant and that level crossing is something else buddy. And as for the buffer stops, they're miles better than some supposed 'top notch' exhibition layouts!! Really looking forward to some more updates on this! Mike

Probably N Gauge fine ballast, although you may need to mix some sand in with it too depending on location. I'm sure someone much more knowledgeable than I am can give you a better idea but I'm pretty sure ballast wasn't much bigger than 40mm back in the 80s. Cheers Mike

I'll second this. Great little exhibition and brilliant hospitality! I had a great time running the wrong trains up the wrong sidings and creating chaos all weekend, with great company too! Mike

That Buddleia looks really good Sam. Where did you get the purple flock from? I asked Jacqui from Ceynix and she said she made her own up! Cheers Mike

You might not see it if I end up crashing it!!

Because they don't have the same frequency response. I'm trying to make a model sound like the real thing, which in reality, is probably near on impossible......having said that, I believe Bif is having a good try with his new range of speakers! Cheers Mike

No Voyager??

Thanks Tony The difference is, I only have 4 boards that aren't even 6 months old and yours is a lifetime's work! I set out to try and see what level of realism could be achieved with stuff that could be bought off the shelf but this seems to have wondered of track slightly with the road bridge. There's also quite a few compromises that aren't overly obvious, and they're down to my lack of experience in modelling. The main thing is that it doesn't matter if you've got the world's most realistic model railway, or a set track, roundy roundy train set, as long as you're having fun, that's really all that matters and judging by your layout, you seem to be having loads of it. Mike

Thanks Mick The ones in there already are in series - 4ohm standard speakers that come with the loksound chip and are really loud. I tried the iphone speakers in series and they were very quiet (I guess from what you've said that would be approx 47ohm!!!). When I ran them in parallel they were louder but not as good as I thought (and presumably around 12 ohm which is still too high) Cheers Mike

Thanks Dave So excuse me for being thick, does that mean I could run four of them in series to get the ohms down to somewhere between 4 - 8? Cheers Mike

Does anyone know what the impedance is for iPhone 4/5/6 speakers? I put two in series on one of Bif's Loksound V4 and on one of my Oliva's Loksound chips and they didn't sound very loud. They're better in parallel but I don't wan't to blow the chip. I'd check it myself but I don't have a meter to hand. Cheers Mike

Flippin' 'eck! It's huge!! I'm not too jealous of you railway room space either!!! Please. please, please, get some more pictures up. Mike

Loving the roofing felt and battens awaiting the tiles

Jeeeeez Cav.......are you building a new house?!

I received my first proper exhibition invite over the weekend for Fareham Rotarail 2018, although I'm not sure what Chris was thinking when he invited me - 4 plywood boards with a bit of track and some plasticard doesn't really count as a layout On the plus side, even with me doing everything twice, at least I should be able to get it finished in time! (and save up to get the sounds in to all of my HST sets)

I've done absolutely nothing on the layout this week except paint a bit more of the platform as I've been to busy buying Voyagers and fitting sound in to one of my HSTs, and to be honest, even though I've only got 5 feet of track on anyone board, it's quite a nice break from the building to be able to run something up and down for a while (even if it does annoy the wife!) I've also been looking in to a away of fitting the DCC Concepts platform lights without having the base showing (sorry Richard, lights are great, but having the base sat on top of the platform is a no no for me). We've got our club exhibition this weekend at Fareham Leisure Centre so there's not much chance of anything else happening model wise until the middle of next week. If you're in the area, please come along and have a look at the excellent layouts.

Big up da Oxford Rail innit....................(for those of us over 50, or 49, in my case, a very well done to Oxford Rail). Definitely agree with Nile on this (although we need to understand the process that the 'bigger' companies follow and their rationale behind it) as it's a fantastic effort. It'll be interesting to see how much of a market there is for these coaches in large numbers given that a full length HST is over 3m long and not many people have the space to run trains of this length (this was also Bachmann's argument when I quizzed them at Ally Pally) What puzzles me is why we've had to wait over thirty years (since Jouef) for someone to produce a MK3 that's actually very close to the real thing? Perhaps they could produce some power cars too to really throw the cat amongst the pigeons?

Only if they do FGW / XC ones......I have 6 sets! And if they do........it's going to be enjoyably expensive for me :-)

........that's the DRS 37s out the window then......

Cheers Don I found the best way for me to learn was to take RTR / Kits and try to make them look more like the real thing. If you look at my first effort (which was 6 months ago) and compare it to my bridge, you'll see just how much I've taken on board from asking people questions. This was my take on the Ratio kit of Castle Cary station building to make it more like the modern day version. When I first did it, I thought it was pretty good but now the roof tiles are way too thick and the whole model is dreadfully bowed, needless to say I'll be dismantling it and rectifying the mistakes! I'm now looking forward to putting some of my more recently learned tips in to practice. Thanks Mike

If only you would manufacture a 4 bolt version for flat bottom rail......that would make my day!

Robin Steam doesn't really float my boat (except Evening Star and Flying Scotsman), and neither do steam layouts because I grew up with diesels, but I have to admit that it would be hard not to like your layout. I should really be hard at work but I've just spent the last few hours admiring your pictures and your handy work. There's a couple of layout threads on here that make you feel that you could actually be there watching the trains go by and this is one of them. Cheers Mike

I'm so glad I actually took notice of the person that originally asked me to post my bridge in this thread, not because of the kind comments of encouragement but because if I hadn't, I'd have never visited it and seen the fantastic stuff you people have been building. I've picked up some fantastic ideas for scenery and building weathering (even though I'm very modern image) which I'm now going to take away and practice to see if I can replicate them. Apologies in advance if I steal anyone else's ideas but please think of it as a compliment. Mike