Josie

In terms of redesign, it was staring me in the face the entire time: Simply adding a pair of RH points in the place of the first two LH points on the approach pointwork. This gives access to all Platforms from all lines and although there is a duplicated route, it looks far better. It does also mean a loco can be sat in the throat on the arrivals line, and a train snake around it to access the platform (Flex to be tweaked for the arrivals road) What this also allows is to make it a true double line approach, and in all honesty I suspect means I'll amend to double track rather than two independent lines (the idea of splitting distants on the starters is very appealing!) Jo

Exactly that! The centre boards with the throat pointwork will be a fixed unit with the RH and LH boards being the removeable ones for storage 🙂

A good point, and on reflection I think you're right. Having started with the Minories plan and worked back thats really where I'd claim it to have come from. I'm keen to keep the curvature in the throat (and ideally platforms) but will pause for a moment and see whether I can rejig it. I'm not anti the double route as fortunately not short of L and R pointwork although there is likely a better way to arrange it and allow universal access. I'm also conscious of not cutting too much platform length out. Watch this space... The theme will stay though, sketching out viewing angles has set me onto viewing the platforms 'under' a trainshed. Jo

With the N Gauge paused awaiting better weather for some major surgery, and aspirations of grandeur in the spare bedroom in the longer term, I found myself pondering an evening activity for the run up to summer. The brief was that it had to be simple to build and understand and use as much infrastructure/kits/items as I already had lying around unused. 4 'Really Useful Box' sized boards (able to fit into 2 x 77L boxes) and a huge amount of Setrack from my first layout attempts over 10 years ago were unearthed after a recent house move. The following plan came together using a bit of Minories-style inspiration but with two single lines into a shared station. The boards were dragged downstairs, track found and laid out tonight: Seen in the flesh vs the AnyRail sketch is the attempt to introduce a gentle curve into the main platform roads My intention is lots of the sort of engines and stock I really like, small and pre grouping! Here the P Class with W&U stock stands in the Bay Platform demonstrating well why I like this theme much The 4th board isn't shown here, but will bolt onto the two single lines and act as a FY with Casettes as 21" a piece for holding and turning stock round. All being well, I'll be marking up for droppers, point control tubing and isolating sections over the next couple of days Jo

Adding my voice to the list of happy customers. There’s a great selection in the £250 box. Lots of items, varied, and the value is incredible! The merch is a neat touch too without being ‘tat’. A real home-run from Rapido on this, and I hope they offer something similar again in the future (when the piggy bank is restocked…).

I'm certainly pleased with how its formed. Lunchtime today was spent in support of controlling the amount of stock to be added to the wishlist, by means of producing a very rough idea of what the busiest operating sequence/timetable would look like. Aside from being an enjoyable logic puzzle, its a great way to test if your trackplan can do what you think it can, and also how many toys you (on paper) have space for! Display shelves would definitely be on the cards regardless as there are always some 'shiny shiny' purchases that end up happening, whatever scale or price tag attached... The next stage towards making it happen is pricing up the boards and track to see how manageable that figure is, and making a decision then. If it appears to be doable I'll be looking at making a layout thread, to document construction from early on in 2024. Attached is an image of the timetable process in action for those who enjoy such things (very much arbitrary estimated timings, produced from a scribbled notebook train graph) Appropriately for the Oxford names, I've been initially trying out the idea with GWR stock, and if thats a theme I go with the forthcoming ACE 'County' 4-4-0 is on the 'a bit big but very desirable' list! Best, Jo (ps - Thread title amended to attract the right people as suggested)

I’ve now had time to go through the first round of feedback and there’s some excellent points and ideas to help in there. The first (and arguably biggest) was courtesy of @Nearholmer for spinning the design 180 degrees to have St Clements aimed straight at the door, and the loco stabling on a removable board going into the hallway. @DCB Suggested the hinged section of station at Port Meadow and this is another great thought, so has been added in. Multiple tiddly sidings and headshunts have been scrapped for the purpose of saving on point ends, and also in agreement with the statement that they take up more wagon space than they gain! Jericho’s sidings have had a small extension rather than building a hidden area in, and I’ve kept the Centre Road at St Clements to leave it with the feel of a bigger terminus station. Ignoring the Control Panel positions which I’ve mucked up, find attached a new version with human-sized operating positions now available. The reason for it being a theory exercise with quite a specific brief was due to the fact it’s designed to fit a room in a house which I was in the process of finalising a move to, and didn’t want to jinx progress. This has since come through (hurray) so it may not be theory based for too long! Accounting of course for the fact that no house move is ever finished until at least 4 months after getting the keys (not happened yet, but imminent)… All the best! Jo

