Neil_S_Wood

Just found this thread, I'm in Blackburn South not far from SRMan and DougN. Cheers Neil

About the time of my last entry I got a whole load of kits to build to build up my town scene which will occupy the north east corner of the layout. I got a few other items too so this entry should hopefully be more visually stimulating than the last entry's track fest. The plan is to have several layers of buildings to this to give the impression of a big city's old quarter. This will be bound by two main roads which will merge round about where the station starts and run along behind the station with the main road eventually disappearing under the tunnel at the west end. Before I got started on the building area the key thing was to start at the back and work forward. There was a problem with the backdrop due to the way I had fixed the panels together. I had used screws to fix the sheets of hardboard. I later found out that pva would be sufficient to hold them and now can do a seamless join. However, this was my first attempt and the backdrops were already in place therefore I needed something to obscure the screws sticking through the backdrop picture. Previously I had used trees to hide errors so I decided to do the same here. I just needed a bigger tree. So here it is; twig from the backyard with sea moss branches. The next step was to establish where the buildings would go. I have been shuffling these around for months but having now completed the new kits have come up with a configuration that I'm fairly happy with. I still have some thinking about what to do with the town wall but other than that this should be fine. I've ordered a few more kits of half timbered buildings to add in round the main square. I'll use the church and Rathaus as centrepiece buildings. I finished painting and weathering the Wienert buffers so they are all ready to go in. Will weather these a bit further when they are in place. I also got some brick work to use as walls for the sides of the raised shuttle lines. These are off the shelf and ready to plonk but with a bit of weathering look the part. I have moved the station to this side of the tracks as there just isn't room on the other side and it looks wrong. This is a view of the first layer of buildings. You can see the tree I made earlier at the back. This has been a bit experimental in that I am using polyfilla for the roads and thought I'd use this area as a test to see if it worked ok. The other thing is that access is a bit limited here so I am putting the buildings onto thin MDF sheets so I can remove entire blocks for maintenance or modification if need be. I have elected to use Bavarian flags rather than nazi flags. It will primarily be epoch 2 but will also be epoch 1 a lot of the time too. And, put simply, there's no way I'm having lots of nazi flags round my layout so Bavaria it is. I still need to source appropriate street lighting etc but will add these items as funds become available. I'm trying to source more 1930's posters and shop front signs to change over the ones that came in some of the kits. I'm having to modify some of the older kits that I have as, when I built them, my attention to detail wasn't the same as now. Also having got glasses last year I can now focus on detail again. Most of what's seen in these pictures will be hidden behind the town walls and rarely seen but I still think it's important that it looks ok for those rare occasions when it is seen. So from here I can complete the city square and roads and tie up this end of the layout. The next bit will be the service yards at the other end. So there's a plan. Hopefully it will all work as intended.

Really impressed with your layout Dave. I grew up in Fife and have been using Waverley station as far back as I can remember so I know it very well. You've done a great job of it. Really captured it well. Cheers Neil

Apologies in advance this entry's a bit boring I'm afraid. I've been focussing on my track and trying to get it all laid. I got another three points and motors which I've installed down the front of the layout. These were intended for the service yard but the points were far too big for the area I have so I used them for more express train platform access. I have also installed the point switching kits included with the points. I've stained the track and painted the rails on all the track. This was fairly time consuming but it's all done now. I'll hold off on ballasting until I've done some more running to check it's all ok, installed platforms and signals and done other related stuff. So here's the pictures. Starting from the right hand side view. Now over to the left hand side. This section at the front is the most recent addition. Some closer shots. Bit of an over view. The white stuff is to get painted and will be cable conduit. A few things were waiting on me installing another backdrop to the left hand side of the station area. I did this the other day so this has opened up a whole load of things I can be doing. First up was to finish off the shuttle lines. I've extended the raised shuttle lines round the back so that they are a decent length now. I've also wired them up so should probably get round to testing them out before ballasting. The other thing I will do before ballasting is scenicing them into the layout so that the ballast won't drop off the edges. As it currently stands the lines are sitting on a plank. What I need to do now is to add countryside to this. Just the day before a very large box arrived from Germany which had loads of buildings, buffers, walling and an ESU BR215, so well pleased to see that. The day before a smaller one arrived from Orient Express in Adelaide which had Viessmann signals and some more Tillig points. Unfortunately I didn't think to order the point motors as well so that was a bit of an oversight. Orient Express were nice enough to include a printed sheet with lots of information on signals and the correct positioning so that's a big help. I'd done a bit of research on the net already but this is quite handy. The Viessmann signals look great but are pricey and I need quite a lot. I don't see my layout getting populated with signals in a hurry!

