birdbath

Hello again. As promised, here's a few more photos of the layout. First up, Here's a pair of 47s. Parcels 47474 on a ballast is passing Large Logo 47535 waiting in the shunt neck. '535 has now moved down to the GPL, ready to be let into the yard and onto a train. A Buxton 108 set passes going the other way. The 108 is my most recent addition. It's a 3 carr. set, which has been fitted with replacement internal lighting, passengers, corridor connections and Roco close couplers. Usual underframe grime and a light wash of weathering to the bodywork and roof. Finally for now, a portrait of 37422. This is a partial re-livery of the Rails of Sheffield L/E run of 37427 in ScotRail livery, rather than the recent standard Bachmann release. As per most of my locos, it's fitted with a Loksound V4 decoder with the excellent Legomanbiffo projects. I've fitted a large speaker in the fuel tank, following examples from several RMwebbers. This really makes a difference to sound quality. The bogie side frames have been re-fitted a little closer to the body, replacement buffers (Hornby) and pipework have been added, along with a more discreet coupling loop for tension lock stock. All my locos have had the lighting functions modified to provide independent control of head and tail lights, regardless of direction. The Bachmann ones are dead easy, but the Hornby 31 certainly tried my patience! Regarding the actual layout, I'm still waiting for an opportunity to fit a proper backscene to the section behind the depot (as discussed previously). Unfortunately, the best way to do this involves dismantling that side of the layout as it's hard up against that side of the room. It's all designed to come to bits, so that shouldn't be an issue. It just takes time! That's it for now. I'll try and get some more photos uploaded soon and possibly give a bit more detail on rolling stock, if anyone's bothered! Regards, Roge.

Evening everyone. Apologies for the lack of updates over the last few months. I'd love to be able to report on some exciting progress, but that'd be a big fat lie! Actually, the layout has been covered in dust sheets almost constantly. Work, young family, other activities, (insert 1001 other grown up things) have all contrived to relegate GDB to bottom of the list. Not complaining, it's just how it is. Anyhow, I did manage to run a few trains a couple of days ago and had the camera to hand to record my efforts at reliving the early 1990s. When I've got a bit more time I'll get these edited and uploaded. Interestingly, after a few months of inactivity, one of the TT300 point motors had packed up. Initial investigation and dismantling showed no obvious issues. Only when I hooked it up the programming track did I find that it had managed to re-address itself. Hmmm. How on earth has that happened?? Happily after reprogramming to its intended address, we're back in business. Don't try and tell me this DCC business doesn't contain an element of black magic!! Roge.

I know what you mean. I think whatever you do, it helps to have at least some scenery between the track and the backscene, as a few others have mentioned. Obviously space is always at a premium, hence the track being right at the edge! Such is the nature of train set compromise!

Hi there. Yes, that sounds a good plan. I've even less space to play with, having just checked and found about 40mm from nearest rail to the edge. But I'm thinking of thickening up the static grass and adding a lot more in the way of bushes and foliage along that edge to provide a better blend to a backscene. Thanks for your suggestion. Roge.

Hi All, Thanks for your kind words. Yes, your back scene does look very good. My only concern in doing something like that with mine is how it would look along the straight in front of the depot. The main lines are right up to the baseboard edge here and there's only only ballast and a bit of greenery between the track and falling over the side! (You can see the bit I'm on about in the initial set of pics, between the signal box and the over bridge.) Any back scene along here would have to give the impression of distant scenery viewed as if you were looking over the top of an embankment, if that makes sense? Roge.

Evening everyone. Not much to report on the layout front, bar planting a few more trees and bushes and a bit more detailing. I've been pondering adding a backscene, but can't really decide if it should go right round the layout or just along part of it. More thought required. In the meantime, here's a few shots where I've experimented with adding a backdrop on the PC. It's a first attempt and I'm open to suggestions re colours, etc. 37046 passes the rear of the depot Later in the day the same loco emerges from the exam shed, while class mate 37422 ticks over on the next road. A 26 passes on the main line. Meanwhile, two 47s wait on the fuelling point. And finally, a pair of 20s head to the seaside with the Reggie Rail set.

I've been attempting to add a bit more detail to the over bridges which form the scenic breaks. It had been bugging me that for some reason I'd not included any representation of the stone work where the spans sit on the abutments. ​These were knocked up from some rectangular section plasticard and glued on. It would have been much easier to do this when I built it in the first place! Think it improves the appearance though.