Afternoon all! my modelling time and space in the real world has been pretty limited recently but the doodling never stops. One of my long term desires is to be able to have a room filler O Gauge layout, using Maldon Track and ‘modern’ tinplate style stock. With a fairly arbitrary 10’ 5” square footprint I adapted a plan seen on the ‘Deliberately Old Fashioned O’ thread for the space to make an end to end railway with a continuous loop as shown below: As ever the case with my desires/design, the idea is it can be operated to a sequence/timetable by multiple people or solo. In this case 2 ACE or Darstaed carriages are the standard trains for passenger with possibly NPCCS tagged on, and occasional bolstering to a single 3 carriage set in service. Freight matching those lengths. My take on the design issues are as follows: - not enough room for a person to operate bottom station (St Clements) - lots of very very expensive pointwork, some of which may be unnecessary (St Clements Shunt Neck could easily be changed to be a single point end for instance) - not much room to store spare stock when not needed for the running sequence - fallen victim to the idea of where there’s space, there’s a siding! My question to the collective is: What and why would you change, from this starting point? I thank you for participating in the pie-in-the-sky theory exercise! Best, Jo

@Nearholmer @Metropolitan H Huge thanks to both of you for the information. Some great signposting of where to look (and the comment about scrap signals for reuse is a particularly helpful idea I hadn’t really considered). I am primarily looking at the tinplate style of items so will explore those avenues over the coming weeks, seeing as the nights really have started drawing in! I’d also like to apologise for the late response. I had at the time typed one out and clearly failed to press ‘submit!’ All the best, Jo

Evening all, Whilst my existing layout is paused due to summer activities, the thought of doing some kitbuilding has come to mind and one of my ‘one day I’ll do…’ interests is coarse O gauge. My question is whether there are any contemporary manufacturers of kits for Signals and/or Rolling Stock in this style? I have tried good old Google, but this turned up nothing although I may be searching in the wrong way. Any help received gratefully! Jo

An excellent start, combined with the ability to (when on a driver turn) have the rest of the railway still running around you or trains following their signals when not driving

If one were to spend enough time designing and building the automation and timetable/diagramming it could in theory offer the option of being the station signaller or a driver of a particular turn which could ease the monotony perhaps? The layouts I’ve had most fun operating have had specific duties, moves etc for each driver/controller/signaller involved; and despite running the same sequence/timetable 5 times over a day on one particular example it was far from monotonous even by end of play.

Have bought a late crest J50 and it looks absolutely marvellous, but whilst trying to chip it 1 of the 4 body screws simply will not move. All 3 of the others came out no problems, is this something anyone else has encountered? There's only so many fine screwdrivers I can try before it strips the head entirely!

A little more progress has occurred. The electric connections across boards have been completed and ready to test: The wagon fleet continues to expand thanks to secondhand suppliers and PECO kits: Which has led to the first samples of Waybills for the rolling stock. I intend to test for a period with this small selection, and make relevant tweaks/adjustments before producing the full stock list of them: The final update is the decision of location names - all drawn from Hardy’s Wessex. Dockside Terminus: Port Bredy Passing Station: Casterbridge Jn Country Halt: Ivell Country Terminus: Sherton Abbas Until next time! Jo

Tonight the final piece of track went down on what is most likely going to be a Bay Platform What is also partially on show is the result of bulk-building Peco Buffers (also shown below on the end of the inner station yard, the RAIB don't need to find out about the derailment in the background…). Progress on the wagon fleet expansion is doing well and combined with some early buildings has allowed a first concept setting of the scene. To see it coming to life a bit more at a time is so rewarding, and I’m glad I’ve stuck with it rather than bowing to lows in inspiration. In Ops Planning terms the last bit of track has allowed some major development for capacity studies; assuming use of all sidings (but keeping headshunts, platforms and run-rounds free) the total wagon spaces hit 50! This fits (surprisingly!) well with my initial thoughts of around 25-30 wagons in use on the layout at a time maximum to give some breathing space for the stock as well as allowing variety in Passenger service. Combined with now knowing what the maximum freight capacity the Station and Passing Loop(s) can handle this means a sequence and total daily carriage can be worked out, to then feed the traffic generation spreadsheet. Jo

Evening all, it’s been a while since the last update, mostly thanks to a trip away to Europe by rail. Very fun but now I’m back I’ve been itching to get at this again! The gentle restart came with putting together some proper board-jumper cables. I might get a noise complaint for drilling at this time so the Panel-Mount sockets will have to wait for tomorrow. I make no claims to be neat and tidy with electrics, and will have to wait and see how long these last Jo

Thanks Richard for the kind words. The US style of modelling and layouts have been major influences for this and I’m glad it shows. Indeed I had a false start with On30 in the early days of COVID which is where a lot of the guiding principles I used to modify this plan came from. My return to kitbuilding tonight has been successful, with a Metcalfe Signalbox from start-finish (save some tidying and detailing) within 2.5hrs. It’s no wonder the kits are so widespread and popular; the price combined with the ease of assembly and thoughtful design made it a delight to put together. The location for this structure is still not quite decided, and I plan to place it temporarily along with some other basic items to get a feel for the scene. In the meantime - time for bed and some time away from glue fumes! Jo

