Mike140

VBA's were spotted at Banks Hill for the first time time today! The rake of four is now parked comfortably where the terminal will be built. I was happy with them at first.. Until I picked two up together and two coupling springs went into orbit, literally within 10 minutes of having them out of their boxes. Luckily I some how spotted both springs on the floor and then spent another 10 minutes trying to get them back into their sockets only for another one to fly out at me by its own free will I am going to have to either glue the springs in place or make some kind of very small cover to put under them. Strange that they're just sitting in there when on an old Farish mk1 coach that I have the couplings sit in a little box with no way for the springs to escape. Anyhow they do look good sitting at the far end of the shelf. I think they will spend more time in the terminal siding than in the fiddle yard. They're also already under threat of being attacked with weathering powders As far as the layout goes all I have managed to do is tack one end of the back scene onto the shelves, the other end has to wait until the fiddle yard is running. That's about it

37's look great wearing EWS colours. I'm a big 37 fan myself, one of my favourite locos. How many do you have? Mike.

Love this layout i'll be following it closely. I take it you like 37's then? Mike.

Nice little layout. I'll be following this for obvious reasons Mike.

Not much of an update today but I'd like to talk and get some ideas about stock. Birthday is coming up which translates to - New stock is coming day! I've decided to stick to the blue/grey era for now as I already have the DMUs to run which make up two passenger trains so decided I would like to see some freight. I've narrowed down the choice to two rakes, 4 VBAs in Railfreight red & grey and 3 VGAs in Railfreight Distribution (weathered ). I am most likely going to buy the VBAs this time around. But I am a little confused about which loco to buy. I was eyeing up a 47 but already know that I will have a 47 and 37 to go with my coaches when they arrive and a 47 on 4 small vans would be major overkill! So decided to look for something different. I've now got my eyes on the GF class 24 or the Dapol class 26/27. My question is would any of these locos go well with a rake of VBAs? Feedback would be greatly appreciated. As for a layout update I was standing and staring at it for around three days shaking my head. The joins between the shelves were simply awful! So today it all got ripped off the wall, a new shelf was purchased (this time it was the right size!) and the shelf brackets were all moved. Yep, the wall now looks like a slab of Swiss cheese. I used some wood joiners under the shelves to get perfect joins and am pleased to say it is all perfectly level and smooth now! The back scene is also on, or at least most of it is... Can't put the rest up until the fiddle ya.. I mean, storage sidings are down and wired up. I have done some shuffling with the track and have managed to find just enough space to squeeze in a train with four mk1 coaches in the station and the longest siding. Speaking of which. I noticed today that Hattons have put up some pre-order boxes for mk1 coaches on their website. Roll on Christmas! That's it for now! Mike.

Just found your topic and what a topic it is! Your rod and tube point system is a massive inspiration for me as I was hoping to have a similar system on my layout but had no idea where to start. Thanks to your step by step pictures I now know. Thank you! Mike.

I was just thinking the same!

The 'fiddle yard' isn't that bad after having a mess around with some of the wagons in there I can just about move things around when the next line is empty. I'm starting to think of it more as storage sidings than a fiddle yard now Plan is to have three time periods and run each one depending what mood I'm in... Sooo if you get to the station in 1970 your train may not arrive until 1995 To show the flow of time I will have two sets of buildings, the second set being very weathered or even abandoned. I started out with the 5 foot plan but also wanting to use track I already had (code 80) and not buy more I had to modify the plan and get rid of the double slip (code 55, and expensive!) which cost a lot of space on such a small layout! The plan was dumped as it just seemed too small and that was the downfall of another layout I tried to build a few years ago so I had the rolling around my head. The extra two feet really made a big difference and now I have a big shelf on my wall. A loco lift would make things so much easier!

