SNCF stephen

More progress on the railcars. In the above picture you will notice the new cab for the X5600 that has been stuck into position and the alterations to the front of the X3800 to make it look more like the inspection vehicle X3900. Also note the citroen vans that arrived yesterday. This view affords a better view of the X5600 cab. It is not quite perfect yet and perhaps needs new front and rear sides but the rest is good and I am pleased with the scale of it. The base boards are also making good progress. Another day of working with my father in law has achieved a very nice extension to the main board: Also in the pipeline following the extensions being completed are new electrics to replace these: Terrible electrics aren't they? I am looking at options to make the next system easier to construct and also easier to find problems with. As always, thank you for reading. Stephen

Thanks Patrick. Just posted a track plan, its early days yet but it gives an idea of what I am trying to achieve.

I promised that I would do a layout plan to highlight how the layout will look. I have taken the time to do that today and here it is: Board 1 is the original board. It has seen some remodelling of the station tracks to give longer passing loops, more room at the depot and more siding space with the option of using one of the sidings as a third platform. Board 2 is the extension module I have built. The woodwork for this is largely done and the track has been partially laid. It is a small halt in a rural area that features a lot of woodland. There may be forest roads and areas of woodland that have been cleared. The station will have a small building and there will also be a small goods siding. The railway runs over a viaduct which traverses a valley. Board 3 will see a bridge run over the line carrying the road down to a small lake where there will be a camp site. The line splits into two to allow trains to be stored.The frame for this section has been constructed. Board 4 has two tracks allowing one to be used as storage space as required. An extra siding may be added to increase capacity. This section will be removable to allow access. Board 5 I have not decided what I want to do with board five yet. The frame for this section has also been constructed. Board 6 is the fiddle yard that has been extended to accommodate more trains. This might be modelled as if it were on the outskirts of Limoges. There is scope to get an engine shed and have this at the end of one of the lines. So thats the plan. Plenty to do. I am looking forward to creating the lake and the valley sections the most. For comparison here is the original layout plan: Feedback is very welcome at this early stage of the build process. Thanks for reading, Stephen

From baseboards to rolling stock there has been some progress which I am actually quite pleased about. Starting with the baseboards, My father in law has helped out with some of the construction of some frames that are going to be supporting the link to my new module. The only picture I have of any relevence to this is the Cobalt Point Motor in the new module which I installed on the same day we constructed the frames: I will get to work in drawing up a track plan for the new set up in its entirety. Safe to say that my layout has expanded from a single line terminus with dimensions of about 5 foot by 1.5 foot (plus a 2 and a half foot by 1 foot wide leg for the fiddle yard) to a round the room 6 foot by 6 foot loop with an average scenic width of 1 foot around the entire thing. To cope with the extra traffic I intend to relay the main station and change it from a single line terminus to a layout that is more conducive to running longer through trains (and also allow my corrail stock to fit into one of the loops). Therefore all of the stock was put away and the track gang in the DU65 Draisine was hard at work examining where to make a start with this project: In other news I have been working on 3 railcars at the same time. The first one is my X5800 which I have had on my work bench for some time. It has made some progress and the cab has now been installed on the roof. It was also sprayed using a can of Halfords Spray Paint. In the store it looked a good match for the Cream colour used on the X3800's but when on the model it did not seem quite right so I am repainting it, still it looks a lot more complete now than it did: As well as this railcar I have also recently purchased some more chassis for other projects that have been lingering in the background. One of which was a chassis to go inside the X5600 body. This was a Kato tram chassis (the 4 wheel kind as opposed to the 8 wheel two bogie kind that I used in the X5800). This required trimming and the doors from the body needed to be removed. These will be replaced with slimmer Plasticard doors to allow the motor to fit easily. I have also been rebuilding the cab for this model and have constructed a roof and a frame which will support some more elaborate sides: I have also purchased two TM-08 from Tomix to allow me to motorise my other two Del Prado railcars. I was very pleased with the performance of the previous TM-08 and this is no exception. I would definitely advise anyone who needs to motorise something to use Tomix. The first of these railcars is going to be a simple repaint, it is going to have a red roof (which is a rare livery for an X3800 but there were one or two that did have it) and the bottom red skirt of the railcar will also receive a repaint as the Del Prado job sometimes leaves a bit to be desired: Finally the last piece of rolling stock that will be on my workbench is another X3800, except this one is going to have a bit more surgery, this one is going to become X3900 (see my previous blog entryfor some actual pictures of where this lovelly railcar is now). Which means this railcar needs doors relocating, new doors drilled and filed down, windows removed and added as well as a new paint job (a rather drab green with whiskers similar to the DMU's from the UK). At the moment I need to gut the insides so it will fit onto the chassis: So there has been a lot going on and with any luck there will continue to be a lot going on. As always, thanks for reading. Stephen

Cobalt suggested the use of the Adaptor in their manual. As long as it is DC and low volatage (you might need to check but between 4 and 9 volts springs to mind) it should be ok. Mobile phone adaptors, battery chargers etc all do the job equally well as long as it meets the spec. Since I am only running one I am not putting in a complex system of powering it. I will be using a switch that changes the polarity with each press to activate the motor. I have now installed mine into my new module and I will be updating my blog at the weekend (unfortunately its my birthday tomorrow so that has gotten in the way of the blogging ) Tortoise was definitely first. These are relatively new on the scene. They were recently reviewed in Model Rail (about 4 or 5 months ago) and I have only seen their adverts recently.

I am using a Cobalt on the extension to my current layout. It is a nice piece of kit and operates very smoothly. I shall be installing it physically in the next few days but it will be a while before I get to actually wiring it up. I am running mine from an old phone charger which will be linked to a switch to change the polarity of the power supply with each flick. It is a bit smaller than the Tortoise motors and although it is similar I believe the mechanism to be much improved. I look forward to seeing what you do with yours. Stephen

I had completely forgotten about those. I look forward to having a look at them. There is no rush for them though. Thanks Stephen