TechnicArrow

Cheers for all the reactions, everybody. Now that I'm free from exams (forever, from this uni at least!), the buildings have been progressing fairly steadily. First I got the second tower up to the level of the first: adding the split and alignment pegs, then reinforcing the structure before cladding it in brick paper. I also added the no-relief section to the right that the conveyor emerges from. Just as an aside, this is my arrangement for maintaining alignment: the long tabs are fixed to the upper section of the building, and fit snugly into pockets in the lower half. The tabs are pretty much as long as I can make them. This is the left-hand building, hence there's no brickpaper on most of the lower half; this is going to be inside the lean-to, so will be covered in whitewashed brick instead. Next I arranged and printed a sheet of the extra components I needed: the whitewashed brick, windows and signage, and the extra concrete silo wall. I attached the latter to some card and set it up with the existing section: The drainpipe still does it's job of hiding the seam. Unfortunately, the original wall wasn't printed by me, it was the free kit included in Hornby Magazine. I'm not quite sure how they printed it but I always thought the brickwork was a bit pink and washed out; clearly something's going on, because the colour difference between that and what my printer produced is quite stark! The wall includes a small section of brickwork at the base; my printer produced a colour very similar to the superquick brick paper, but the original to the left is definitely different. I'm in two minds whether to print off an entirely new section to replace the original, or maybe try some colour corrections to match the extra section to the original - I think I prefer the older concrete colour, despite the weirdness with the brickwork. Or I could just leave it as it is - what do you think?

That's a very interesting idea, definitely something to look into when I return to the quayside area. And thanks @Ian Holmes and @Andrew D, I'm glad you enjoy it! Over the past few evenings I've been making small bits of progress on the layout; firstly the ballast. Using the ash I collected previously, I distributed it over diluted pva brushed between the sleepers; once it had all dried I tidied it up with a flatblade screwdriver, where it had inevitably stuck itself onto the sleepers. Looks pretty good though! At some point I'll paint the area under the sector plate roughly the same colour as this ballast so the joint isn't so obvious. I did discover by accident that water with a tiny amount of pva and ash in it works quite well for weathering the card into concrete; I might have to experiment further on the old diorama board before I commit to anything on this layout. Secondly, I've finally made a start on the actual buildings this layout will be using! First I separated the corrugated-iron loading shelter from the Scalescenes grain silo; I will most likely re-use it, but it needed to be shortened - the maximum height of fixed buildings is 85mm, so anything above that needs to be removable. Luckily the opening on the original loading shelter is quite large anyway, so cutting 12mm off the bottom doesn't affect too much. I'll just need to rebuild the roof at a slightly shallower angle and it'll be fine. Continuing from here I built the two brick tower elements of the silo. The left-hand one has progressed further; there's a split at the necessary height, just behind the roof of the lean-to. The upper half has some deep card tabs that fit into pockets on the inside of the lower section. It's also had it's coating of superquick brickpaper applied. It's amusing how now I've taken the mock-ups off it feels like I've got less of a layout, but when it grows back it will be much more complete than it was before! I've now got a bit of a plan in my head. I will be re-using the main concrete section from the silo, although I will print off a few extra components to extend it by 50% or so. At some point it will have a prefab-concrete style platform and canopy added, the latter to hide the necessary horizontal seam. An additional flat-relief brick element will go to the right of the current right-hand tower as somewhere for the conveyor to connect to; the conveyor itself will be clad in more Scalescenes corrugated iron. I spent a bit of time earlier experimenting with ways to emboss the corrugated iron to give it a little more relief than just flat paper; if anyone has any tips in this regard, I'm all ears!