Thanks Keefer,Yep that was the last layout but now I'm thinking I can improve on my mistakes and maybe even do it in P4. Probably Lower Largo where the viaduct crosses the harbour area. I could maybe use the castle again too. Kellie castle it was by the way. Cheers Neil

Looking good Rick, look forward to the return. Cheers Neil

I had a Scottish layout previously covered in this thread; East Fife, Plockton and West Highland where I tried to cover most of Scotland in one layout. Probably wasn't a great idea in retrospect. Unfortunately it got destroyed when I demolished the garage (and the house) to rebuild. My old threads still there and am planning a new Scottish layout. Currently doing an era 2 Bavarian layout. But can see this getting finished in the next year or so. Still having decisions to make about where in Scotland the new layout will be based on though. West Highland or Kyle line or East Fife? Once I get an idea what I intend to do I'll start a new layout thread. Here's a couple of pictures from the old layout.

No probs Peter, just give me a shout when you want it. Cheers Neil

Pictures in post 2592 looking very good Peter. Were you going to grass over the banking on the left side of the bottom picture? You're welcome to borrow the grass master if you need it. Cheers Neil

Thanks Peter, It's developed a bit since then. I'm just gradually migrating my blog over here. Cheers Neil

This part is the bit I'd been dreading most of the entire layout. The issue is that I needed two shuttle lines right at the back of the layout next to the backboards, and, I needed to install the backboards after I had installed a fair bit of track. I had a fair idea of how I was going to do this and had spent a fair bit of time thinking about it so off I went to Bunnings (local equivelant of Homebase or MFI) to get all the materials. First part was to assemble the backboards. There were to be two of these which would interlock in the middle to provide a town backscene appropriate for a Bavarian town scene. I'd have liked a city scene but you have to work with what's available, and Rottenburg was available, so I took two of those put together. First up the one that would go in the back right corner. Here's the basic boards; ..and here it is again with the backdrop pictures applied; Yep the corner looks a bit messy but there's a plan to sort that. It'll all get sorted by the time this gets finished. Next up is the straight section which will go to the back left. This was easier to make; So far so good. Yep it's the same picture twice but there will be sufficient other items in front to prevent this becoming immediately obvious. Next thing now is to start on the shuttle lines. Due to the innaccessability of this area everything will have to be created, installed, laid, weathered, sceniced etc before instalation. These sections will have to be lifted in their entirity across a metre or so of track. Yep, it would have been a good idea to do this first before installing all the track, but this is real life and things don't work like that in real life. So I have now transported both backdrops through to the train room for further work. This is the left backdrop with attached base for shuttle lines as brought in from the garage/ workshop. From here it gets track laid and wiring done, ballasted, a bit of weathering and integrated into the back scene. Once this is done I raise it to eye level to finalise things before the big lift; Ok I have now laid the last two pieces of track to the right and the curved base and track section to the left. Now all installed and ready to go. Cables have all been labled for future wiring. This needed to people to lift clear across the other track section to the rear. The plan was to position the rear left part first. Once in position the rear right part would slide into a slot which would hold the two backdrops together. I did this initially and guess what: it was an inch too long. I had to remove the rear right backdrop and take an inch off it. That was fun! This picture shows the two backdrop sections fixed together. Rubbish lighting I'm afraid however that wasn't my priority at the time. I've glued the two sections together and held the top part with a vice. Parts of the base have been screwed into the baseboards to keep the structure solid. You will note that this backdrop pretty much blocks out most light from the window. That's intentional. Sunlight here is strong and will bleach colour and melt plastic. I don't want any of those expensive models wilting in the summer sun. The window goes down to the floor in any event and will allow some light through the bottom part. This is the join where the two back drops meet. I've used a tree to conceal the join however the sky doesn't match. Bit unfortunate but may be resolved by airbrushing at some future point. This is lengthways view from the right. The trees integrate reasonably well into the backdrop. View from the left now. Overlap joins more visible from this angle. I'll fix these up when mixing more wallpaper paste for the next batch of backdrops. Overall view of the entire backdrop. Looks ok from a distance. I intend to have different backdrops all the way around the layout. I think a decent backdrop makes a big difference. The plan from here is tidying up what I have done, scenic the back part and get the shuttle line operational. I have plenty new track and some more points and motors to instal so that'll keep me busy. I've got more building kits on the way so I can fill up the city area to the right. I'll add a further country backdrop to the left and forest over the join in the corner, then finish up the end of the shuttle line. Still deciding whether to have it go straight or to curve towards the operating area which may be more convenient for taking off and putting on stock.

