Model Railway Noob

Really nice. I love the detail on the tracks and your buildings. I've been buying up some used LMS locomotives and rolling stock as well as MR stuff. I'm going ot have to look through all of your images for inspiration

Hi all, I have just started a layout thread and will begin my version of the MMR shortly.

Hi, I am just starting a small exhibition layout to represent the Melbourne Military Railway (MMR) in WWII and have had a few discussions with others in other parts of this forum that share my interest. The railway was opened when the WD realised Longmoor wasn't going to be enough early in WWII. RE recruits did their basic at Longmoor then some came to the MMR for further training, including the bridge building school as the railway crossed the river trent. The line was just over 9 miles and operated by the LMS. They provided stock initially but the military took over eventually until near the end of the war. Freight was still transported from mines, quarries and market gardens in the area. Americans and Canadians were also trained on the MMR and photos show US steam and early diesel locomotives. Some WD locomotives are shown in photographs but the majority are LMS. One first hand account listed all the types he saw when he served there. I have bought several books and carried out research over the last couple of months. I was born quite close to the area and my brother-in-law's grandfather (possibly great grandfather) was station master at Breedon & Tonge on the line. The railway is too vast to cover in a 6ft x 2ft layout (with 2x 2ft extensions not visible from the front), as you will see from ust the King's Newton camp shown on the map below, so I decided to cover some of the features I have read about such as passing loops, the Ashby tunnel, Castle Donington siding (vehicle loading/unloading ramp for the Donington Hall/Donington Park MT depot) and of course bridges over the trent. The layout also needs to serve as a photographic background for my new locomotives, as I only have a test track for running in new locomotives and a WWI exhibition layout to use at home. I use a photography lightbox also. The Castle Donington airfield was very close by (and where I was born) and had Wellington's there during the war. I am going to include a Wellington flying low over the railway with spinning propellers. I have done this on my WWI layout with period aeroplanes. I have included a track plan below with some features I want to include but it doesn't show building placement. I will include a signals box, lineside huts, farm area and the end of the camp that was built in Weston-on-Trent, just over the river to the left. One track will be exclusively DC and the other DC or DCC for my new locomotives. Please bear in mind that I don't call myself Model Railway Noob for nothing. I started learning to do all this halfway from 2018, although I had a Hornby Freightmaster train set in 1973, I hadn't done much since. The layout will feature some WWII vehicles and perhaps some AA batteries including the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). I have bought most what I will need although not all has arrived yet, so I plan to start soon. Now I have come back out of retirement as a nurse because of the COVID shortages, I have less time but I will do some in the evenings when I am not staying away from home. I find learning new skills therapeutic and each time I build a new layout, I try to learn something new. Having said that, this will only be my fourth and the WWI layout isn't finished yet. The build will be covered on my Youtube channel (link in my signature).

I thought I had already posted this but I took a photo of this in the Mulhouse museum in 2018

Hi, Good point. I have revised this plan now and it is 2ft rather than 18"

Great thanks I will have a look. I finally found maps showing the sidings.... there were so many and they almost reached Castle Donington along the river. I saw several other sidings which were for old mines and quarries as well as the vehicle loading/unloading ramp. When the restrictions are less I am going to walk the old railway and along the river.

Thanks David. Yes the bottom will only be DC and the top sometimes DCC but mainly DC. I have bought a Gaugemaster Model D to use with it most of the time but I want to take the odd photo and short video using DCC. For a single loco I have a photo light box I use.

There are concrete buffer stops elsewhere I've heard but I haven't had time to look yet. At least you can walk much of the old line now so there is the opportunity to discover more.

Thanks Kris. That' very helpful.

I bought these couplings and there were quite good. I found them useful for my HO stock so I could use locos and rolling stock that previously had different systems. However on my third order, some were missing. I contacted the seller and zero response. I don't allow people to sell me short, so I got my money back via Paypal and they didn't respond to them either. It's not a way to do business. Clearly if they didn't contest it, they knew they were in the wrong.