Next milestone achieved: all the inset track is complete! As you can see, nearly all the track has been inset; everything was done by building up various thicknesses of corrugated and cereal box card, with the final layer of cereal box card to keep everything fairly consistent. Only the two central sets of points and the sector plate have been spared. With the buildings back in place, things are looking good (if a bit grey)! As can also be seen in the overall shots, each uncoupler now has a little teabag-shaped label at the front to operate them by; I've been fettling them to get each to work smoothly and fall down reliably. I've also cut out and lined an area for the edge of the dock; it might grow further, since having the loading tower at one end of the dock doesn't really make much sense. It's just a bigger dock will make it more awkward to run the point control rods. You may also notice the small office/hut has made a return - with the dock cut-out at the front, the truck can't really park there anymore. Well, it can, but the driver would get quite wet when he gets out! Finally, I spent some time operating the layout and took far too many pictures, so enjoy! The 04 positions an open wagon on the front siding. Shunting the rear siding. The front siding uncoupler ramp placement (restricted by the left-most Y point) means the rake of wagons is always parked a little close, but it's not too bad. More wagon movements. Running around a 5-plank open. I'm really proud of how well the insetting around the Y-point turned out, although until I set up the control rods it's a pain to switch! Extracting wagons from under the warehouse. I think the office and workman give a sense of scale to the trains themselves; it's easy to forget how big they are in real life! A view from the other end of the gallery Finally the 04 squeezing between wagons as it runs around again. I'm definitely happy how things are shaping up - the concrete looks good, and it's great to see the 04 trundling about everywhere - movement was what the original Alexandra Wharf was lacking. The next two evenings will probably be spent with more under-the-board points and uncoupler fettling, and eventually some ash ballasting - and then onto the structures!

Your gorse experiments have definitely paid off - it looks perfect, especially in that 3rd shot with the slightly rickety boundary fence. Now I think there just needs to be a bit more of it The whole scene is really coming together, and you're capturing the open, windswept feel of the location really well - it makes a good break from the heavily industrial settings I seem to be modelling. Good work!

Cheers both! There's now a few more uncouplers across the layout; these are simpler affairs with the thread tied directly to the paperclip, and passing over a hanger to keep it pulling straight up on the rod. All 4 are currently operated from the front of the layout; the threads are held by some random nut-and-bolt pairs I have in the spares box. These will be replaced with proper pull tags at a later date, when I've put the dock and point rods in. Next up is probably putting all the concrete and ballast down, then it's finally onto the buildings!

Inglenooks are definitely always a good start. You've got a solid base, and also a good length of scenic headshunt; one of my usual gripes is if the train has to go off the scene to clear the points, you can't see it anymore, and watching trains is what this is all about! This looks like it will be a fun layout to watch!

Here I go, neglecting this topic again... my last post was nearly a week ago! Well, with today's 7-hour "assessment day" (uugghh) out of the way, and my next (and final!) exam not for another week, I should probably give this a poke. 1. Layout Progress Let's start with what's actually been happening. Since my last post I've added a surface layer of cereal box card to the baseboard, and also PVA'd the track down (once some of the dodgy soldering was repaired). Once the track was secure I cut out the opening for the crane mechanism, and slotted it in; the fact it's currently flush with the surface is a coincidence, it will need to sit on a little packing when the final surface is brought up to track level. Still, it looks at home already. Whilst the layout is still flat and easy to work on upside down, I've been playing with uncouplers. Given the tucked-away nature of the sector plate some form of remote uncoupling was essential; I've used a card "ramp" fixed to a wire rod that rides up and down in a short section of tube to keep it in place. This rod is lifted by resting on a wide lever fixed under the board, that's operated from the front of the layout by a thread. Since the ramp is fixed to the sector plate track but the lever to the baseboard beneath I can only operate the ramp when the sector plate is in the near position, but that's the only time I need it. Oh, and the "wire rod" is an unbent paperclip, the "tube" is the empty ink tube from a cheap biro, and the lever is a few pieces of cardboard - nothing expensive here! Through playing with it rigorous shunting experiments the system seems to work well, so I'll be employing it in various other strategic locations around the layout; the ramps will be practically invisible since they'll blend in as part of the inset track. Hand-of-god uncoupling won't be eliminated entirely, but it should be possible to uncouple easily in common and awkward-to-reach places. 2. Yet More Architecture Musings This "armchair modelling" is great, isn't it! First off, thanks Steve for the collection of photos above. They're very helpful, sorry I never replied to it sooner! That's the badger I'm after here, though! Swansea North Dock, with the concrete factory set back, and the brick warehouse right at the water's edge. There was also a conveyor leading from the concrete building, just above the cantilevered section, out towards the dock - although nothing I've found shows where it went at the other end. I expect mine will still end in a corrugated-iron-clad tower of some form much like Ipswich. I found this Welsh government site has a couple of good, zoomable photos of the site - one gives an overall view, whilst the other features a wagon in front of the brick Victoria Warehouse which lets me approximate some dimensions of it. The plan is to build two versions of this building - a low-relief version behind the sector plate, and a fuller section in the foreground. Clearly there's no overhanging warehouse sections present here though, so a little more modeller's license brings Bristol's "watershed" buildings to pose as a single-storey wrap-around type extension and bridge between the two main warehouses. So, to sum up: Plenty to be getting on with here, then!

