gismorail

I heard it was 158 .....!!!! but like all modellers it does not do to give SWMBO all the facts ......By the way have you removed the fake cheap price labels .....

Hi Andy well we're up to 17ft now cannot go much longer as it wouldn't fit in the centre of the proposed Wrexham Central layout which is going all ... round.... the room No worries about getting it in the car cos I've got an ''Ifor Williams'' twin axle box trailer Yes I thought a freight only line would be different and give the layout a lot more scope. Got so many ideas in my head at present it's great what a Wonderful Hobby this is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To continue on last nights update having made a extension to the loading bay at the feed mill my attention has turned to the other end of the layout. In the original Iain Rice layout plan the end of the station track has another gated siding leading to a loading bay servicing a Dairy and having considered this more deeply I felt that it was repeating what's happening at the other end of the layout and as with the mill siding only two wagons could be accommodated. This has got my imagination running riot ....... oh dear that's dangerous me thinks Why not have a freight only branch running off the scene to the dairy or even other industrial sites in keeping with the area of course !! So I have been busy constructing another fiddle yard and cutting an access whole through the back scene / base board

From my limited understanding of DCC you are right as it's the chip in the 14XX that is being programmed ...I think

Hope to start track laying this week Andy with a certain amount of trepidation to be honest never built 00 gauge track before without normal templates so hope it's going to work out ok . If it does operation in November is a possibility As to the carpentry skills the photos hide a lot

With the main boards now completed my attention has turned to a fiddle yard and I have given a lot of thought as to what form this should take. The maximum train length is going to be no more than three coaches plus locomotive so a four foot fiddle yard would be minimum requirement so that immediately rules out a fan of sidings as the fiddle yard would have to be half the layout length to accommodate such a scheme. My thoughts were going towards the traditional sector plate or even a traverser which would require careful design and manufacture to give reliable operation. The one operational set back would be that I would be restricted to four trains storage in the available space which would mean man handling stock which is a situation that I wished to avoid especially during exhibitions. Fortunately the October issue of the Hornby magazine provided the answer thanks to Nigel Burken's article on a flexible storage system involving a cassettes. Now I have in the past attempted such a system on an 0 gauge layout but was never happy with the electrical current transfer between layout and cassette but in this article Nigel has come with a quite clever solution using a simple plug-in system involving brass rod and tube. For those who have not read the article all will be revealed as the layout build progresses. So having sorted out what type of storage system I am going to use I have been able to build a suitable fiddle yard board. Two views of the completed fiddle yard. The join between fiddle-yard and scenic board was going to be critical having opted for the storage cassette system so levels at the board end have been made as level as possible At the fiddle-yard end of the layout there is a Feed and Seed Merchants which in Iain Rice's plan has a gated siding that allows grain hoppers etc to enter a loading bay It would appear on the plan that the siding ends at the back scene and when I had drawn out the track plan I found that I would only be able to store two hoppers at a time so I decided to extend this loading bay though the back scene and into the fiddle-yard giving some more operational flexibility The above picture shows the extended Mill loading bay siding as well is the first cassette which has an 18mm ply base and copper clad end ready for rails to be soldered too. Hope my ramblings are of interest more to follow tomorrow hopefully.

Yes I felt a sense of rebellion in the area during my visit to the Masons Arm this morning a lot of hushed conversations going on so me thinks something is afoot

Moss Bank was right opposite the back of my parents house and when I considered modelling the Liverpool Road station and the Chester West Junction the houses would have made a excellent back scene and would have been interesting to model as the left hand side of the road was shorter than the right hand side (hope that makes sense ) so the first part of the houses would have been the backs and the second part would of been the front view. This would have given real depth of field if modelled correctly. With regard to the Station building on the Liverpool Road which was just a 'tin shed' to be honest and in total contrast to the buildings at Blacon & Saughall which were quite grand. It should be remembered that this part of the line was built by the Great Central and the building on the Liverpool Rd is very similar to the 'tin shed' which was erected at Wrexham Central which I'm led to believe was purchased from a metal buildings company who specialised in Tin Chapels !!!

Just enjoyed a nice stroll down to the station at Pencarne this morning and watched some shunting in the yard ....what a wonderful way to start a Sunday morning ....off to the Masons Arms now for a pint

Once again your modelling determination is amazing it's a massive project for just one person and must at times seem over whelming but now the grass is growing there is light at the end of the tunnel. As for the walls well you started it have you any idea how long they take to build in real life !!!! I reckon you got it easy ....... Fantastic Jeff keep up the amazing work

able to past

we return to...

man in black man in black

Been fairly lucky this week and have not had to stop out in the wagon this week or ' tramping' as it's know in the industry' and have been able to crack on with the baseboard construction. One good thing about this way of constructing baseboards is that it becomes a bit like a production line and once the scenery levels have been worked out things going together fairly quickly, This has mean't that the second board soon takes shape and once the track bed is screwed into place along with the backscene the whole becomes very ridge. I like to curve the back scene around the layout corners as I feel that a 'square' corner just doesn't give the scenery any real to 'flow' and I have found that on small exhibition layouts one needs to blend the back ground into the main scene to achieve any real depth of perspective. It does take some extra work to achieve but I feel that it's well worth the effort and it also adds a great deal of strength to the whole construction which is always important when a layout is being taken out the shows. I have used brass alignment dowels and the old fashioned ' nut & bolt' joining method at the main board joint. 92:IMG_0010 (700x603).jpg] On the legs I have fitted adjustment feet so that the level of the layout can adjusted with ease Main scenic boards joined together for the first time. Well that's it for now for folks

