Robert Stokes

Thank you for that. I will go ahead and fit the fencing with the posts at the back. P.S. I've just re-read my original post and seen that I hit the wrong keys on the last two words which should have been "for me".

Thank you. That is what I would have expected but it means the diagonals slope upwards to the left as viewed from the tracks. So have Peco got it wrong?

I have some Peco 00 gauge diagonal platform fencing which I am about to fit but I am having difficulty deciding which way round it should go. I have done an online search, but can't find a picture which shows clearly whether the posts go on the passenger side or at the back. Pictures do show that the diagonals slopes upwards to the right as viewed from the tracks, so if Peco have got it correct, then the posts go on the passenger side of the diagonals. Can someone please confirm or contradict this doe mw? Robert

I haven't read all of the posts above so my apologies if this is a repeat. There is a way that you can avoid too large a gap at the board junctions. Before fixing the track, fit the two boards together with a piece of cardboard between them that is slightly thinner than the blade of the saw that you will use to cur the track. Then fix down the track across the junction and cut it. Now release the two boards, remove the piece of cardboard, and fix the baseboards back together. The two ends of the track will very nearly touch each other. N.B. The cardboard must not be thicker than the saw blade otherwise the track ends will project a little and buckle when the baseboards are re-assembled.

I believe that legally it is the retailer's responsibility to put right any faults with a new item bought from them. The contract is between the buyer and the shop (or online retailer). The manufacturer may be willing to take it on but they don't have to deal directly with the buyer.

Locos have to be sound fitted in my opinion. It is one more step in trying to achieve realism. If I turn sound off one of my locos it just seems less real to me. It's the difference between an old silent film and a modern one.

Thank you for a set of interesting answers including some very comprehensive ones.

As I understand it, when HO gauge first started it was called that because it was short for half O gauge. Jf that is correct, it implies that at the tome, O gauge was 33mm which would have been almost perfectly correct for standard gauge to scale. Therefore when and why was it changed to 32mm?

One detail about the cardboard method I forgot to mention. You can make it light and strong if you have formers going at right angles to one another. The set going one way have slots cut in the bottom and the set going the other way have slots cut in the top. The whole lot are then inter-leaved (if you see what I mean). I made a large hill for a previous layout this way. Takes a bit of careful measuring and patience though.

Polystyrene is O.K. but the mess if you saw it (rather than using a hot wire cutter) has to be seen to be believed,

Another option for a cheap, lightweight landscape is framework of cardboard formers cut to shape and glued together. You could use old cereal boxes, but best glued to be two r three layers thick before cutting. Yet another idea is a chicken wire framework. Over either that or the cardboard, you stick layers of newspaper or thin old cloth like sheets or pillowcases. P.S. To make the basic wooden frame, rough sawn wood is cheaper than PAR. However, be careful handling it to avoid splinters.

First thing, 2m x 1m is quite different to 8 ft x 4 ft. In fact 2m x 1m is about 6' 6" x 3' 3". So what size will it be? Next, is all of the track going to be flat and only the land around it going to be hills, or will the track rise and fall as well?

And their lifetime is sometimes longer than you think. The one that I reported earlier that had given up the ghost has started working again. For several days it has refused to start. Today I have been out to the shed three or four times and on each occasion when I have switched on the lights, the long one has come on with the others. Why does this happen?

O gauge is actually slightly more accurate than that. As I understand it the gauge is 32mm which converts to 4' 6.857" so very nearly 4' 7". This is why I would love to model in O gauge. I don't have the room for a roundy-roundy in that gauge which is what I would want, but one day may try an end to end layout.

Why not buy the relatively new code 75 bullhead track which has wider sleeper spacing than the code 75 flat bottomed or the code 100. Admittedly it is more expensive which could put you off it. Also at this time there are only large radius points to go with it but medium radius ones and slips are in the pipeline.