Rhysb

Coming along nicely Dave! Looking forward to seeing another great Cornwall Layout!

Trolley looks great ian!

Rhys

Station looks really good Scott! Back in the early 90's this would have been part of the upgrade project BR did re-opening the valley lines. Your RR signage looks good.

This was operated by class 156's and the occasional pacer!

Looking forward to seeing this in the flesh!

Rhys

Looking good Stu.

Rhys

A great time at Stafford. Like Mike this was my first trip to Stafford and it certainly won’t be my last! Many thanks Ian for letting me play with the layout over the weekend as my alter ego Rylan!

I only crashed one train and I don’t think anyone noticed

Nice job. That is some roll of cork. Where do you source it from please?

Ebay special! Slightly thicker than standard cork too. think this is 5mm

Just needs a kettle and cake trolley to make the perfect room

Kettle is in! Your in charge of the cake trolley 

A few more track laying photos:

Bit of football always helps reduce the boredom of soldering! The main station lines are added and the start of the heritage sidings on the left. The right hand sidings are the old civil engineers loading sidings.

And here we have an almost completed board!

Finally as you can see the benchwork is now stretching around the room! This photo is looking back to where the salisbury tunnel will be. The far wall is hidden fiddle yards behind a backscene

More soon!

Thanks

Rhys

Good afternoon all and a happy new year to you all.

So with the alcove area of the barn nearing completion (little bit of painting to do!) its track laying time. This area will have 2 fiddle yard areas but the main scenic viewpoint will be Penmill Junction station which is based loosely on Yeovil Junction and is in that area of the UK:

Trackwork is all Peco bullhead as per the prototype in this area during the early 90's (and in most cases still today!)

As you can see i have designed the platforms to be able to handle a 6 car DMU or a class 47/50 plus 6 coaches:

Very very happy with the quality of the Peco RTR bullhead. The flexi is a little tricky when joining but the overall effect for a ready to run item is fantastic.

Nigel,

Layout looks great so far! Surely for modern times the IEP needs to make a visit

Two posts in one night!

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed some light now in the "bat cave!"

Created with a bit of skirting and cal with LED strips! Also added some sandtex to the wall!

Thanks

Rhys

Evening guys. Apologies work taking a massive amount of time over the last few weeks.

So lets talk baseboards. I wanted to share how I am going to construct them. As previously advised I am going to work in the alcove area of the barn first where the fiddle yards and Penmill Junction station will sit.

As in the previous post I will be using a CLS timber frame and legs all the way around the room. This will act in two ways. Im calling it the hybrid frame system! Im sure someone else has come up with a proper official name but for time being I'm claiming the name haha!:

1. Firstly the CLS frame runs around the room and in general acts as "ground level". As you can see from the below picture it is fitted to the wall in places and will be freestanding in others:

And with this area finished:

So this effectively is "ground level" or "zero level" so to speak and the railway will run 5" above this level to allow roads, rivers etc to be constructed on this level.

2. The baseboard frames are built in sections and are 5" tall. These are built with 9mm external grade plyboard so will hopefully stand the test of time. These will eventually also have a 9mm ply top board:

So why do I call it a hybrid system? The answer is this level of CLS framework will be used in two ways. Firstly in places where the railway is in a scenic area the track will be attached to this frame by a traditional open frame system. The West of England line in Somerset and Dorset is an extremely flat line but the land around it constantly rises and falls. Using this open frame system will allow me to re-create this. Secondly the traditional baseboards laid on top of this frame for areas like stations give me a rigid base to build said stations on. The picture below shows this system:

Here in the below picture i am showing a crude example of how this will work. The track on the baseboard will be "flat" in the station area but then to the left you can see i can build the land up to the level of the track or create a bridge for something:

Hopefully that gives you a good idea on where I am going with the baseboards and frames!

Thanks

Rhys

This is looking very good.

 

I would just add a qualification to your ambition, having undertaken (and still waiting to undertake for the railway element) something similar, albeit in France. "Air Tight" is not good for stone barns, or even block walling. You will suffer from extreme condensation problems, which will not be good for your railway. Stone walls need to breathe. There is a system which can be installed quite cheaply, which constantly re-circulates the air at minimal cost, usually called ERV in the UK I think (known as VMC here in France). Partially dry-walling one part of the barn will not solve this. Otherwise you will find you end up using very expensive (to run) de-humidifiers, for many months of the year - ask me how I know......

Great info thanks Mike! Yes I understand what you are saying. I have in places allowed air bricks/vents to circulate the air and it is connected to the garages which are still "open" structures in effect. Plus in the top of the roof I legally have to have open bat tiles to allow them to freely come and go! Hence the affectionate nickname of the "bat cave"!

"Air tight" was probably the wrong wording. Its more to prevent damp!

Thanks

Rhys

Ok so the next big bit of the project is making the stable and out building into a nicely sealed and air tight hobby room and office!

I am going to start with the outbuilding first (the bit which will hold 2 fiddle yards and pencil junction station as well as the lead into Avonbury through the tunnel). The bigger barn part of the stable needs some roof work which I have completed to make it rain/water tight! To be fair the building was designed to have horses in it rather than a railway!

First off lots of plasterboard to seal out the walls!

Roof Sealing and insulation next!

Some initial lighting also added. eventually i am planning light bars all the way around the edge of the room. In the pictures below you can start to see the hanging rail for the baseboards under construction.

