bobbair

Last section taking the line around the loft is complete and we celebrated yesterday evening by taking a train of birdcage carriages, parcel van and Pullman around the circuit A little bit of tweaking of levels to do on the bridge and embankment section before it is fixed in place. Camelot speeds through what will eventually be the station area. Visiting engine Clan Line alongside P Class 178 and Birch Grove resting after being thrashed around the circuit by an enthusiastic 5 year-old!!

Finished the baseboards around the loft this evening. Can't believe it has taken two months! Life gets in the way of model railways sometimes!!! Have some track laid and a single line running around 3/4 of the space so far. Mess everywhere now of course! Lots of loose bits of track around the place. The Ouse bridge, out of necessity has to be around a curve after the station and will be a 'not quite prototypical' off-the-shelf Bachmann model. The two signals on the up side of the station will be working Dapol units controlled by an Arduino - I also got the code working this evening, an IR detector under the rails will switch the signals to Danger after a train passes and hold there for 10s.

Have got around half way around the loft with the baseboards. Kids are egging me on to start track laying but just have some loose-laid stuff placed out to get a feel for where everything will go. Got hold of a couple of Dapol signals for the north end of the station also.

Second baseboard built (9mm hardwood ply and 44x18 battening) and in place

This is the main board from the previous layout, pulled out of the old loft and stored for 7 years in the new one! Mounted it up on the wall and set about cleaning it and carefully removing the track and pointwork, all of which should be re-usable.

First issue to sort was getting some decent light and clearing some of the junk in the way! 30W LED strip light was pretty cheap from Amazon (32 quid IIRC) and arrived the next day.

Having dismantled the last loft layout seven years ago, decided it was about time to dust off the old stock and bits of board and start afresh. With a bit of fudge I think I can get a scale (or thereabouts) version of Sheffield Park station into the loft with a few of the other Bluebell details as well. First stab at the track plan attached.