dmeaden

Hi David Good clear instructions and easy to follow. I also found the switch blades a pleasure to make! The fitting of the chairs mentioned earlier is much easier if you fit them with a short section of rail one at a time - a bit time consuming but works well and the spigots fit the point base perfectly using this method. This also means assembling the point insitu easier and then you can select the best arrangements for the rails that can then extend beyond the point base to make the track work smooth and level are reduce the number of joints and droppers. Good luck with the assembly! DaveM

Inspirational attention to detail as usual Tom! The yard effects are great as is the shed. I was wondering if the shed will span two baseboards and sorry if I missed it but what did you used for the concrete floor and apron areas?

I have been using fiNetrax for about a year. I built a test track like you suggested based on the A5 point and some track. I found all my stock ran perfectly and actually picked up better on the points than peco code 55. As a result I am using fiNetrax for the whole layout. The first phase is based on Langholm in the early 60's and is an total of 12ft with 10 points of various sizes. The track is wired with 0.3mm brass rod as I have found this more resilient than the drawn copper or stranded wire. Points are controlled by Traintronics DCC motors and decoder combined in one unit. I am very pleased with the results and have now built up a lot techniques for point and track laying. The track is laid on "cork" underlay with self adhesive strip to the 6mm ply baseboard. The track is secured with double sided tape to the cork. The points and track were cut to size and "dry" fitted to the trackbed before removing the top tape of the double sided. Leads were soldered as work proceeds with the track pulled out of the sleepers a short way to eliminate any risk of soldering melting the chairs. Points are held in place by two track pins temporarily positioned around the switch to limited the thrust from the point motor until the ballast has been finished (this helps stop the very small movement of the point and protects the relatively delicate point mechanism). The end result is very realistic and you can run all recent n-gauge stock without any modification (I have even run some older farish stock). As regards magnets I use earth magnets fitted between the sleepers allowing more flexibility but it does make alignment of stock to the magnets more critical for uncoupling using Dapol system! Good luck with your layout. Regards DM

Would imagine two motors would not work well with back emf potentially with the dual back signal disturbing the control - this would also be similar with DCC decoders? Just thinking aloud! DaveM

Peter I have used the sl76 with john's sounds a one micro cube speaker wedged into the cab roof. The sound is amazing for such a small speaker. Have tried the larger cube but the difference in sound quality didn't add up to enough gain to completely trash the cab space and then see the speaker through the glazing. Looking at doing some more this way soon....

Paul I have noticed on my set that when I replace the rapidos with the more appropriate buckeyes the power cars disconnect from the coaches as the power car coupling rides higher than the coach. This does not appear to be the case with the coach car roof heights on mine but the coupling angles when on curves. Any solutions as it is getting a bit of a problem :-(

Hi Dave In terms of motor - one would be best with four wheel drive. As for weight - can you make some of the weight removable ie in cab area so users with sound or clear cab requirements can remove the weight if they don't want to run prototypical length trains? Keep us informed of progress :-) Also I would second the need for weathered north east numbered loco (s) Best Regards

Hi Damian Can you pm me your email address and I can send you the updated layouts that I have - these could be a help in assessing the size of the scenic area to model at 7mm?

I have got most of it in autocad and on a few sketchy drawings for the old buildings. I haven't got the loco box but was going to do that from photo's. Most of the detail is taken from photo 's using the brick counting method where possibles and google earth to cross check. If this level of inaccuracy is acceptable then I can provide some help? David

And Damian you were the first to post your ideas here so keep going..... David

Hi Damian I really didn't want to put you off following your dream rather encourage you to get it off the ground and assist with any information that would be pertinent or useful. I started this layout about 20 years ago (in my mind) and have struggled to find the time to progress it. The result will be a "micro layout" on a single plank that will allow me to set up and run engines in short order and act as a "display Cabinet" for my loco collection in N. Your project will be on a completely different scale and have much more detail and cover a more realistic extent of the facility eg fuelling roads etc. There is a lot more to making a layout a reality than you can ever imagine and so many levels of detail to model, please do not be put off doing something similar in a different scale. Best Regards David PS and no problem sharing resources if you think I can assist!

Hi Damian This is the image of the depot I was trying to re-create - a classic spotters view! http://imm.io/16d8S (PS It wouldn't let me embed the image file so it has to be a link?) David

Hi Damian My N-Gauge layout is 4ft long with about 10ins for the turntable fiddle yard and it extends from the two road entrance lines just to the left of your pink line at the east end to the front of the shed. Would imagine that you would need that 70% distance again to get in all the fuelling points. In N-guage that means you have a 6ft 6in layout on view and so you would need 3.5 times that for S7? My estimate would be 23ft if done to full scale! And thats without fiddle yards although my belief is that you would only need one at the east end and nothing at the Kyle end as the depot roads come to buffer stops. I have not yet worked out how to include images in these postings so I can only refer you to the first image link on my last posting! It took me a long time to find a suitable size and aspect for the layout that epitimises the location.....

Hi Damian Just came across your thread and thought "great minds think alike"! Have been working on a suitable layout to store my loco collection and after years of trial and error had decided on a small "plank" layout 1200 x 400mm to provide a complete layout in N gauge! http://imm.io/162aw Complete with turntable for the fiddle yard and based on the front elevation of IS depot from the 1980's. http://imm.io/1628Z Yeah I know not 7mm but compact, space saving and manageable! http://imm.io/16284 I have a lot of useful data and some layout options if it can be of assistance in the future.... Regards David

Jamie I have a couple of poole farish ones going spare if your interested.....!

I am converting this great little model to dcc sound and wondered if anyone could confirm if the LED resistors are on the pcb or under the cabs. I haven"t risked applying any power to them yet so a heads-up would be useful?

Yes, but where do you put the speaker???

You think you've got problems with soldering - no you don't have problems with soldering - it will look great when weathered and ballasted. I am not sure I have the skill or more importantly the patience to cope with 2mm.....but it is fun watching it in detail and maybe one day when I have a bit more modelling time I will think about it..... Keep up the great work and the great posts - its an inspiration and well worth the effort Steve...