And as you can see some wood has been chopped and baseboard construction starting soon!!

Thanks for now. Update on the baseboard construction coming shortly.

Thanks

Rhys

So 2 rooms need to become one for the layout room and an old timber wall separating the stable to the outhouse.

First of all a bit of repair to the floor in the outhouse:

This view is where the Penmill Junction station will be with the hidden fiddle yard between it and the window:

And the timber wall is down! This is the view through to the stable:

From the other side you get a view of the size of the room:

This is the view looking at Avonbury station. The WOE loop is around to the right and the view through to the other section where Penmill Junction will be. Avonbury Tunnel is in the far left:

More construction to follow...

Thanks

Rhys

Correct Mike, The second bit of your post i had planned a little as wanted to simulate trains waiting at Penmill Junction for the UP train to clear the single line for example.

Good spot though.

That's what I was thinking - otherwise you can't run trains in to Avonbury if you're running trains in the opposite direction. Having said that, you can't run trains from the fiddle yard in to Avonbury if a you have departing London bound service

Looks good, would you consider two more points though so you can run into the hidden sidings while a down train runs round into Avonbury?

 

D8413CC2-EBE9-435C-BEED-81528D25198D.jpeg

Paul,

Correct yes. Good idea! A couple of curved points should help this area. Its a tough one to manage as i want to vaguely represent the single line heading west from YCJ but this needs to loop to the dual track into salisbury tunnel. Plus I need the reversing sidings for the GWR line and the reversing siding for the thumper as well. Plus on top of that all the 47's and rakes live in the fiddle yard!

Plan was to get track laid then have a big cake and tea day where you can all test/iron out wrinkles. This fiddle yard is a bit of a bottleneck! Automation helps with block detection when in auto mode but when in manual mode it does add a lot of thinking.

Are you reversing "Salisbury" with regard to up and down? It seems a bit odd to have the singled section on the London end (if it were me, I'd single the bit between "Wilton" and "Yeovil".

No its correct and not reversed. I didn't explain the red lines. The red lines are backscenes 

If you look the single line section it starts at Penmill Junction as in real life heading west (Yeovil Junction to Honiton) but disappears into the fiddle yard area "Off Scene". If you look at the Salisbury end london trains enter the tunnel on the dual track as in real life but the single line bit you refer too is off scene.

Ok so now we are well under way on the new build lets talk track plan!

As before the layout is focused on the main junction at Salisbury station between the West of England Line and the Wessex main line (hence the name Wessex Junction). Now with the larger space I am also looking to incorporate the junction between the GWR heart of wessex line and the West of England further west at Yeovil Junction.

As I will be representing the area rather than mirroring it Salisbury station will become "Avonbury" Station but the track plan will be heavily based on Salisbury and the location is identical. Yeovil Junction will be called "Penmill Junction" as a play on the Yeovil Penmill station just up the GWR line. The track plan here will be based heavily on Yeovil Junction and scenery will also be heavily influenced.

So here it is:

The layout is a large roundy roundy with and end to end are attached. three fiddle yards are present. Avonbury station is the main area of the layout at the top centre of the image above. trains enter from the  top right as you look at the plan through Avonbury Tunnel from London Waterloo on the WOE and the South Coast on the Wessex main line. Avonbury station has the train care depot above for the new class 159's coming into service. Trains leave to the left of the plan towards Wilton Junction where the Wessex main line heads into the fiddle yard bottom left and the WOE line sweeps round and heads west along the bottom of the layout before reaching Penmill Junction and then disappearing into the fiddle yard again. At Penmill Junction the GWR line crosses the WOE line with the track going south to Weymouth and north towards Westbury, Bristol etc.

Below is the layout in iTrain as well:

Trackwork being is the west country is all bullhead and I am using the new Peco RTR bullhead track. Power for the layout is DCC via Digikeijs DR5000 and block detection from the Digikeijs boards too. Using this system ghosting as a Z21 allows me to use all the Roco handsets and mobile phones and tablets for multiple user operation.

Thanks

Rhys

Good evening all... the silence is broken!

I have now moved house, settled in a bit and the other half has had her way on decorating etc I finally have broken ground on the new railway! I have moved back to south Somerset right into the heart of Wessex so I have great access to the location of the layout.

Having bought a 17th century barn house it came complete with this fantastic outbuilding:

It is made up of 2 rooms the first a large square old stable:

Secondly a smaller potting shed:

These will be joined to create a large L shaped layout room giving me circa 96' in a large loop to create the new layout. The layout as per the previous one will be based in the south west Wessex region again focusing on salisbury with "Avonbury" station but this time with a further station in the yeovil area based on Yeovil Junction called "Penmill Junction" The layout is set in late 92 early 93 with the 47's ruling the west of england line with the new 159 DMU's alongside regional railways cardiff-pompey services and 150's on the GWR wessex lines. A variety of freight will also feature.

A big change is I will be adding a lot of automation on passenger services with iTrain etc and really taking DCC to the max!

More on the layout to follow for now its all packed up until the building work is complete!

Thanks

Rhys

Not if I get the 50s out first!

Post 92 on Saturday and Pre 92 on Sunday 

Looking really good scott

I can see a shove duff feast coming through oak road on the weekend!

Looks fantastic Guys!

Great to be driving the 50's at Tidworth again last weekend. Fun show! 

I even managed to sneak a few 47's onto the passenger services! Few photos of the TC:

Thanks Ian for a great day.

Rhys