To round off the description, here's a few lines on the electrics and control of the layout. I'm a big convert to DCC. Returning to the hobby, pretty much starting again, I didn't have a backlog of elderly locos to retro-fit with decoders. I can see why this would put a lot of people off. Wiring on Guide Dog Bridge follows standard practice of having a buzz bar or ring main running round the whole layout, with droppers connecting to the underside of the rails where required. The ring is joined across boards with plug/socket chocolate block connectors. The droppers are soldered direct to the underside of the rails at convenient locations, cutting away plastic sleepers as required. (This can be tidied up later) The ring main end of the dropper is connected up using snap fit connectors as used in the motor trade. These are really quick and simple, saving a lot of time crawling round underneath! Ring main with auto parts connectors, chocolate block plug/sockets across a board join and a TT300 in the background. As mentioned before, points are motorised using traintronics TT300s. The beauty of these is that you don't need a separate power supply. They are just wired into the ring main, just like a length of track. The only thing to be careful of is to assign new addresses to the motors as you go along. Otherwise they all respond to the same command to motor and then all change their address when you try and change that too! The working colour light signals are by CR. I must praise the excellent service received from them. Despite ordering what were effectively custom made variants, my goodies arrived 3 days later! I'm very pleased with them too. A three aspect stop signal with position light sub controls entrance to the yard from each running line, while various GPLs control access out of the depot, etc. Interface to the DCC system is via SignalList SC1 decoders, supplied via CR signals. Again, I must praise the help I received from Paul Harman at SignalList in setting up the decoders. I'd have still been messing about with it now! An NCE Power Pro provides the main control, the handset being plugged into a fascia panel on the board frame in front of the depot. The transformer and chocolate block connections to/from the layout are mounted on a shelf just below baseboard level. One side of the fuel pad doubles as the programming track and a switch on the shelf connects this short section to either the rest of the layout or the programming track connections on the power cab, as required. Although the NCE handset can be used to motor individual points and illuminate individual signal aspects, layout control is almost always done using JMRI software on an ancient laptop PC. This is connected to the Power Pro by a serial cable. After much head scratching and seeking advice from JMRI users both on here and on their own forum, I managed to set up the track diagram to work as an 'Entry-Exit' or 'NX' panel. This is basically a form of route setting used in many power boxes around the country, though now being replaced by the ROCs with their computer and automated control. For now, the signals have to be separately cleared and replaced to danger. In time I have plans to add this to the NX operation, possibly using IRDOT units. Once again, thanks are due to all the people I've consulted whilst trying to set this up. It's very satisfying to call a route which requires about 6 points to change, watch them all motor across, clear the signal and watch your train snake across. Screen Shot of the JMRI panel. At a recent running session, we experimented using the WiThrottle app on mobile phones. With all devices hooked up to the home wifi, we had a mix of two android phones, an iphone and the NCE handset driving trains round. A couple of snags were experienced, such as my long suffering partner shutting the door to the room with the router, cutting everyone's wifi access (all trains stop!) and one operator being unfortunate enough to receive a phone call (his train stopped!) Still, it shows what can be done. I also use JMRI's decoder pro software for easy programming of Locos. Although it takes a long time to do a full read through of a Loksound decoder, you've then got all this info saved on the PC and changes can be made very easily. Hope all this has been of some interest.

Right then, where had I got to? With the trackwork all done, I had a go a few basic bits of scenery. There isn't really a great deal of it! The cutting sides are made using formers of 5mm foam board, with several layers of wallpaper paste soaked newspaper draped over them. At board joins, two identical formers were fixed next to each other and the newspaper layed across. When dry, I sliced through between the formers with a scalpel. A coat of watered down PVA was applied to seal the newspaper. Then several coats of earthy brown emulsion with a biot of plaster mixed in to give it some thickness and texture. The greenery is a mix of static grass in numerous shades, bushes and small trees from the woodland scenics range. I got a bit carried away with the static grass and also put a few weed patches in the depot yard. I did have a bit of an experiment with trying to add some foliage and scatter material on top of the grass, but I'm not sure it's really worked. A friend is building a 7mm scale swiss narrow gauge layout and has produced some stunning effects with this technique. Maybe I'll have another look at it. The road bridges that form the scenic breaks are from the Wills range, as is the run of arches that form the backdrop along the opposite side to the depot. I've never been quite happy with the way the arches just end and run into a low cutting, (See the Pic of the 26 passing the 47 in the headshunt) and I'm tempted to modify this bit with another over bridge so the arches are effectively framed at either end. The buildings are from the Scenecraft range. I can understand why there's a bit of snobbery about using off the peg buildings. Ideally I'd love to build my own. Also I'd love to have built my own track in P4, converted all my stock, etc! Maybe when I'm retired! For now, they're a quick fix and for me, pretty effective. To regain a little credibility, the fuel point is kit built from the Knightwing range! One of the more recent activities has been starting to add details. I've really enjoyed this part. Speed restriction signs, point levers, point motors, cable troughing, location cabinets, depot clutter, couple of period vehicles, a few figures, etc have all been added. I've tried to tone everything down with a bit of weathering. Sometimes all this consists of is a coat of matt varnish and a wash of thinned matt black, but I think it helps things blend in. That's enough for now. I'll get round to describing the electrics and signals next time.

