martink

While both sets of drawn tracks are optimised for viewing from the middle of the layout, the backscene is curved by nearly 45 degrees at the ends so they actually line up quite well when viewed from anywhere except right at or beyond that end.

The backscene has now been constructed and installed, although with no attempt yet to properly blend it into the scenery. It started out as a half-way suitable panorama found on the web (and free for personal use!), was heavily edited in Paint and GIMP, then glued to a painted sky. It should look better with the dummy road overbridge painted and trees to conceal the other track pass-throughs.

This is a continuation of a previous topic in the general layout section, with a slight change to the layout's name and the topic title. After a break of a few months, work is once again underway on this one. The basic scenery is now done, although still lacking major vegetation, backscene and most other details. The main holdup was the canal surface - trying to come up with something that both looked like water and worked reliably.

There doesn't seem to be a specific section for model railway humour, so I put this one here. I stumbled across this chain of four pages on the website of a local Australian hobby shop. It shows several model railway products that, for one reason or another, never really became popular. Don't forget to click on the "Next" tabs at the bottom to reach the other pages. https://www.hobbiesplus.com.au/disasters.htm

Enough pieces of the layout have now come together to make publishing a preliminary work-in-progress video worthwhile. Baseboard, track and electrics are finished, and construction of the scenery has begun. The initial one-section-at-a-time test software has been replaced with something a bit more elaborate. The final version will manage up to a dozen trains on the main line instead of the current four. The trains are test pieces or borrowed from a previous layout. There are still plenty of rough edges here, but it should start to give an idea of what it is all meant to look like.

All the track has been assembled and installed. All the electronics modules have been built and tested. There are currently 75 3-wire cables dangling beneath the layout, all of which need to plug in to those modules.

Back onto things after the usual distractions and delays. The canal loop is now finished and ready to install on the layout. The end of the month should see the track, wiring and electronics complete followed by the start of the scenic work.

Steady progress - the Down main line is built, wired, and tested with its final electronics. The Up main line and the dummy branch to Malmesbury are built and fit-tested, with wiring and electronics under way. The electronics are my new all-purpose plug-together modules, slightly customized for this location to reduce the number of cables from the layout, with a one-size-fits-all test panel. The picture shows all of the track for the rail side of things, with canal and road still to go.

Finally back to work on the layout after the usual distractions... The track for the down main line (outer loop) has been assembled into roughly 1m sections and fit checked. The next task is to wire, install and test it before doing the same for the up main. The Anyrail track plan shows the full design for the rail side - these are all the functional tracks, and there will be additional non-functional ones to complete the full station plan. The points are shown in almost-finished form, and have been assembled from standard track pieces.

The track and control boards for the new layout arrived this afternoon. Just over 24m of track (it needs about 19-20m), and enough daisy-chained modular section/switching boards for the next 2-3 layouts. From top left: point control, storage road control, 3 x stop section control, a mix of straights and curves, a different mix with more straights and joiners for the 6' long layout. And of course, my standard photo size yardstick. Now I have to test them all. Sigh.

I now have a small test track up and running, a trial run for the goods yard on the Up side of the station. One working point onto a siding is enough to do quite a bit of shunting - fully automated - in 1:480 scale. The Down side will be similar with a refuge siding, plus a loop around the back to increase the number of trains it can handle.

Well, I have finally settled on the subject of my third linear motor T gauge layout - Dauntsey, a minor junction station on the GWR main line to Bristol. The layout will be 6' x 2' or thereabouts, the equivalent of 38' x 13' in OO, and about the largest size I can manage as a single-board portable layout. Even with all that to play with, some compression and rearrangement will still be necessary! I was looking for a site on a GWR main line, preferably ex-broad gauge for the wider track spacing, with a small goods yard off one line and a refuge siding off the other, plus a road overbridge and a nearby canal with a single lock. Having a junction for the branch to Malmesbury is a nice bonus. The scale will be 1:480, about 6% smaller than the normal T Gauge 1:450, since recent experience shows that the linear motor drive system works best with carriages exactly 24, 36 or 48mm long. Choosing 1:480 means that standard 57' coaches work out to be 36mm across the buffers, and 9' wheelbase goods wagons 12mm (so two wagon bodies on a combined chassis add up to 24mm). 25 wagons per foot! This time around, I am building some sample trains before starting work on the layout, so have 3D printed a few representative locos and wagons. With a quick and dirty coat of paint, they give a good idea of what is possible. They do, however, look a bit out of place and under-sized on an Aussie layout, and the rough running in the video is a known issue with that stretch of track.