Hi Ian, Sorry I've only just read this. I lived in the area for a lot of my life and have only just found out about it. Anyway, I now have three books and I am slowly reading through them. I am just going to model a small section with the two tracks; one upline to Derby (other side of Melbourne) and the other with a passing loop and some sidings towards Ashby. As the track crossed the canal and the river trent and there was a bridge building school, I want to add a Baily type bridge on the Derby line over the trent which will be raised and a pontoon bridge over the river on the other line. They also practised blowing line up and repairing it! The end of the upper line will go into the Ashby tunnel. I have gathered some of the stuff including LMS locomotives and rolling stock to start and a first draft of a track plan. I come from Castle Donington where Wellingtons were based, so I am going to have one flying over with engines spinning (I have done this on my WWI layout). Just a bit of fun and perhaps some ack ack and other WWII vehicles. The Castle Donington siding near Breedon and Tonge had the loading/unloading ramps for the motor transport depot at Donington Hall/Donington Park (German Officer prison camp in WWI) so having some period lorries would look nice. My brother-in-law's grandfather was the station master at Breedon and Tonge! Incidentally there are descriptions of some of the layout such as the passing loop. They built a large camp near Weston-on-Trent (I knew of this but did not know it was RE originally). The main depot was at King's Newton on the Melbourne side of the river and there were absolutely loads of sidings. A map published immediately after the war shows them. You would need a large layout to model them all! Michael

Hi, I am building another small up and down layout using two tracks. The upper will be DC and sometimes DCC so I have something to photograph new DCC locos (I don't have a home layout but just a round and round test track for running in) The bottom will be exclusively DC but I want to add a passing loop and some sidings of sorts. It is loosely based on the Melbourne Military Railway during WWII, so there will be elements of the bridge building course appearing on it, the river trent, Ashby tunnel and a pontoon and Bailey type bridges. My questions is, is my planned layout going to work ok and are the areas I feel I should add power correct please? Please see a proposed track plan below. It will 1.5ft x 6ft and the DC/DCC track will be raised. Thank you in advance.

Short-ish videos of the making of the layout

Did you ever model this railway Ian? I am considering doing it as a small exhibition layout. I am from the area and have a few books on it.

Did you model this railway? I am from near there and have been reading about it. I am considering doing something for this railway. I have a few books on it.

Thx everyone. I am relatively new to all this so it is nice getting such positive feedback here.

Thank you. That is very kind of you to say.

Thank you everyone. Very kind of you to say so. I am hoping to get to play with it with him after lockdown restrictions ease. At least we got chance to go on the Great Central Santa Express before Christmas.

Hi, I originally built a Thomas layout for this boy when he was only four. This was my first layout just over two years ago, so I am pretty new to all this. However it is too big to keep out and there is not enough room for it in the house, so I suggested to his mum that I could build a new layout that will fit under his bed. The layout is 5ft x 3ft (needed a bit of room for the bedside table) and is on six wheels with pull handles on the side. The controls are all on the right end side. There is a Hornby controller, bank of 8 switches for lights and sounds , 5 switches for points and 2 for signals. There are sockets for each of the respective transformers and all are colour coded. The maximum height for this build because of the bed frame was only 22 cm, so I had to remove some chimneys and I couldn't add the windmill I had motorised or wind turbine I would have liked to have added. The base is 9mm hardwood ply with a frame of pine for strength. As the 6 year old boy has a younger brother, sound could be an issue if he is in bed, so I used Plastazote foam with copydex glue. Plastazote foam is a closed cell polyethylene foam blown with nitrogen. This made quite a difference but it wasn't that easy to paint onto. However, glue bonded well to it and I was able to transport the layout an hour in my car, through a narrow entry and carry it upstairs. It nearly killed me but it got there in one piece and nothing fell off. The bottom has a 3mm hardwood ply cover to protect the wiring. I wanted add as much interaction as possible so there are lamp posts, traffic lights (UK system), a railway crossing with alarm, a car crash and attending police vehicles, every building is lit, electric point motors, signals and two sound modules; a modern railway sound module in the railway station and an urban sound module inside the derelict farmhouse. All can be turn on and off via switches. This way the 2.5 year old can at least do something to take part. I will post several sets of photos of the development over the next couple of days in case anyone is interested. The boy (kind of my step-grandson) guessed it was me that "bought it" for him but was most impressed that Santa could deliver it without him hearing a thing. He couldn't understand how Santa got it under his bed because he said it is"massive". The cars used for the photos are the Majorette cars (all I had in the house) and they are 1:64 so a little big and some of the people were HO, so a little small but the 6 year old is fine with that. The two most important questions were, Is the boy pleased with it? and yes extremely happy and, Was I pleased with it? and it came out pretty much as I hoped it would. There were some lessons learned and new skills but I enjoyed making it. It was a rush job because I am coming out of retirement next week to go back into my nursing role for dementia.