A few quick photos from my phone. Apologies if the quality isn't quite up there. Activity on the fuel point. Outside the servicing shed. There's obviously plenty of overtime going at GDB, check out the XR3i! Quick fuel and check over before another club train duty.

So, I'd got as far as the track being down and having extensively tested it/rewarded myself with a load of playing trains. Next job, which I was dreading, was to start ballasting. The track was air-brushed with a mix of various humbrol and railmatch enamels first. I did experiment with a woodland scenics rusty rail pen but wasn't really convinced by the affect. I'd have wanted to spray it all anyway to tone down the plastic sleepers. Next the ballast, a mix of various woodland scenics shades, was dry brushed into place. Great care was taken with this, particularly round the pointwork, leaving room for the tie bar to move freely. Once happy with this, the airbrush was used to spray on tap water. You must do this from sufficient distance that the air pressure doesn't blast the ballast out the way. But of course sometimes it does! With the ballast nicely soaked through, I carefully applied a watered down mix of copydex (with a drop of washing up liquid, just like everyone says!) using an eye dropper. This is the stage I find most tedious and leads to many a 'hobby review'. I found that doing a couple of feet at a time was about right to maintain sanity. After leaving for a day or two, vacuum up the waste and move on. Can't remember where I got the copydex tip from, maybe it was in the C&L instructions for the chamfered cork? But it's proved to be an excellent method. Unlike PVA, it dries quite rubbery and allows the track to flex a little. I guess this must make it a bit quieter running too. Finally, when the whole thing was finished, out came the airbrush again to tone it all down again with a light dusting of similar colours used in the first place. Once the railheads are all cleaned up and you've brought yourself down from the ceiling after all those fumes, it's time for another 'extensive testing session'.

It's a long running bad joke between a few friends, partly based round the once important east Manchester junction of Guide Bridge. All my layouts have been called Guide Dog Bridge. This effort is GDB3!

Thanks for all your comments and interest. I'll try and write a bit more about the layout tomorrow.

Interesting point. Ideally I'd like to have some form of shunting yard, oh and a station and some carriage sidings, and so on. However, In the end I decided that I'd rather try and achieve one aspect reasonably successfully rather than shoehorn in too much. The depot won the day as, like most of us I suspect, I've got far too many locos for the amount of stock! In terms of play value, there is a rough sequence. 4 sets of stock are on the layout at any one time. One going clockwise, one anti-clockwise and two in the storage loops. (two loops closest the main lines) When you're fed up of the two trains going round, one is routed into the third loop from the main line. It is replaced by whichever set has a loco on the right end from the two storage loops. The newly arrived train has a loco dropped onto the opposite end from either the yard exit line or the headshunt at the other end of fiddle yard. The line nearest the inside through the fiddle yard facilitates loco moves for this purpose. You've now got a free storage loop for the next main line train to occupy, being replaced by the set you've just put the loco on the other end of. And so it goes on. I think I worked out that after 64 operations, each set has gone round in each direction with different locos each time. To add to that, you can divert the speedlink trip into the depot yard to swap fuel tanks over and drop a stores van off, etc. Of course, all this goes out the window when anyone turns up with their new toy for a play! It's a trainset at the end of the day!

Well, maybe the odd one creeps on!