Another three-parter this evening! PART 1 - RESEARCH As I mentioned before, one of the goals with this layout is to keep it realistic, by modelling real things rather than modelling other models. To this end, I needed to find some suitable buildings to base mine off. Having lived in Swansea for the past 3 years for my degree, I'm well aware of the frankly incredible amount of railways that used to exist here. With the aid of the fantastic site http://www.swanseadocks.co.uk/, I found the ideal general inspiration for the layout: the Weaver's Mill building, the first reinforced concrete structure in Europe. When viewed from the North Dock Basin, the concrete building is set back from the quay with a shorter brick warehouse in front and to the right - perfect! Of course the track layout is nothing like what I'm using and I won't be replicating the exact buildings, but I will certainly use it as an overall guide. As I've been showing with my mock-ups, this layout will be dominated by two main structures - the square concrete Grain Silo, and the decorated-brick Warehouse. The grain silo will be based on the Scalescenes kit, but with a few minor modifications. Since the kit is based on the old structure at Water Eaton, it's quite easy to find pictures of the original to build from. My plan is to create something with elements of both Water Eaton and the Weaver Building; perhaps replace one or both of the towers with a hennebique style building, and add a precast concrete loading platform and canopy, the latter to hide the split in the building that will let it pack in the box. The conveyor from the silo is still inspired by the Ipswich structure; I have yet to find any other example of a loading tower structure, so it will have to do. The warehouse is less certain at present, hence the research! I've been looking for a structure with a column-supported overhang, but I haven't had much luck yet - certainly not in Swansea. I've tried looking elsewhere but I'm not exactly sure what to search for, so any ideas are welcome. The other area I've been researching is the time period. The main era constraint for this layout is the Coles Argus crane, which I believe was first produced in 1954. In order to portray a reasonably busy scene, as early as possible is preferred; however, the Swansea Docks site implies that the mill was still using ship freight into the 60s, and plenty of photos from the late 50s still look reasonably active, so I think I should be alright. Finally, placing this layout in the Swansea area in the late 50s is the perfect time and place for a Hattons Barclay in BR black, which I've been eyeing up as a graduation present to myself... results day is the 17th June, so we'll have to see! PART 2 - BASEBOARD Finally, some proper construction in this thread! One of many parcels received this morning contained the 22L RUB the layout will fit in, which meant I could start work on the baseboard. This is, as ever, cardboard! The structure is two sheets of corrugated cardboard sandwiching vertical bracing, with the sheets cut as usual with the corrugations running at different angles for strength. The photo above is with all the bracing fixed to the lower sheet; the square without diagonal bracing is for the crane mechanism, and at each end there are three storage pockets for wagons or other bits & bobs. These will also act as handholds to aid lifting the layout out of the box. The top surface was then glued on top of this, and then everything buried under various books and even old lecture notes (see, they do come in handy!) PART 3 - WIRING Whilst that was drying, I set about wiring up the track. First I added connections across the LH turnout to negate relying on the the point blades. I then added the pairs of connections on the left and right, as well as a connection across all 3 rear rails, just before the sector plate. There's already a little bit of redundancy here, but I plan to add a few more connections so if any one joint fails there'll still be power everywhere. For now I'm still relying on the point blades to switch the frog polarity on the Ys; I'll probably do the microswitch modification when I'm adding the wire-in-tube point control. But for now, everything works! Except where one of the solder joints on the sector plate failed, both the 04 and the Barclay-ish shunters happily trundle everywhere without issue. The electrofrogs make stutter-free crawling utterly beatiful. Let's just hope it stays this way!

It looks like you've got plenty of space available, which with the simple track plan definitely gives it a good open feel. Those tall warehouses look pretty good too. As for the setts, it depends on the track. If it's pretty straight then the Wills embossed or Metcalfe printed setts will be fine; if the track curves noticeably, hand-scribing setts will get you a more believable appearance, as the courses between and just outside the rails can follow the line of the track. As usual, the best plan is to look at the real thing to see how it's done. Whatever you choose, I'll be watching with interest!

This little layout is looking pretty good now! It's always the details like the yellow fencing, point levers and plenty of greenery that make a scene properly come to life. It's a shame the 37 died - maybe it needed towing into the repair shed! The only additions I think are necessary are one or two figures, and a little more general clutter and grubbiness. But I'm sure you've still got plans!

