AndyRAP

The Garden Here's a picture of the garden and the space that I have to work in... As it is not going to be permanent, the whole construction needs to be easily accessible , so the initial objective is to have the running lines as close to the edge of the grass as possible. Also, part of the planning permission conditions are to ensure adequate sunbathing access should the British summer ever kick in. To give you some idea of the dimensions, the longest edge of grass is approximately 30 feet and a similar width at the widest point. At the narrowest point, it's about 10 feet. As you can see from the picture below, the garden is roughly 2-3 feet about the patio level which is something that I am hoping to put to good use when it comes to creating some form of terminus. Initial Planning There are a few guiding principals that I adopted as I started the planning. The project has to be pragmatic. Easy of set-up / breakdown (but not at the expense of reliable running) Good length of continuous running with scale length trains Reasonable radius curves (but storing very large curve sections is not easy) Could run DC motive power (I have a good selection from the last time I was modeling) Avoid complex track design where at all possble (straight is good) With these in mind, the first draft of a plan took the 'as close to the edge of the grass' approach around the whole of the grassed area. Clearly this would have the longest running distance, but I scrapped that plan based on the tight and curves and short straight sections needed if I was going to follow the edge of the patio all the way around. After a bit more mucking around with ideas, I have settled on the plan below. This design delivers in the running length of around 80 feet and keeps the construction to sensible level of complexity. It also has the added bonus that I can build the layout in stages rather than having to complete the whole lot before trains are running. I'll share some of the construction thoughts in the next post.

Introduction I thought I would share my experience of trying to create a OO gauge garden layout which as you will gather from the title needs to be portable. I tend to bumble along with my modelling, so I am always open to some advice and comment. The Beginning Like many other railway modellers, my 'proper' layout is restricted in space in the house and, by my own choice, an end-to-end design. The main reason is that I wanted to have that added interest of the train operation that comes with terminating services. The layout is being modelled on the north-east in the early eighties (basically I can run deltics!) with a little bit of licence which means that most services are loco-hauled. The two disadvantages are that I'm not able to run full length trains and the lack of any continuous running (at best a loco will travel about 20 feet in one movement). I do have a rolling road and that helps, but it's not exactly the most exciting way of giving my engines a chance to stretch their legs, so earlier this year I started to consider what options I might have using the garden. Luckily I do have a reasonable amount of garden space, so I started to sketch out some ideas. Unsurprisingly, when you start wandering around the garden with a tape measure out and scribbling notes in a book, the head of the planning committee starts to ask questions! After some negotiations, planning permission was granted, but with one key requirement of it not be a permanent fixture. So this is my challenge... build a garden layout that I can store in the garage/shed when not in use, but be able to be made ready to run in an reasonably short space of time.

Hi All... Thanks for the feedback. In general, it looks like I am going about this in a reasonably sane way! I may even share the layout plan shortly to see what thoughts the community have on it.

I am coming back to modelling after a very long break away and would like some advice. First, let me say that DCC is the best thing that has happened to modelling while I have been away and to have a fully DCC operated layout is the end goal. The main challenge for me is that I have 30+ DC locomotives and even after thinking hard about how many of them I would need to replace with up-to-date DCC models to run the layout I am planning, I'm still over the 20 mark and that's not an investment (lottery winning aside) that I can make in a short time frame. I have read some of the comments about converting from DC to DCC and I agree that it's not really worth the effort. So, based on the fact that I want to 'get trains running' sooner rather than later, I am planning on building the layout to support old-school DC operation which clearly means track isolation and switches etc. and then when the roster of DCC engines reaches that critical mass convert over. The simple question is, could that just involve making all the sections permanently live (just switch everything on) and re-direct power from DC to DCC controller? But I guess the more specific question is if there are any tips and tricks that I can adopt at this point which will make that transition much easier, in particular about choice of points (insulated v live) and the installation of point motors for them. Thanks in advance...