Very likely... just getting ready to load the two layouts into the car.

Yep - that was their popular nickname. I do miss them with their primitive automatic doors: closing when the train pulled into the platform then opening when it departed!

The layout is now finished! Well, almost - there are still a number of rough edges and some things that didn't work out quite as well as expected. It is ready for its first show this weekend (Caulfield in Melbourne, Australia). I'll see about fixing what shortcomings I can before its next outing, and then freeze it so that I can start working on layout #3 which will be back to a UK prototype - undecided as yet, but something GWR.

The basic scenic cover is now done, and everything seems to have survived. A nice feature of small layouts is that you can just turn them upside down and shake to remove the excess scatter.

A basic set of three trains for this layout is now complete. They cover two of the main types of suburban stock in service in Melbourne around 1980. If there is time before its first exhibition in late August, I may see about building an example of the third type as well, the one that was starting to replace them. As usual, the models are 3D printed and hand painted, with decals for the gold lining and Eishindo pantographs. The video shows them running on Monbulk Creek for a bush setting, as there are still spots on the network that look much like that.

The trains are now taking shape, with the "Tait" set basically finished and the rest not far behind. The pantograph is just sitting there for now. The entire 7-coach set is just under 12" in length.

A working version of the software came together much faster than expected. This simple version only handles 1 train and 5 road vehicles in each direction (instead of the planned 4 and 10), but it proves that everything works as a complete system.

I've been making steady progress on the electronics, which is (are?) now finally complete. Built, tested, and installed. The support wiring (power supply, controls, etc) is also done. The next step is to upgrade the simple test software I have been using to something that can bring the layout to life. I'll see about making a short under-construction video when it gets to that stage.

Being able to model not just the bridge, but enough of its surroundings to give it context, really makes a difference. Have you seen what Doug Kightley has done in (conventional) T Gauge with his model of the Forth Bridge, and his new one of the Royal Albert and Tamar Bridges at Saltash?

It probably could be done that way, but it would be pushing things right to their limits. The magnetic field from the track is very weak, and relies on having very powerful magnets in the train to compensate. The gap between them has to very narrow, certainly no more than 1mm, so you would need a ramp along the center of the track or to embed the rails in a roadway. Having that sort of magnet on a wagon that has to run on the rest of the layout can be problematic if your track passes over any nails or screws in the benchwork. You would also need to run the thing at high power, so heating would be an issue (similar to keeping a point motor powered too long). A simpler scheme would be to use a conventional electromagnet (perhaps from an uncoupler), and mount it on a motor-driven leadscrew, or perhaps just a permanent magnet on a drive belt (possibly using the Magnorail system). I have used this track on a little test layout with lightweight plastic N scale cars, but that is about as far as I would push things. It becomes more effective the smaller things become, down to a minimum model length of about 10mm (3x3mm magnets). IDL Motors does have a video showing some HO scale models (well, toys) being propelled this way, but that uses a heftier track and a lot more power.

While acquiring all the bits for the electronics, I have started work on the trains. Here is a first build of a Victorian Railways "Tait" suburban rake, in service from 1919 to 1984. I'll see how the windows look when simply painted, and then go to paper overlays or DIY decals if necessary.

My second linear motor layout is now taking shape. This is another small Aussie layout, a 48" x 17" model in T scale (1:450) of a typical but fictitious location on the outer edge of the Melbourne electric suburban network. Quite a few lines around Melbourne drop down to single track for their last station or two before the terminus. The setting is the 1970s / early 1980s, and will feature a good mix of EMU stock from that period, all 3D printed. The track plan is a simple stretched oval, which will mainly run as a point-to-point shuttle with the rear half of the oval concealed behind the backscene. Having a continuous run helps during testing, and will allow a great deal of operating flexibility. As usual, the layout will be fully automated, with up to 4 trains running in a semi-random sequence from either end of the hidden track. The layout also features a working two-lane road system and fully functional level crossing, with road traffic stopping and giving way to the trains. As with Monbulk Creek, the linear motor system is my own re-implementation of an IDL Motors product. The main construction work is almost done, just needing a few magnetic sensors under the road portion before permanently fixing it in place. Basic testing of each track loop is complete, and the next couple of weeks will be devoted to the electronics and software needed for it to display its full bag of tricks.

And finally, here is a short video of the complete layout....