Ok, fair warning, this turned out to be a long 'un... PART 1 - THE TRACK ARRIVES A few days ago, my morning revision session was interrupted by the postman, with a parcel that turned out to contain the following goodies... Needless to say, not much more revision happened that day! Instead, the track got set up on the "layout": The sections of track already featuring concrete between the rails are the pieces lifted from the original Alexandra Wharf diorama; being a temporary layout, they were fairly easy to liberate. A short session of wheeling wagons about was undertaken to check all the sidings and headshunts have their expected capacities; all seemed to be ok, so I went ahead and set up the mockups again, where it sat for a bit. PART 2 - BUILDING EXPERIMENTS Having the actual track revealed some errors as expected, especially around the sector plate bit where things were less than satisfactory in my book. Taking @SteveyDee68's comments from above into account, I first tried replacing the tall wall with columns: That helped, especially when I realised the column doesn't need to be right under the corner of the bridge building meaning it can overhang more of the sector plate. However it is by necessity still exposing the edge of the track, breaking the illusion. So I decided to carry on with the columns and put an extension over the front siding, imitiating the style used on Blackford Wharf: This closer view illustrates how the extra layer helps to further break up the sightline to the sector plate: Finally an end-on shot, just to get a feeling for the visual impact. It can also be seen that I've set up the unused matching-building mockup from the first set of GIFs as flat-relief buildings, at the back of the layout: There's quite a cluster there now! I still prefer this option with the lower "bridge" building though, since it seems more plausible the railway would curve it's way between the sets of warehouses rather than go underneath all of them. Finally I wasn't quite happy with the view from this end straight down the hidden siding, so I put a final office-type building in the foreground: Et voila! I can safely say I have completely hidden the sector plate, and with "soft" things rather than one massive wall. PART 3 - ALL CHANGE This bit happened as I was writing this post! I couldn't help but feel there were now too many buildings. After all, this is mostly about the trains, and as much as I like the extension-on-pillars bit it really hides them away. Furthermore the conveyor is kind of lost amongst the other buildings, and isn't coming from the grain silo anymore; the footbridge is instead, which whilst I like it, it doesn't really make sense. So rather than just writing about the problems and leaving it, I decided to make the changes... We now have a shorter over-the-rails extension, the conveyor has more space to itself, and the footbridge and office hut are gone (I think it only lasted an hour?) The loading tower needs to be made a little thicker (not to mention taller), as represented by the brick pillar from the footbridge for now. It's also no longer at the front of the layout, which means I can potentially model the very edge of the water or at least part of it. The lorry is actually doing the job of hiding the end of the track; clearly it only works from lower angles, but a vehicle keeps a more open feel than a building. Finally, the shorter extension makes it easier to get a good view down the tracks underneath, which looks pretty good to me. CONCLUSION That's certainly enough for tonight. I'm pretty happy with the way everything is going now, although I can't really start making proper buildings until I've got something to fix them to. Therefore I've finally ordered the RUB this layout's meant to fit into; once that's here I'll start on the baseboard, then I can wire up and fix down the track down, and eventually start making these buildings a reality. Oh, and I should probably carry on revising for my final exams too. Exciting times!

Useful stuff, @SteveyDee68! I'm definitely sold on the conveyor idea now, but clearly I'll have to increase the height of the tower. Notably it's half off the front of the scene, so I'm either going to have a big blank face at the front, or some form of interior detail... we'll see. Tonight in mock-up land: I've been playing with the right-hand warehouse structure. I wanted something a little older-looking than the square concrete grain silo and corrugated asbestos conveyor, so a brick-built warehouse was in order. The real challenge is building something that conceals the sector plate, but still looks realistic - a building which is obviously only a few mm thick just looks wrong. So this is what I came up with: Fancy animated GIFs! I felt this was the best way to illustrate both attempts side-by-side. The first version had both warehouses the same size; the idea is the left-hand bit is an extension built over the tracks. But viewed end-on, the tall wall over the tracks looked wrong, hence the second version with the smaller "bridge" section and a larger but shallow main warehouse. I much prefer the varied-height option, since it creates the illusion that the tracks pass under the bridges and curve away to the rear. And if you're thinking that no warehouses were ever that thin, check out this one in Trowbridge: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.3209374,-2.2118359,3a,90y,325.54h,92.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6PTKjGoIf7bdvabYLcSZIw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Now I can start playing with the facade architecture, using the PowerPoint technique @SteveyDee68 suggested. My plan is to take my inspiration from as many real-life buildings as possible - I don't want to fall into the trap of modelling a model, as I so often do! If you want it realistic, base it on something real...

