richard w

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it really is appreciated. I've been meaning to post some photos of the new stuff for a while. I'm currently very busy filming and editing the signaling tutorial video which should be done by the weekend. Should have some pictures by the end of this week. Cheers

Once the paint has dried I rub off the paint from the railhead with a track rubber. The lighting in the loft isn't great so the rails often look like they are painted.

Continuing with the weathering theme I've been working on finishing my rake of SSA scrap wagons. First job was to weather them, wheels painted, wash of black, rust spots added and some slight airbrushing on the underframe. Then I added a false load made from foam. Now for the boring bit. I wanted to replicate loads of cubed scrap. This was achieved by cutting up kitchen foil, putting it into a mold and compressing it with a vice to form a cube. This took many hours and was done over a period of 3 months. Weathering was done with a small amount of weathering powder and a tea spoon of water poured into the container. Then the container was shaken for 5 minutes to evenly weather each cube. Then some more foil was added and painted to give a look of depth to the finished load. Finally the cubes were added. The train is now complete and i'm very happy with the effects.

Make sure all soldered connections are strong and insulated then it should be fine. If there is a short circuits the dcc system will cut out and protect things. I short the system out quite often when I forget to move a metal tool thats been left on the track.

Thanks Paul For keeping up with whats stored where the current system to try and remember or get down and have a look (low tech but it works). The way I've staggered the tracks does allow for quite easy viewing from across the layout, but there are a few spots that are difficult to monitor. At some point I'm going to put a light under there with a webcam linked up to a monitor. When I finish running the trains I park the everything back in the fiddle yard and try to leave a clear track for each line. Then when I come back the chance of a crash is reduced, but I usually do a quick check before I get things going. The current wiring setup involves two pairs of bus wires. One is for DCC power only and runs the full length of the layout powering all the tracks. The other pair is 12v DC used for lighting and point motors. Hope that helps.

Its just the cheap one from maplin. I think the later ones actually have maplin written on them but my older one doesn't. From memory they are about £15.

Wrong scale and period for me but I wish you all the best and hope the project is a success. I've put the word out on my latest YouTube layout update. I have about 13k subscribers so hopefully a few more pledges will head your way.

I've taken a short break from the signals and have focused on some weathering that I've been meaning to do for months. First up was the 128 which was far too clean and shiny. I've used some pictures for reference and I think I've managed to get close enough. Next was my postal stock which I've had for ages. These trains always seemed to get really dirty, especially anything still in all over blue livery. Remember seeing these run through while waiting for your train?

Just brilliant! All the track infrastructure really does it for me, love it. Keep the pictures coming

Thanks guys I've made some more progress tonight and got the signal heads installed. Very fiddly to hide all the wiring but got there in the end. Extra detail is still required, but so far I'm very pleased with how this project has gone. The left gantry has Berko heads and the right has Traintronics ones. Cheers

Over the past few days I've been building the traintronics signal gantry kit. I've modified it into two double track gantries. Its my first go at doing anything in brass and i'm quite pleased so far. Only criticism is the instructions which where not exactly ideal. Google images was more helpful.

They couldn't really give any idea of when the 68 was coming out. The blokes response was 'currently we don't know'. Not surprised really as its early days for that one. Seemed to be all the guy wanted to know, just walked off after he got an answer. I noticed quite a few people at Bachmann, Dapol and others asking for specific timescales on models and paying very little interest to the nice stuff they had behind glass.

NSE 100% for me. Fantastic news

I didn't ask. They were occupied with someone asking about when the 68 was coming out. There were no livery samples on display so I guess it's probably about 2nd quarter next year before it hits the shops.

It looks really good so far. This was the only one on display at Warley today.

Considering this is the very first sample it looks brilliant.

Fantastic set of pictures . The whole thing looks great with trains running.

Spent tonight adjusting the lights and getting things working a little better.

Think I'll have to gather some figures at the bottom of each garden doing some spotting. Homeowners could charge them for the use of their gardens

Hi Dave First I inserted a piece of old wire into the tube to stop it from collapsing. Then I bent the tube around an old AA battery to get the curve right. It can be tough to bend so a vice may also help. Cheers

Today I managed to get the suburb scene back into position and test all the lighting. Most of the work left to do now is fine detail stuff which will probably take ages. Very happy with it so far, feels great to get the final bit of baseboard covered up.

The lights are made from the following... 0.3mm brass tube from B&Q 3mm Stanley rivits from B&Q - These make the bases. Grain of rice bulbs - can run off 12v dc - I prefer 6v The lamp covers are from some old lights I had which I wasn't going to use, but you could make some if needed. They are quite easy to do. Just bend the tube to the desired angle and fit the bulb. Then glue the cover onto the tube and make sure it covers the bulb. Check it works and then paint to the desired colour.

Hi Rob Personally I don't like to spray anything if its below 5°C In that situation I leave a heater in the shed and allow things to warm up in there. I store all my paints inside at room temperature.

I've repainted and added some new signs to the Bachmann scenecraft garage. I had a go at printing out some transfers but the yellow letters on a green backdrop just wasn't visible. I've made do with paper instead.

I used Tamiya X-8 Lemon Yellow.