Evening all! A pleasant half hour of work this evening included wiring up the droppers for the new track, and fitting some temporary cross-board jumpers. The result of this work was a period of testing using mostly my partners modern image stock (whilst I slowly rebuild my steam/diesel transition era fleet) and was thoroughly enjoyable! A particular highlight was being able to move wagons from A to B, shunt around, drop them off at C and so on. A great taste of what will be possible once the industries are located. A minor amount of scenic work has started in the form of a pair of Peco Rail Bufferstops. A great little item which took all of a minute per piece to assemble Tonight should see some work on a couple of Metcalfe kits whilst enjoying a film, hopefully they turn out reasonably! Jo

And just like that, we (almost!!) have a railway! The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the stray point on the main circuit, for which I’m still debating the formation of the associated siding. Otherwise the droppers are in, the track is down, and the wiring puzzle can commence. It’s been a learning curve and my finger ends will take some recovery from fishplate shenanigans but I have to admit to enjoying the process more than I expected. I finished a little late to do any test runs, so that’s excitement for another day Jo

Thank you @Matloughe for the kind comments. My scenic thoughts are mostly targeted at hiding the Board Hinges for the time being, although a mental image of the Dockside Station is developing. I hope to share some sketches at some point so that later along the road there can be a comparison. This evening’s first job has been to grey around the inner station area which received cork last night. I must sing the praises of B&Q tester pots - £4 for two that have made a great base, and they have their own brush included! Tonight’s aim is a little tracklaying but that’s dependant on whether the paint dries quick enough to move it outside and drill for droppers before sunset…watch this space! Jo

Hello all! it’s been a little while but progress is ticking gently along. Tracklaying for the 2nd board is soon to start, along with the central station so things aren’t a huge way off being ready for intensive testing. Away from the layout itself, I’ve been considering names and hope to update the topic title with something slightly more inspired! Finally a photo of the plotting out of the central station (with a few tweaks from my sketch) to give an overview of how it all fits together in reality. I’m finding it to be very close to what I’d hoped for but only time will tell if the design time paid off Until the next time! Jo

Progress This evening saw a small amount of visible work, mostly connecting wiring blocks underneath the board and attaching a temporary DC power supply. The remainder of the Passing Station was laid, another cross-board joint built up and then the relaying of a siding that had turned out to be somewhat bumpy. The most exciting moment (and always a very satisfying one) was the movement of the first train! A Rapido Cl28 did the honours, and worked beautifully on almost every siding and section of track on the fully laid half. The key instance of poor running is not the fault of the loco or wiring, it’s due to a slightly tighter-than-spec joint midway round the inner line of the Passing Station which will take a bit of teasing to correct. Before anyone gets ideas - the Leffe was being used to weigh down track…honest! *hic* Time for bed now Jo

Evening all! I’ve been a long time lurker on here, and finally got round to joining. This coincided with starting a new project which will be documented (when I remember to!) on here. Overview It’s been nearly 20 years since I first received a train set (Hornby’s ‘Rambler’ if anyone is interested) but have consistently failed to actually build a layout. After finding some N track from a previous project, I set about combining a scheme from one of my notepads with the space I had available. Trackplan The layout plan takes a lot of cues from Awdry’s ‘Ffarquar’, but with the addition of a passing station on the main circuit and replacing the Fiddle Yard with a dockside station. The idea is not to be super scenic, but in effect a big shunting scheme allowing point-to-point freight and passenger workings. The board is 5ft x 2.5ft, folding into a 2.5ft square for storage and transit. Please excuse the quick sketch, the original seems to have gone walkies! Track & Electrical Peco Code 80 (Setrack and Flex) is used throughout, with a large number of power feeds to allow DCC to be used. Points on passenger lines will be motorised, with all others hand operated. Operation The intention is to have the ability to run a complete ‘system’ to a sequence with all stock for the sequence being held on the layout (no Fiddle Yard required). I am in the process of working out a game style dice driven system to generate traffic for the Passenger services (Tail Traffic, Parcels etc) and an American inspired ‘Car Card’ system for the Freight work. Various industries are scattered between locations to hopefully give variety and keep it interesting & challenging to run. Aesthetics From failed attempts in the past I am confident that I am not much of a scenic modeller therefore I am, in the short-medium term, intending to have a selection of key railway buildings and scene-breaks but otherwise bare boards. That’s not to say it won’t develop eventually but my fun comes from running trains! Progress to date So far the boards have been built, the dockside station and most of the passing station track laid and the first 3 cross-board joints put together. The central station and rest of the main circuit is waiting a trip to the model shop for some additional pointwork before it can be laid and tested. It may not be pretty or a professional job, but I’m certainly happy with the fact it seems to be sustaining my interest more than previous schemes! Jo