Zomboid

well I've applied ballast to the rest of the layout. Took a while, but I quite enjoyed it. Not sure I'd be that keen on ballasting a 40ft roundy though! Safe to say I haven't got the knack just yet, but it looks better than bare cork. Might delight you with a picture once it's dried and I've seen how much is actually stuck down... I had it looking really nice, and then I put the glue/water/detergent mix on, and the particles all floated around to places I didn't particularly want them. Maybe this wouldn't be an issue if I was using a coarser material. I have also added an unconnected piece of track, so I can have another rail-served industry to take up some of the scenic space at the headshunt end of the layout. It'll also give me somewhere on the layout to store cars which are not part of the inglenook game, as I now own 7 + 2 unbuilt kits, and only need 6 for operating. This also gave me the opportunity to try ballasting and laying track at the same time (by liberally spreading PVA on the trackbed, laying track and then sprinkling ballast, and finally adding the diluted PVA mix). That seems to have worked alright. Something to remember for the next project, whenever that happens...

Either could look good; I would go with concrete, but either way the central pier needs to be a bit more substantial in my opinion.

Modern road over bridges seem to have huge parapets, the days of being able to look over them and see the trains are behind us, unless you're on the top deck of the inevitable bus on a bridge

You're the one who has to be happy with it. If you're happy with how it is now, then that's all that really matters. Though I think a modern concrete structure would look better, for what its worth.

The three girder bridge at the far end- I think you need longer girders, unless you can shift the supports around, as they would have a support at the end of each girder.You'll probably need to switch it for a truss/ bow string to get girders long enough. But that's just how it looks to me.

You can always invoke rule 1. But which urban areas with a snowy winter did the SP serve? If you're running SP then Chicago isn't quite right.

Ballast! Done with the old fashioned sprinkle and drench in diluted PVA method. I'm not too ashamed of this, to be honest. Not sure how to prevent the tops of the sleepers being covered. though. Is that just what happens and I have to scrape away what I want removed?

Also, does this count as my first ever scratch-build? This morning it was a shreddies packet, now it's a grade crossing... sort of.

I definitely notice myself being in a minority (being in my 30s). Todays young railway enthusiasts also have the draw of Train Simulator (and whatever else is knocking around these days), in which it is possible to build much larger "layouts" than the average suburban bedroom can hold. I wonder how much of a drain on actual modellers that new rail-related hobby is. Personally I tried Microsoft Train Simulator about 15 years ago, and it bored the pants off me, but I'm just one person. And it did open my eyes to North American railroads. Saying that, the club I've been getting involved in has a fair few people involved who are reasonably young, at least in the railway modelling sphere (i.e. 20s, 30s & 40s), at least in the diesel & electric group. I haven't met the kettle brigade yet, so I don't know about them.

So some progress... I'll start with the Alco, here it is with it's lid off: I'm pretty sure that small lump in the middle is where the decoder would attach if it had one. In other news, I've got my entry ready for "how to wire up a layout, 2015" Choc-blocks superglued to the underside of the board. Nothing can go wrong there, but even if it does it's just a matter of unscrewing stuff, which I can cope with. I've also had a go at ballasting on my test piece. Used the sprinkle then drown in PVA/ Water/ detergent method. Vacuumed the excess off after ~22 hours. Where I tried to go really deep it didn't really work, think I should have left it longer and used more glue mix, but the rest of it is pretty satisfactory for a firest ever attempt, I think. Colour is nothing like I'm aiming at, but that's what I could get my hands on yesterday evening. I'll actually be trying to get a colour like the grey in my reference location, which is South Yale St in the Los Angeles conurbation: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Los+Angeles,+CA,+USA/@33.7076815,-117.9150431,117m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2c75ddc27da13:0xe22fdf6f254608f4!6m1!1e1 I shan't be doing inset turnouts though, so we liberties will have to be taken when it gets to that point... Anyone want some ballast for a steam age TMD? Barely used...

Hi Armin, I'm actually intending to build one of the controllers described by Frank/Dukedog in an attempt to solve this issue, which I found out about when reading one of your threads, so thanks for that. Once I've actually got it built i'll get back and inform the world how well or otherwise it worked... The loco I have (Southern Pacific S4, #1466, catalogue number 63102) is not decoder equipped as far as I can tell, so I think it's just the basic DC that's the issue, probably down to my ancient and not-all-that-good-when-it-was-new Hornby transformer/controller - which the GP60 is happy enough to crawl along with...

