Benatkinsonuk

And would you mix this 50/50 with water as you would with PVA?

I was going to ask the same thing.

Thanks for your replies

Ok thank you. I notice it must be to do with moisture, the around in this photo was topped up with glue mixture more recently and the track has turned yellow within an hour. Other drier areas are still clean. Did the meths method help avoid this issue? thanks

I found a few old closed forums with similar issues but no real answer as to why, the assumption is the particular PVA I’m using is giving off fumes that are oxidising. However…. Indoor layout in a spare room, I starting ballasting new Peco code 55 finesale track with DCC concepts ballast, hobbycraft craft PVA glue and a few drops (too much?) of clear washing up liquid (the only clear I could find was a sensitive skin one). I wetted the ballast with a fine spray of tap water (very hard water area - won’t help I assume) which also had a drop of washing up liquid in. The track started to show water marks quickly and turn yellow within a few hours. Notice just how yellow it has gone compared to the non ballasted track, which is very nearby. So probably not just the fumes?? Actual contact with the glue and / or something else that is making this happen? This oxidisation does come off when cleaned (I used the daily use woodland scenic cleaning pad) and cotton buds with WD40 contact cleaner - although came back a day later, the track had yellowed again, the ballast was still damp. 48 hours on - I’ve cleaned now the ballast is rock hard and the locos run very nicely. Hope that’s the end of it now it’s dried!?? Surely it can’t keep turning yellow forever 😅 But before I ballast more track, is there something I should try changing? Ideally I would have quite so much rubbish on the track for days after.

Thanks @TheSignalEngineer All very interesting points taken on board. To answer the liveries question, the HST is swallow livery, 47 and 08 are Rail Express Systems, 37 is the fairly rare mainline livery, and the DMUs are regional.

hi @TheSignalEngineer - good points. 1. Modelling a fairly central fictional location with some inspiration from the south west. This point isn’t too detailed in my plan. 2. Mid / late 90’s - from 1994-1999 3. I’ve a HST, class 37, class 47 for loco hauled stuff and parcels and 2x DMUs (155&158) and a class 08 to act as station pilot (which were fairly rare in my time period (?) but I’ll enjoy the operational interest) 4. Coloured light but anything to help give me a bit of realism really. The branch line will loosely be based on St Ives, I thought I could even include some old signals here but maybe that’s not necessary. appreciate your thoughts…!

For the platform starters the absolute aspect n gauge signals with position indicators look like they’d be very good, though not cheap. I can’t seem to find any signals with theatre boxes in N, or any kits that I could add. I guess scratch building a dummy theatre box might be possible?! I’m happy to go with dummy ground shunt signals, although was interested to read about your working fibre optic ones!

Thanks @Jeremy Cumberland, you’re correct with your first guess. The branch line is the one that is weathered and the currently grey piece of flex track is a head shunt. That all makes sense, thanks very much. I’ll look into these various bits and make some progress.

Attached here are the pics that lead to the station. Bit harder to see now the track is mostly weathered. Pic 1 - bottom left the double track main lines run in from the scenic break with the branch line running out to a small DMU sized station. Then moving up the photo, a cross over with access to the small sidings on the left, pic 2 - the station throat let me know your signalling thoughts! Or if you need more info?

Thanks @Jeremy Cumberland - there is a crossover before this picture. I’ll send a better photo this afternoon when I’m home of the full station approach.

Hi, I’ve already learnt a lot about signalling from this site but would love some specific advice on what type of signals I’d require for the junction of the picture below (sorry for rubbish note quality). Coming into a terminus (modelled in gauge so not loads of options on the market). I’m just hoping to add some realism, and realise it would be above my budget to get a fully realistic and prototypical setup of signalling for here, I think!? So the aim is to just having something that works and looks fairly good. For context it’s just the two lines into the station from the bottom of the picture. Am I right in thinking any light controlling traffic in to a terminus or siding wouldn’t have the green light, just amber and red? I’m also half guessing the lights coming back out of the station would default set to red and I would need to have them set up on a switch to be able to release the trains? Potentially with a feather to show their route? Again budget comes into it a bit. Any thoughts appreciated … Ben

Tested every inch of track today with a loco and no running issues whatsoever which is a relief. Although I am interested at polishing the track (not as a regular thing!!!) - might experiment on some track and various ultra fine abrasives and report my findings…

Hi Andi, Thanks, what a relief. I will look out for some P20000 then! Ben

While removing paint off rails after weathering, I was in need of something a little stronger than just my usual cleaning methods of WD40 contact cleaner on a cotton bud (which I’m seeing great success with). I reached for a new woodland scenics pad that is designed for heavy dirt (a leftover one from when my dad used to use on our old layout when I was a kid), ‘perfect’ I thought, but after using it ive noticed it has left a light marring on the track - tiny tiny scratches you can’t even feel but just see with the naked eye. So basically a track rubber then - which is something I tried to avoid, so I’m a bit annoyed. I thought this wouldn’t be that harsh, as it’s literally designed for this. This is a brand new layout and now some of the track is scratched. It’s only a small layout and in N gauge so cleaning it isn’t a complete pain in the neck. My question, is there a good way to improve the surface / rail head or will these light scratches be ok? I’ll just avoid any more use of these abrasive things in the future! I’ve since seen most use a block of wood to remove paint which I’ll do next time I add some further weathering.

Thanks very much for the replies. Some interesting thoughts and I’ll get cracking with these suggestions!

Ok cheers. I’ll look into it

As you may guess from the title I’m after some thoughts and inspiration for items I should be adding to my layout before I ballast. I have tried googling and searching the forums here for this topic but struggling a bit hence starting a thread. The track is down and weathered, trains running nicely and more testing to go but the task of ballasting draws ever closer. It’s a mid-90’s layout in N gauge, modelling a busy terminus with plenty of point work, a branch line and some sidings. I hope to add signals and some concrete trunking but assume both are added afterwards. Drain covers and the orange cable trunking, dummy point motors and such to add now? AWS ramps after I guess? Any help is appreciated! Just don’t want to ballast and think I’ve missed the golden opportunity for something.

Apologies yes we have digressed somewhat!

Yes, it’s a good point, though I have the lights coming out past the half way point of the baseboard, plus there’s a main room light and window which shed plenty of light to the side but I understand your point.

Hey, thanks - they are here. You do need to wire plugs on them but that’s easy enough.

These brilliant 4000lumen LED batten lights have been installed this week. Dimmable, colour temperature controllable too and about £40 a pop with the wooden shelf brackets £7 each from Amazon. My only regret is not fitting them sooner!

Pleasure! It really Is impressive. This is at full volume setting on the lock but only captured on an iPhone from varying distances from the speaker. It’s not cheap but I’ve had friends see this who aren’t model enthusiasts, and they’re blown away that it can do what it can.

For @meatloaf and others that are interested, here’s a video of the new Graham class 47 with sound. This is an unlisted video as I’ve put this on my aviation channel (I haven’t done a video for a while!) so feel free to share but only those who have the link will see it, but it’s not up to my usual production standards so won’t released on a public link.

I can post a video here this week. It’s great, much better volume than I thought. Great responsiveness from the decoder and speaker combined with the active braking sounds really bringing it all alive.