Grimshaw my lad

from a safe

scorn from fellow

Well I've been lucky two days on the run ......... got home from work before 6pm both days.... so bit more time to get into base board construction. As this is being built as an exhibition layout I like to create a 'Theatre' type scene so that the layout is displayed to the viewing public as a three-dimensional picture with is animated by the movement of trains. To achieve this the viewing height is an important factor and I like to present the scene at eye level so the people viewing the scene on display don't have to 'stoop' . More Iain Rice thinking coming into play To illustrate this I have included a photograph of my Northgate Shed layout at the Bala show back in May this year. The base curtain was something of an last minute fitting as the black one that I had made was not long enough due to a misunderstanding with the lady who I ordered it from. I noticed that by presenting the layout at this height people tend to spend a good length of time viewing the layout as they can see the detail better at eye level. To get this 'Theatre' type scene I tend to adopt the 'flat pack' furniture method as I find that it reduces the weight and makes scenery construction a lot easier than working up from the normal ' window frame' base board method. It might well take a little longer to construct as you have to precut all the former's with extra care especially at the base board's end as they need to be identical to make a good base board joint. The ends of each side panels are routed as are the locations of each cross member's as are the board ends. I have employed aluminium angle to join the whole framework together and have used M5 machine bolts as fixings rather than wooden batons. My thinking behind this idea is to aid assembly as well as giving greater rigidity to the whole board construction before the baseboard tops are fitted. No nails paste is applied prior to the cross members being fitted. The layout legs have been made to 'just' slot into the under side of the boards as the following pictures illustrate And just to show the the last couple of nights handy work the first base board frame is successfully constructed. Will update when the next phrase of base board construction is completed

hi again. you are really pushing on with the layout looking good. Just for your and maybe others interest I managed to take some further pictures of the site as it is today Taken from around about where the station building once stood looking towards the enterance gate The road over bridge used to be at this point I'm about at the end of the platform in this picture the bridge was taken out when a gas main was put in many years ago. Looking down the road to the goods yard area you can see the old good shed on the right hand side pasted the main office building (the old which I sent earlier) You can see this building in one of your earlier photo's think it must have been some type of office. Hope they are of interest

Was wondering why the cat had it's paw over it's face in the first of the planning pics........it was those flip flops Has the cat given you any input on the planing stage ........... Don't worry about the lose of moj start to happen

up your own

Thanks Andy , you do realise that you are partly to blame for it's construction I've had so much inspiration from your Pencarne layout Having made a commitment to build this layout I'm afraid the mid night oil has been burning and I have been busy marking out the track diagram. I had roughly marked out the track plan on the age old decorators lining paper (the thickest that I can get my hands) as I'm not a great fan of planning software, just can't get my head around it to be honest, I find that a hands on approach in 3D is far better as I can get a good feel for the scene that I am trying to create. Once marked out i had a good rummage in the' everlasting' wood supply corner of the railway room and found some 9mm ply board that I had started a layout on years ago. It was intended to build an 0 gauge station area on these boards and most of the surface on one side had cork sheeting laid on it so it was a simple job to cut off the areas which were not needed, scrap it off with a chisel and sand back to the ply board. I mentioned in the first post that I wanted try out a couple of ideas that I personally have not tried before and one was to build my own point work so that i could get away from the normal preformed turn out and actually make them fit the location required. To enable me to get a flowing track formation I have have come up with a way of marking out the diagram with the use of a long type of 'french curve' I consists of the plastic moulding and can be purchased in most good large DIY super stores and it comes in the form of a 'T' shape. Hopefully the following photo's will explain it better. Picture 1: shows a close up of the plastic' T' moulding and how I have drilled holes on both sides so that paper pins can hold the moulding in place and the track formation can be marked out. The top of the 'T' which sits on the cork under lay is a couple of millimetres over scale for 00 gauge track but as I am going to be using C&L ready to lay track work and the point work will be produced using roller gauges and templates etc it should not cause a problem. The most important thing at this stage is to make sure the track formation has a good flow to it. Just as an aside in case anyone was wondering it is possible to mark out a 36'' radius curve with this moulding you need plenty of pins but it can be done. Picture 2: gives a longer view for the main running line of the track formation and one can look along the line to check the consistency with the flow of the curve that I am trying to achieve. Picture 3: Having run a black ink marker along both sides of the moulding it is then removed leaving a nice impression of how the track will look once in place. Picture 4: the second running line / run round loop has now been added with the aid of the moulding and before inking in the track alignment the six foot spacing was checked with a scale ruler. I also managed to get over to my local Building Merchant today and purchase some 9mm Ply board unfortunately they did not have Birch ply in stock which is my preferred base board material so the standard type will have to do. We are very lucky around here to have a builders merchant who is able to cut sheeting materials on a vertical saw which helps greatly in the production of model railway base boards as I can get lengths cut to the required size. The other great advantage to this service is I don't have to get the trailer out every time I need 8x4 sheets as once cut the pieces will fit into my estate car. So the main job today has been the final cutting of the outer sheets to the correct sizes which will form the carcass's for the two main base boards. My approach to baseboard construction is akin to the 'dreaded' flat pack furniture packs without the instruction sheets which only ever get read when all else fails. It does mean that one has to have a fairly good idea of the lie of the land before committing to the construction therefore the 3D planning process is important. Hopefully if I get a nice local job tomorrow and get home handy.... further construction can take place ....

I don't care what some people have said about this 08 model I reckon it's ok. It's just a shame that Dapol have not given some sort of feed back to comments since Telford

a good view

Looks like you missed the coupling