mega_mort

Thanks Jerry updates will be sparse due to work

Ok had time to do a quick paint of the track and the buffer stop, now to file away the layout for a couple of weeks while life gets in the way. Not the best photo in the world but the camera on the phone I've got is not the best.

No idea of setting at the minute, could be in the middle of a mill yard, a small terminus somewhere at the back of town, or something along those lines. Currently liking the idea of the viewer stood on the platform with the back of some building/s in front of them and to the side in the other space some other buildings. Still playing about with ideas but this is the track plan I've gone with as it leaves lots of space for ideas for what goes around it. Also learnt a valuable lesson today, don't get distracted when wiring or you end up reversing the DCC jumpers half way down the layout

HI, really liking this and the other little one you made earlier, this has given me ideas for future projects, hhhmmmmmm

Hi all, With mine and the wifes layouts heading for storage in the loft of the house, so we can tidy and decorate the current railway room / store room and change back into a spare bedroom (i'm losing my railway room ). I needed a small keep me sane project for the foreseeable future, with the loft too low to stand up in and only partially boarded, I needed a really small project. So after finding the off cut from the previous joint project i found myself with at small 4 foot by 6 inch board to play with. This has been approved to live under the stairs once I tidy that up as well. So i started planning what i could build on the board, knowing I just got my Dapol railcar wanted that to be the main focus for the lay out so decided a small terminus was the best idea. Below the plan on the board Now with track laid on the board hoping the railcar will go round the bends and not crash into the backscene on approach to the fiddle yard. Now to wire up and test the electrics but first really need to start on the tidying so further progress can be allowed by management.

OK we made it to the show below are a few pictures taken at the show of the 95% complete layouts, there are improvements to be made to both, but they currently look good. It is also amazing how a small layout can change over the space of 72 hours Start - To this 24 hours later a further 24 hours later and it looked like this pretty good progress made in them few hours.

Ok now most of the track is wired up and working, just need to set-up the fiddle yard wiring but that may be for next week. Point motors are in but annoyingly not talking to JMRI but work fine with my Lenz set-up, still trying to figure that out at the middle the signal also works with the Lanz set-up and not the JMRI set-up so must be some thing I'm doing wrong in the accessory bit of JMRI. The wifes bit is behind this and has the track plan stuck to it to line up the points and lay the track. Which should be done by next week and then some pictures may be taken.

Annoyingly while drilling out for the point motors discovered that the 3way point sat over a cross brace, so I have moved the cross brace which i thought great more room in the head shunt for the GUV as clearance was tight. Didn't realise that moving it would make the platform road too short in front of the point for the GUV and Class 08 to fit This now means that the industrial building will use VAAs and VDAs etc and not GUVs and parcels vans now are well least had a few in for another project, may stretch to a CCT if can find the cash.

Finally progress on this layout, the boards are built now mostly (still got the back seen to attach to the wifes). Track has been bought, point motors bought, 50% of the DCC equipment got. Images of the progress of NSE side are below. Hopefully after this next set of shift the wife half will be at point. Some of the scenic items have been built as well. Images below as a few days of progress the first build of part of the back ground. test laying the track and checking clearances back scene fully built and track going back in.

Little bit of an update on this, plans have had to go for a redesign, gone is the 3 foot dual fiddle yard, in is now a 1 foot fiddle yard for each layout. Mainly due to space problems in the house, but the fiddle yards will be designed to allow trains to run through from one layout to the other. Hopefully I can design these fiddle yards to hold all the main electrics and make the track design so I could use these boards with the other 4by1 boards I have as well. On a plus side I do get another 4 foot by 6 inch board out of this re-design for another layout to be built on. Plans have been drawn up.......

OK made some room in the railway room to put the boards up and check the joins etc, all seems fine with the joints between the boards. The middle one in the picture will be shortened by a foot to make the two fiddle yards. That will done at some point before Christmas I hope with the points to be bought after Christmas and then the track laying can start.

Finally the boards have been moved into the railway room, the room is still being tidied at the minute to make room for the boards to go up on the legs (once legs got from parents house). Then I can figure out how good my joinery skills are be seeing if the boards meet up and find the worst joint between the boards and then that board get shortened to make to 2 fiddle yards.

Hi All, A light work load on a Sunday in work has left me with time to think about the control system for the layout. Don't think the normal control system we use will be up to the task, that being a Sprog 3 and a laptop. It may work but if going to be using point motors powered from the DCC bus and lighting form the DCC bus, I don't think it can handle it. So what to do instead........ Option 1, 'Borrow' Lenz set-up off my dad, has worked a similar layout set up in the past, but a short on one board kills the whole layout, also if want the phones and laptop style control then it gets pricey with the PC interface. Also its that old not sure it was ever upgraded to firmware 3.6 any way so may be none starter. Option 2, Buy a new DCC set-up with PC control so phones can be used, or a set-up with 2 handsets also costly. Option 3, get a Pi-SPROG Nano to use with my V3 raspberry pie, and each board has its own Tam Valley Depot DCC Booster or sprog booster to power the board. Then find a laptop charger that can give enough amps to power the lot (i think i found a HP spare that has enough amps). This also gives short protection between the boards as well. Option 4 Use existing sprog 3 and laptop with the Tam Valley Deport DCC Booster or sprog booster. This also gives short protection but has the problem of many plugs required for running. Option 5, Use current sprog 3 set up and cross fingers. I'm leaning towards option 3 as all that can be built into the middle board and will only use 1 plug socket, if wired correctly. This also gives access to laptop to program locos using the sprog 3 separately. Also all the circuit boards on top of the fiddle yard will look cool and geeky. But the man plus is the boost feds to separate the layouts and stop shorts hitting the hole layout. hhhmmmm choices........................