Been cutting some MDF today for the back scene. So happy I found an electric jigsaw in the cupboard so I didn't have to do it by hand in this heat!! The grey tape is holding it up temporarily just to give me an idea of the layout. The space in the fiddle yard certainly is at a minimum... But I managed to get a DMU on the track so not that bad. I can add or remove trains on scene in the station when need be, I do not mind that. Well that's it for now.

Funny thing I did actually mirror the plan the very first time I got it on screen thinking the same but later decided that I wanted the terminal scene, which was originally going to be a logging scene, to have a full frontal view. The right hand side of the terminal has a paved/road area which will have pretty much nothing in it which gives space for the hand of God to get to the right end of the fiddle yard. The shelf is actually under chest height to me so access is quite easy. The running of the layout is secondary as I find most of the enjoyment in the designing and building stages. The general movements will be left to DMUs mostly which will just shuttle back and forth from the fiddle yard to station with the odd loco that will need to be lifted from one end of its train to the other. I'll make sure to leave a thumb and a half width between the inner fiddle line and the scenic break and swap the locos round when the DMUs and goods are out on scene, that'll give me a lot more room to move things.

Very small update. I finally got the last shelf up so now can see the full length the layout will be... The vans show where the three road fiddle yard will be and the 08 is where the terminal will sit. And two pics to show the over all length. The grey tape is there to soften the gaps where the shelves meet. The left end has quite a bit of a jump to it as I didn't realise that shelf was about 2mm thicker than the other two so I am thinking of laying some MDF over the whole thing instead of my original plan of using cork. Next steps will be making a back scene and then track laying and wiring. So hopefully there will be some trains running soon. That's it for now!

Hi Sam thanks for following! I was looking for an excuse to show off a little diorama I made in 00 gauge... Found one! I was just hoping to get some feedback on these tree's. They're home-made by using the flowering part of a plant, no idea what it is! My modelling eye spotted it and thought "I wonder what would happen if I glued some foliage to that" and thus these trees were born. (where's the hoover..? ) The smallest one at the far right looks a perfect height for N gauge to me and for the price of a bag of foliage I could probably make a few dozen of them which would be ideal for the layout as the fiddle yard entrance was intended to be hidden only by tree's, giving the impression that the trains are entering a heavily wooded area behind the freight terminal. What'd'ya'reckon?

Hi and thanks Steve! Just put down some track to test for space and am pleased to say that the actual layout looks a lot bigger than the plan makes out. Here are some pics. The last shelf still needs to be put up and is proving to be a curse as it just does not want to stay level! Two failed attempts last night led to an all out tools down tantrum followed by some much needed alcoholic relief which, tied in with today's heat has brought on a spell of "I'll do it later..." The final shelf will add around 6" to the middle of the layout, so just imagine that all the point work is 6" further to the right. The two DMUs were supposed to be for a layout I attempted (and failed!) to build a couple of years ago. The 08 and the two Ford vans are ancient and were bought well over ten years ago, the 08 is a very old, solid metal Farish model. The three (of six) box vans are Peco kits ideal for dabbling in weathering.

Hello all New to the forum so let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Mike and I have been bitten by the railway bug! I have designed and am just starting to build a simple N gauge layout that will sit on a shelf above my desk. The layout is 7' x 7.5" and features a small fiddle yard to a single platform station in the middle of nowhere with a small freight terminal. The station and freight terminal serve a small country town which will only be seen on the back scene behind the station. I had a hard time figuring out what time frame I wanted the layout to be set in so have decided to start from regular green diesel hauled trains and DMUs, seeing two or three freight trains in a single day. A hauled service for the morning and evening rush hour and regular DMUs in blue/grey with one freight train a day. Through to modern single and two car DMUs and a recently abandoned freight terminal. This will give me a wide time frame to model and allow me to run a lot of different liveries on a small layout. The plan may seem familiar to a few as I have used a plan that is featured in a track plan booklet that came with a Railway Modeller (cant remember which issue ) This plan jumped off the page at me and so now I have a big shelf on my wall!