I agree the smoother stuff is better, I'll have to remember that when I ballast the main layout! Interesting point about paint for oil stains, I'll have to investigate that. This afternoon I've been playing with more mockups. I wasn't really happy with the road overbridge cliché, especially since it didn't really make sense if this is a dock of some form. But whilst prowling the internet for inspiration, I came across this photo of Canada Street that features a conveyor crossing the tracks to a building right on the water's edge: http://emgauge70s.co.uk/layout_canada.html. A little more digging revealed it's a near direct model of the Ipswich docks conveyor, as featured in @SteveyDee68's Blackford Wharf thread... it's funny how things go in circles sometimes! So here's the setup with a conveyor instead: The angles on this one were evil but great fun to figure out! I'm currently assuming that the water's edge is somewhere just a little forward of the scene, but that might change when I have a proper board and can experiment with things below the track level. The old footbridge is also still present, since the conveyor isn't that wide and a little extra view-blocking doesn't hurt. The pillar really helps break up the view into the sector plate area. That said I think I will make the hidden area somewhat scenic, so it isn't immediately jarring when you look at it. The view from the other side of the conveyor doesn't look too bad either, although this flat warehouse will probably be swapped for an older-looking structure. Finally I've added a short wall and gate to the left-hand end of the layout. This helps imply the track carries on further, explains the road-access to the yard, and if I use an open railing-type gate (such as this Scale Model Scenery one) it will provide interesting views into the layout. That said, when I actually build it I might keep it removable so I can replace it with the flat warehouse as per the original Alexandra Wharf, if I want a tall viewblocker for a more enclosed layout. It's all about options!

Looks promising to me - the canal should provide a good amount of scenery below track level, allowing for some good views. The inglenook with run-around loop looks like it should work well too. The overall plan heavily reminds me of this layout, which isn't a bad thing: One thing I liked about that layout is that the track over the bridge to offscene isn't parallel to the board, it's at an angle - maybe you could do something similar by swapping the first RH turnout with a Y point?

Minor update time! First - this morning I finally opened my wallet and bought all the track I'll need for this layout. So with any luck it'll be here on Wednesday, and I can start playing with it as soon as I've done my final presentation for my research project! Secondly - ballast experiments. If I'm going to be building this layout here I'd like a cheap ground cover to use, but I'm not a fan of the light colour of the beach sand I used on Arrow Paints. I've often heard modellers using ash, so I thought I should probably try it. My housemates occasionally have a fire in the back garden, which they have in an old mesh metal bin. So all I had to do was scrape the ash around inside the bin, and catch everything that sieved itself out through the mesh. Then I used the corner of Alexandra Terrace normally covered by the grain loading shed as a test area to see what it looks like around some track. Conclusion: it looks pretty good! The "open" side was smoothed with the back of a spoon whilst it was still wet, which I think looks a bit better than the "rough" side nearest the concrete. Although both look effective, so it depends what effect I'd prefer on the final scene. Clearly it could be tidied up further, especially around the sleepers. But the mixture of grain sizes, the general subtle variety colour, and the overall smoothness all look pretty good to me. Just as well I collected a big tub of it then!

Just a quick update on the Barclay-ish 0-4-0 shunter. Can you tell what's changed? It's not that easy to tell when the model is so dark, but I've modelled one of the doors as open, and finally added a cab interior. The door was fairly easy to modify with a fresh, sharp blade cutting easily through the card. Then I put together a simple control desk from some card and a few bits from the sprues box - the raised gauge display bit in the middle is in order to let it fit over the motor mount. Finally the whole unit was painted grey, the controls picked out in black, and that's all there is to it. It's not even fixed in place - I could attach it to either the chassis or the bodyshell, but it fits so snugly when everything's together there's not a lot of need. 'tis a small difference, but a driver in the doorway adds another little touch of life to the scene. And unless I put in some form of light source you'll never see the controls, but I know they're there. That's all for now!