Hi Gary, thanks for the insight, will look into that, got the demo kits to make off them, so will see if the printer is up to the job at home.

Hi Gary, As my mum always told my dad when he complained his new plan looked like (insert layout here), there is only so many ways you can place track on a board. Also that parcels depot gives me ideas for an extension of layout in the future as to where the 08, 03 trips the vans from............. P.S Industry Lane looks like a brilliant layout P.P.S is the parcels deport building scratch built or is it a kit?????? - looking for ideas for a small building for the printers with a covered loading dock

Also the wife's shed will look some thing like this : The full plan will look like this :- And now Gordon's idea (this may become the next project as just found as 4 foot by 8 inch and a 3 foot by 8 inch board in the pile of boards)

Hi Gordon, that was seriously thought about the run-round, but then I've got both and 08 and 03 and the idea was to have them as station shunters and save money on points. But i'm still playing in any rail at the minute so ideas may change, and that is a very good one............. The current plan based on Maldon Market Hill

Hi All, So the wife has decided to get rid of her Warhammer collection and join me in playing trains, she's been operating layouts at shows with me for the past few years and built up a small collection of LNER locos in the process. So it seemed logical to get rid of the Warhammer as she's not played with that since she moved in. Sssoooo at this years Furness Model Railway show she talked the manager to letting us bring a pair of mirco layouts joined together with a shared fiddle yard in the middle. With a year to make them both, , we both work full time........ I already had plans on a NSE micro layout ether based on this plan from the scrapbook on Carendt.com Maldon Market Hill station. Then there was another idea to do a small layout based on Ian Futer's Victoria Park. Both nice and small terminus stations with some opertational possibilities. Think i'm going to settle with the Maldon Market Hill idea, with an extra siding on the towards the goods to act as a head shunt for shunting. So swaping the point there out for a 3 way just to add some more to the shunting as using GUVs and pacels wagons on this encarnation of the layout. I will build a version of victoria park as a NSE 3rd rail layout at some point in the future. Possibly as another 4by1 that we could pass trains between the 2 NSE layouts hhhhmmmm....... The main premise is that the station is some forgoten back water in the NSE area, served by 2 car DMUs for passenger and with a fright yard nearby all goods are tripped by class 08 and 03 for the local printers. The odd appeance of a 33 or 73 with the express freight trains but most of the freight will be tripped to and from the station. It was once a through station but services have been cut back to here, would have been further other than the flats that where built and the printers demanding a rail link. Or it could be the rail link was put in for the printers and the station added when the flats went up not decided yet. Now the the wifes 4by1 is going to be a shed layout as a starter into the hobby, using a Metcalfe 2 road engine shed and a relatively simple track plan with some other Metcalfe kits to add to this to make it look like a small servicing yard. Some where to run big locos while we think about where we could put a silly sized layout for the future. In the middle will be a 3 road 3foot fiddle yard that is to be shared between the 2 layouts, this is going to be may for an existing 4 by 1 board and the remaining foot of fiddle yard will be come a small extension if the layouts are every going to be operated independently. The boards for these are already built as when I was in the old Bolton Model raileay club I got 2 sheets of 8by4 chipboard and cut up into a few 4by1 and 4by18" boards and braced with 2by1. Will post some plans at some point once I've had a few hours play with anyrail. Unless someone can come up with some better ideas..... Neil

Finally got 5 minutes to add pictures to the layout from Southport show, annoyingly the point motor under the signal box has failed now so need to lift that off to replace the motor or at least to see what is wrong with it. Will through fine one way but pathetic throw the other way. Most likly something stuck in it but will see once signal box is off.

Done some slight re-wiring of the layout today to see if the issue of going through the points set against the train causing the DCC short to power off the raspberry pi. Will see if it works but I think the easiest way to sort it is be more careful, and look before moving the train. Also the new carriages are in place on the bridge, also with the owners now looking down and discussing the future of the railway. The new scenic bit of the layout.

Now all they need is a coat of cream paint on the roof.

So another night shift at work equals work on some new stock for the layout. More narrow gauge stock this time, a closed carriage and a guards van instead of the 2 open carriages that currently sit behind the narrow gauge loco. Just built the outsides of the carriages, Now with the first lick of paint on them, .

Multiple throttles on one device is the plus side of all this for me, hopefully the next time i'm at a show there will be a phone signal to allow people to download the app and join in the fun. Just gotta figure out why accidentally running through the fiddle yard point wrong, cause the whole lot to power off, were as running through any other point just interrupts the track feed.

That rail car is very cool, On the DCC thing I happened across phone control by accident. I left home and had to return the Lenz set back to my dad, managed to keep the Lenz compact but that is very limited. Was looking through the forums here trying to find a cheep DCC controller, found the sprog thread and then the thread on using the raspberry pi. Then my inner geek got very interested in it all and it spun on from there. I agree having TABs for kids to see it is cool, but also having some sort of display running the software visible to everyone also sparks conversation. Especially if you have the track plan up with the points changing as you change them on the screen. The android app is very different on different phones, its super responsive on my Sony phone but on SWMBO Samsung it is very laggy, can take over a second for commands to be actioned at times. And on that last comment has anyone got any pictures of the layout out there from Furness model railway show???????????

Hi Chris, It did get quite a bit of interest but not the fact of it being such a small layout, although there was a bit of comment about the hinge in the middle and the fact it folds in on its self. The part that caused the most interest was that the whole layout was being run off a raspberry Pi 2 and the fact I had a small screen with the software running on it with one of the operators acting as signalman and changing the points on the screen. Also exhibiting in the lake district I had a few older people reminiscing about riding in the rail buses I was running on the layout. Now for the pictures of this are eerrrmmm not possible as forgot to charge camera and my phone was being used as one of the controllers for the layout. So the only shot I got was this below before it all died.