Revolution Mike B

I'm not far behind that....although I've only got three different TOCs - FGW, XC and Virgin......and a few more sets in N Gauge. As my signature says......you can NEVER have enough :-)

Hahahaha.....I haven't had time to try it out yet Ian. Thanks so much for letting me have a go, it was great fun. I probably need more practice but if you get stuck and I'm free, I'll happily help out. I can't be any worse than Paul crashing in to the end of the traverser

I must be getting confused then.....because I remember the the lowering of the ride height........unless there's an impostor?

After reading through this thread Simon I've just realised your the guy on the Facebook forum that posted the pictures of that cracking 87 in Virgin colours. Glad I've found your layout thread, it looks awesome mate! Mike

I had a play around with some Code 75 the other day and respaced the sleepers to see how much I could get it to look like the C&L stuff and to be honest, I'm pretty pleased with the results. Just for comparison, I bought a length of C&Ls track and decided it wasn't worth paying double the price for something that I still needed to respace the sleepers on! Ok, my Peco track doesn't have Costain on it and the sleepers are a gnats nadger narrower but I'm sure I'll have much more serious issues to worry about. I've also had a play around with modifying some Peco points to get a convincing looking cross over. It actually flows quite nicely and looks fairly prototypical except the sleepers on the Y point which unfortunately don't run at 90 degrees to the running line, which is something I'll just have to live with. Since taking this picture I've chopped out the hideous spring arrangement and replaced the sleepers. Just need to change the tie bars next and things will start to look a bit cleaner. In hindsight, I should have used Tillig points because I think they look considerably better but as the saying goes....I've started so I'll finish...

Right, after a quick search of the index I've worked out how to add images Here's the plan (excuse the dodgy artwork)

Until joining my local model railway club two years ago I'd never embarked on building a layout before and then promptly jumped in at the deep end by building an 18' x 9' N gauge modern image club layout (which is still on going). I've learned quite a lot since, mainly through trial and error and due to the fact that we've got a few large OO gauge layouts I started collecting more 'large' trains. I should at this stage point out that I'm a), a bit of an HST nut and b), really like the Dynamic Lines FGW livery which in turn saw me buying some HSTs, a 57 and a 158 and having to rely on the club layouts being operational to run them. As a distraction from the N Gauge stuff and speaking to guys on some forums and at various exhibitions, I decided to have a go at building my own layout which I could maybe take along to an exhibition when finished and hence Oak Road became more reality than just a pipe dream. For any purists, my idea will probably have you banging your head against the wall because it's not really based on anything factual. Basically, we have a double track mainline running between Westbury / Bridgwater and Plymouth that passes through a village / town called Oak Road somewhere in either Somerset or Devon and to the side of the station is a single road virtual quarry with a run round loop. The vague location allows me to run XC HSTs and Voyagers, along with my FGW stuff and also some 66s / 59s with IOAs. I've kept the track plan simple because building a huge layout with over 80 points just seems to take forever and whilst it seemed a good idea at the time (and it'll look good when it's finished), it's hard work. The overall size is 20' x 2' made up of 4 boards constructed from 9mm ply and the track work is Peco code 75. I'd have liked to have built my own track but this is already a step up for me and my present skills aren't really up to the job. Operation is DCC via an NCE system. Once I can work out how to post pictures I'll hopefully make things a little clearer

Great photo! Shame Ian didn't switch the tail lights off on the Hoover

Ideas and methods picked up count as knowledge to me mate - and yours have certainly made a lot of sense to me. I'm not sure you'd want to let me lose driving your trains, I might crash them.....I'm still a novice with all of this DCC malarkey!

I can't wait for you to get this finished Jez so we can see some trains running on it! Top marks for patience with it.......way too fiddly

We've used double sided sticky foam, it works really well and allows you to remove a servo easily if it fails. So far, we've got about 28 done and working fine, apart from some of the servos twitching around!

Great to see you again Ian and thanks for explaining how you run your layout to my mate Dave. Your comment to me 'that Banbury had been around a while now' was quite interesting because I don't think that people will ever tire of it! Personally, and without any disrespect to anyone else, it's one of the best N Gauge layouts I've ever seen. I've remembered who was selling the fence now, it was P&D Marsh but they can't get it anymore Cheers Mike

Great to meet you at Fareham yesterday Ian and many thanks for letting me (and my mate Dave) have a good look around your brilliant layout. It's a shame there's not more people who are happy to share their knowledge. I'm still laughing to myself about the conversation regarding the 37......ME: "it's quite quiet isn't it, where's the speaker?", followed by "you need to get some sound in that unit" YOU: "It has" ME, YOU and DAVE together: Can't hear it over the 37!" - made my day that did. Keep up the good work. Mike

Wow!!

I'll be interested in seeing 37 402 in large livery. I need 37 401 Mary Queen of Scots but I don't like the ViTrains one.

It'll be good to see you at Fareham Ian. I haven't seen Banbury since Warley 2014, your American layout just isn't the same. Mike

....but can it launch a rocket?

Good lad

Hurry up Jez.....I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!!

Where's the dislike button? Hahaha

Ben / Mike Any chance that we can have it with the plain grey doors? Cheers Mike

Great skills here Tom! I'm just down the road from the Watercress Line and know it well. That shed is fantastic. Any chance you could make me one? Hahaha. :-)

Thanks Mike I missed the kickstarter and don't want to miss out again. Cheers Mike

Ben When's the cut off for (non) kickstarter ordering? Cheers Mike

I've seen some modelling nut cases but this takes the ?!&$!!! Just when I thought I'd seen it all, I found this thread...... amazing stuff gentlemen, truly amazing.