*** Please see page 6 for some replacement photos to view with this description *** After years of using this forum as a source of inspiration, I thought it was about time I put something back in and described my efforts to date. Welcome to Guide Dog Bridge. Period is late 80s-mid 90s and location a mix of Midlands and North West. This is about the time I got into railways seriously, with sectorisation liveried locos and stock mixing with BR blue. Privatisation is being mentioned, but for now it's just a wacky idea that probably won't come to anything... This is actually the third start at a layout since returning to railway modelling after getting on the property ladder and embracing being a 'grown up'. The first attempt showed my ignorance and suffered from some poor planning. The second was much more ambitious and ran round the loft perimeter, measuring over 20ft long on each side. A further house move put an end to that and in truth it was too ambitious. I'd go into the loft, get totally overawed by the whole thing and wonder what I'd started. The present effort was started around 4 years ago. It measures 10ft X 7ft overall and occupies the spare bedroom. There's a crawl under section across the doorway, which can be easily lifted out if needed. Design work was carried out on the PC using AnyRail, which I found excellent. The library of track components mean you can arrange point work to avoid baseboard joins and cross bracing. The curves on the main lines have had some transition added, which I think helps avoid the set track look. There are three 5ft X 2ft boards forming an L shape, then three other smaller boards. See diagram. Construction is from 12mm ply, with sides and cross members being 4in deep. Sides and cross bracing are glued and screwed together round approx 20mm square posts. Tops are more 12mm ply. Most of this was cut to order by my local timber merchant, effectively giving me a kit of parts to assemble at home. The separate boards are fixed together with metal dowels, as I think is common practice. To ensure decent alignment, I clamped the board ends and drilled them together with a pillar drill prior to assembly. Legs are made from large section softwood, with adjustable feet supplied from the same people as the alignment dowels, Station Road baseboards. The legs are fitted to slots on the inside of the ply sides, between the corner posts and another section of the 20mm square section. Everything is clamped together using bolts and wing nuts. Once assembled and levelled out with the adjustable feet, the track plan (which had been printed out full size by a friend with access to a plotter) was stuck to the tops. Now you can start to see what it's going to look like. It's also probably time for a celebratory drink, once you've put away all the woodworking gear! Returning to the plan; the main elements are a continuous run double track main line, with depot along one side and an off-scene storage yard round one of the ends. One end of the storage yard is modelled, suggesting the start of a fan of sidings at one end of the depot. Whilst the 'diesel depot layout' may be something of a cliché, it suits me and it's my train set! Track work is Peco code 75. I've modified the points to get rid of the over-centre spring mechanism as this wasn't required with my choice of motors. C&L chamfered cork strips are used to form the track bed. These come as half width and are stuck down with the inner edge to the centreline of the track, which is plotted as an option in AnyRail. The track was laid across the board joins as if they weren't there, then when the PVA glue had set, sleepers across the joins were cut out. Copper topped strip was slid in place, pinned to the board edges and the underside of the rails soldered to it. Finally a dremel was used to cut the rails. I've found this to give excellent running across the joins and has stood a trial disassembly/reassembly without any trouble. You can tidy up the appearance with some bits of plastic sleeper and ballasting. Points are motored using Traintronics TT300s. These have a DCC decoder built in and also include switching for frog polarity, which I've taken advantage of. Although not cheap, I managed to negotiate a bulk order discount with a friend and our regular model shop. With this discount, they work out much cheaper than using tortoises and buying accessory decoders. They're also much simpler to install, quieter and physically a third of the size. So far I've had very few problems. One decided to pack up, which was eventually replaced by the manufacturer after a bit of a fight. With the track work completed, it's time for 'thorough testing'. Or alternatively, a right good session playing trains. It amounts to the same thing! When I get round to it, I'll write a bit more about the rest of the construction, operation, stock, whatever else. For now, here's a plan and some pictures to give a rough idea what it's like. Layout Plan. Overview. Lift out section in the foreground, fiddle yard in the background. Line up on shed, as a 47 passes on a metals trip working. A busy moment on the fuel line. A blue 31 runs onto the shed, while a parcels passes on the main line. 31 hauled ballast passes the back of the shed. S&T workers make use of the cable troughing and prevent the location cabinet from falling over. 47 waits the signal off the headshunt, while a 26 passes with the speedlink trip.

Biff, I may have asked this before, but any chance of a 37906? Sure it'd be a popular addition to the list, given the popularity of the real loco and the availability of an off-the-shelf model from Kernow... Cheers, Roge.