Again I'd love to, but I quite like being able to put other things on the drawers as well - as is currently mocked-up there's my mirror poking over the top from behind the layout, and enough of a "shelf" along the front to put my phone, watches, and eventually a controller. I think I'll settle for more height, space for which isn't usually in short supply (badum-tish)! And your dental antics sound painful, but I'm enjoying the idea-generator side-effect Thanks for your words, Marc! Although I haven't graduated just yet; I submitted my Research Project earlier, but I've still got my Viva and a couple of exams to go. I do quite enjoy the buildings I've got set up at the moment. Height-wise the crane mechanism enforces a railtop height 40mm above the base, which leaves about 95mm for the fixed portion of the buildings. Currently the loading shed's pitched roof is too tall, but if I bring that down a bit and add a canopy along the rest of the building I can use it to conceal the joint. I'll just need to come up with a system to keep the upper portions stable; I don't have a hinging shoebox lid to rely on this time! Finally, I think this is one of the wordiest threads I've ever had - I prefer showing pictures of actual progress. Well, I'm planning to treat myself and buy fresh track at the end of the week, so hopefully there'll be things to show soon!

@SteveyDee68 I would absolutely love to cram in as much baseboard length as possible into the box. If I was really going that route I might try to make two baseboards that fit snugly together, one upside-down on top of the other - with an open enough layout and some very careful planning, it's certainly doable. Unfortunately the size of the RUB isn't the limiting factor for length here - it's the place the layout will live. By skimming the Ikea catalogue I've estimated most chests of drawers to be around 80cm wide, so layout 75cm long should be able to find a place I can set it up permanently in whichever student house I find myself in next year. And then it might as well be made to fit into an RUB, since it offers such a secure way of transporting the layout; maybe, if it's robust and good enough, to exhibitions... Whilst I could have a bigger layout that lives in storage and is got out and set up when I want to use it, I much prefer a smaller layout that I can leave the rolling stock on and just flick a switch and run without any hassle. That's the goal, at least - I've enjoyed being able to sit down and trundle the 04 about on Arrow Paints anytime I like, or at least when I've got the curtains open.

Extra switches seem to be heavily recommended when using live-frog points, so as not to rely on the pointblades to change the polarity of the frog and reduce the chance of a stray wheel shorting across the stock rail and the blades. I'm pretty confident I can knock something up for that, but I'll see how well they work without first. Thank you! The already-complete buildings definitely help give an impression of the final article. I think they're growing on me too, although I'll have to cut them horizontally and conceal the joint somehow if I want it to be able to close the lid on the RUB. And as for atmospheric photos, I have another one - this afternoon I dirtied up the Midland van a bit with a thinned-black acrylic wash. Finally I have some more rolling stock that isn't bauxite! Thanks! Yes, we all learn as we go along - I was always attracted by the ability to "pack up" a layout into a small space, but several shoebox layouts down the line I've learnt that the compromise between a good "open" scene and good structural integrity is virtually unreachable. I'm looking forward to being able to arrange this layout without having to worry about baseboard joints or lid supports. One of the watchwords I've set for this layout is reliability. A single rigid base, an RUB for a ready-made carrying box, and live-frog points for stall-free running. Whether any of this actually comes to fruition remains to be seen! And even if it does, further progress won't be quick - my final-year Research Project is due on Tuesday, followed up next month by a handful of exams. But then the summer stretches out before me...