They certainly were. I wore out the tapes we had of them (Saw one of the recent CGI ones a couple of weeks back, and was appalled; I don't remember a 9F called "Maurice" or whatever they've added since I moved on from Thomas. I'm probably just getting old). The "modern image" at the time I got into railways was BR sectorisation, and what I got to see at my local station were the NSE lines out of Waterloo. I wasn't really aware of what was going on until things like the REPs and Loco Hauled trains were a thing of the past, and for me a 455 was an exciting novelty. I suppose it's hardly surprising that I've subsequently gone through being interested in BR Blue era, and now American railroads...

I'm not sure you'll ever find an emotional attachment to a track plan. Just doesn't sound like the kind of thing that would happen... I guess the question is what do you enjoy about this hobby?

Thanks for the reply prof. It's actually dcc ready, so there's no decoder in there (as far as I know, didn't have to take the body off to change the couplers, so I haven my done so yet). I figured it was down to the high starting current of the motor, and presumably a fairly high back emf stopping it if I back off the power once it's going. The best solution looks to be going dcc, so I'll stick with the geep until such time as I have a decent dcc system.

Has anyone else got the Bachmann S4 (or presumably S2)? If so, does yours have a wide variety of speeds that it'll do? Mine seems to have a binary choice between "too fast" and "stop". Anyone got a suggestion for making it run better/slower? I'm using analogue controls at the minute, dcc is a down the road plan, but not short term. The contrast with my athearn geep is night and day, that will happily inch along over insulfrog turnouts.

Not messing about, I see. Like it.

I've changed axles on my worst offenders, and they're still slightly self propelled. Has to either be the screws or ballast weights. Only got though axles for 3 more cars though, and I have 6 more that need doing...

I've found that most of my couplers are close enough. I have one boxcar that's very low, but even that still works. I'll still correct it though, as I wouldn't want to include it in a long consist, which may be on the cards when I do my next project (a freemo module; have to finish this one and move house first, mind...). The slope it's got me on is removing all ferrous parts from my wagons. I get acceptable performance from just doing axles, but it could still be improved...

I used the under the tracks magnet. Hands off uncoupling is great, though I do occasionally have to help with coupling. Still better than anything else I've seen.

If shunting a goods yard is your thing, how about switching it around, and having the BLT with some rudimentary facilities next to the FY, and the line continuing past there to a larger freight only facility. If its large enough you may even be able to justify the 8/9F showing up.

I like the idea of a "system", rather than just a station. A very similar vein to something I'd like to build some day (though mine will be American HO). I'm only really replying to get a little star next to the thread so I know to look at it when it updates.

How much spare space under there? I only ask because my GP60 is a little taller than those boxcars, so they may not be the best choice for checking clearances. Though your traction may be smaller than that.

Some more stuff worth reporting this weekend. Tracks are glued down, and I've soldered the droppers onto the rails, though not actually connected it up underneath. I'm just croc-clipping onto those wires rather than the rails... I also managed to mangle one of the rails with the drill whilst making the holes, but just so that there's a bit of a drop in it. After some testing it doesn't actually interfere with operations, so I'm just going to live with it, rather than try to rip the track up now it's glued down. I exercised my wallet a bit to get a set of 3 Accurail SP boxcars (charming silver things), and had a £50 "browse" around Model Junction, where I bought some non-magnetic axles, amongst other things (a couple of wagon kits, and the pikestuff versatile loading platform, to go on the front short spur. Still need to de-magnetise the weights and screws, but the wagons are so much better behaved on the non-magnetic axles). So I now have enough wagons to do a proper inglenook game. So I had a go, and I have to say it tied me in knots, but the (mostly) hands-off switching is a revelation after what I remember of tension lock couplers. I had to cheat by leaving a car on the points between the two shorter sidings, and even then it took me a good half hour to assemble the train I was trying to... Here's pictorial proof that I'm using old train tickets as my "randomiser". And control is from an up-to-the-minute Hornby R914 transformer... Some kind of warehouse will go where the geep box is right now. I've also made a little "workshop" track using some offcuts. Intention being to ballast it and get that all wrong before glueing my turnouts into one position. My Soo Line reefer, which I've broken bits off twice today, is currently in for attention.. Must be more careful. All stock now in use has proper kadees, though the blue GN one box needs some fettling to get them to the same height as everything else. Need to sort out point control somehow, but I'm not sure I can avoid scenery for much longer...

Awful when that happens, isn't it? Model junction is pretty local to me, too. Should go for a "browse" sometime...