Well, here we go again! It's been just over a year since I "completed" Arrow Paints, by which I mean the layout was operational and scenic. Of course I went on to fiddle about with various bits of it since then, but it's been more or less the same since last April. And I've been seeing plenty of new inspiration in @SteveyDee68's various threads, as well as plenty of other places on these forums... So it's time I started a new one. This summer I will graduate Swansea, and in September I will be starting an MSc at a new university. Clearly I would like to take a model railway with me, but wherever I end up living I doubt it will have a windowsill of exactly the right dimensions to fit Arrow Paints (to be honest it's incredibly lucky that it fitted on this one; if it hadn't, who knows what would have happened to it). Furthermore, whilst portable and compact, AP is pretty slow and fiddly to set up and dismantle. My plan is to build a new layout, very similar in trackplan to AP, but on a single, rigid board that will fit in a 22L Really Useful Box (RUB), and thus also on most standard-student-room-sized chest o' drawers. After much fiddling in AnyRail and with paper templates, I've decided on the following trackplan to fit the 210x750mm internal dimensions of the RUB: Essentially a mirror-image of AP, the layout is somewhat compacted to fit the smaller space. The sector plate can accommodate a loco and two wagons, and the loop should still be *just about* big enough to pass two wagons. Although the left-hand headshunt is small, operating AP tells me it only needs to accommodate the loco for run-rounds; when moving wagons only the right-hand point is in play, so I can foul the left-hand one. The two y-points are in fact Peco SL-97s - not setrack components, but their slightly shorter length adds crucial centimeters here. More on them later. Once I was happy with the layout I drew it out on paper, and stole various buildings to see how the layout could look. Photo time! 1. Overall shot of the mocked-up layout, currently set up on my chest o' drawers. 2. View from headshunt end of the layout. As usual the working crane will make it's appearance here on the final layout. 3. View of the bridge arrangement. The supporting pillar for the footbridge acts as a viewblock to the sector plate beyond, in this case marked by the thick pencil line where the tracks stop. I feel this join will be more obvious in real life, so the composition of this area will be crucial. 4. The front siding. This will probably have a warehouse with platform as usual, maybe some more inset track. Also sporting today's purchase, a Dapol Midland 12T van, yet to be weathered. 5. Final shot looking across the yard. Try not to read too much into buildings in the above photos, I have no idea if I'll actually use those ones from the original Alexandra Wharf diorama or not. Now, back to the points. Since I'm planning to use the SL-97s, I have the option to go electrofrog - for a small layout reliant on short locos I think this is worth trying, and I'm perfectly happy to fiddle about with the switches and wires required. However, I don't think the remaining standard 168mm left-hand turnout I'm using is manufactured in a live-frog version, meaning there'd still be one common sticking point. I'm planning to buy the track soon (actually I had hoped to this morning, but the local shop didn't have what I needed, hence the Midland van!), so does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

I'm afraid that as someone from '99 who practically grew up with MSPP being a thing I'm already quite versed with it, but I'm certain it will be of help to someone. As for card mockups, yours are far better than mine ever are - they actually stand up for a start! It depends on how much effort you put into them I guess, and I'm slowly learning that more effort in the mockups means less unhappiness with the final results. But then again I find the making of the buildings is the best bit, so I don't mind replacing and redoing things occasionally! I'm planning a trip to the local model shop soon, so I should hopefully have something to show over the weekend. At the moment I'm just gathering a wide variety of ideas from all over the place, and trying to fit them all together - I'm going to have to discard some, I just have to decide which ones...

That idea to shift around architectural elements in MS PowerPoint is fantastic, and definitely one I'll be stealing at some point. I'm never quite happy with what I scratchbuild because something's always slightly off, but this might save me a lot of hassle with pencils and rulers (not that I don't enjoy that mind you). I'm looking forward to seeing what you've concocted with it. I should add that I always enjoy coming back to this thread, mainly to see what tangent you've gone on next! It also always provides plenty of inspiration, and something must have stuck because now I've been having my own thoughts... this could be dangerous!

For what it's worth, in the pictures you posted I wouldn't have spotted the breakline if you hadn't pointed it out as such. That said a simple solution could be a simple card lintel attached to one of the sections, painted to represent concrete/stone/brick - I don't think it'd look out of place on your excellent and unique little shed. And if this shed is an indication of what's to come, then I can't wait for more!

Thanks for your compliment! Both alignment and power is fairly simple - track power is carried between boxes by the standard fishplates, although only on rails which cross the box joints at right-angles - connecting multiple tracks at varying angles simultaneously is not fun, as I found out on Green Lane Wagon Works. The fishplates also provide alignment, although for security the sector-plate board is also held up by lollipop sticks that fit snugly into slots on the end of the box, as can be seen in this older photo: This method is also used for the short extension at the other end of the layout and actually woks rather well, provided the slots are made in a thick piece of card that won't wear down and fray too much. To keep trains running over some questionable second-hand pointwork, a mess of wires and dodgy soldering joints ensure that every rail is always powered, no matter the position of the points. A rough plan is shown below, although I'm really not sure where the connecting wires are - I just know it works! I think the controller is connected to the rails under the bridge, but it doesn't really matter. red = fishplates blue = additional connecting wires black cross = no connection Finally, a general update - there have been no changes to the layout since I last posted, and it hasn't really seen much use recently either. Turns out 3rd year Civil Engineering can get pretty involved, even when everything's online...

I'm astounded how even mid-construction, your layout and photographs have buckets of atmosphere - and that's without a loco, wagon, car or even person in sight! The shed looks like it's been there for years already, especially from the yard side, and there's such a wealth of detail that pops out the longer you look at each photo. I can't wait to see your bridge completed!