Well, have done a fair bit more but it doesn't really look it. Most of what I have done has been rewiring and point instalation. I got four more points and motors installed. Went to buy some more Tillig flexi track from the Orient Express stand at the Caulfield show when I was there the other week but they had forgotten to bring the flexi track with them. Ended up buying some points and motors instead. Have them all installed and connected up now. There we go; that's 300 bucks there. Doesn't look it really, does it? We're looking at the bit in the top left. Installed the ECoS detector. Took the opportunity to tidy up my wiring at the same time. Went fairly smoothly but has made me have a bit of a rethink on the decoders I buy from here on. What has prompted this is that the ECoS detector has 4 ports which will show the loco in the block if the loco is railcom enabled. Initially I thought this was great , and still do, but what I then went on to notice was that very few decoders actually have railcom. In many I am finding that the railcom enabled box is disabled and astonishly this includes the ESU ones which have been provided to loco manufacturers for factory pre-instals. I have tried writing 46 to cv 29 but it won't take, I'm guessing because the decoder doesn't have railcom at all. This seems to include the Loksound 3.5 which are quite recent. My problem is that this seems to be the bulk of my stock. If I'd stayed with Lenz Gold instead of installing sound in them all I wouldn't have this issue now. The ones which seem fine are the loksound 4's. I've now been doing a stock take of locos to see how many actually have functional railcom and it's not much, five so far! So good that there's a new feature but not good that very few decoders respond to it. I did notice something on the ESU forum today which mentioned a product you can add to an existing decoder to allow railcom to identify the loco. Couldn't see anything on ESU's website about it though but I'll keep an eye out as I'll need a few of those. I was tending towards the Zimo decoders but am now convinced that there is a use for Railcom so will be heading back to ESU in future. I like the feature which shows which railcom enabled loco is on the section. Ideally I'd like to see a version of the ECoS detector which showed which loco was in every single block. I'd been looking at buffer stops and have decided to go with these Weinert ones. They're brass and dear but quite good. Most of the other options I had tried were a but flimsy or didn't really fulfil their purpose well. I'll go with these ones I think. This shows the trackplan and where I am up to so far. Still have to joing up some of these points as I'm out of flexi track. To the top left will be a service yard for coaling, sand water etc. This is the space I have for it. Not sure how many points I'll need but will get a few as it's always loco storage. Still juggling buildings and looking for the best arrangement. I've settled on a big square after the main gate and before the cathedral. This bit on front of the main gate is causing me the most grief as it's an odd shape, triangular because the tracks are branching out up towards the station building. What I've got at the moment is the backs of the buildings facing the tracks and the fronts looking towards the main gate. Still not happy with this and not sure where to go. I'll keep at it and see where it ends up. Overall view here showing how it looks looking east. So just waiting to get some flexi track to close the gaps between the points and create more storage space. Need more points to expand the service yard and add more lines to the station and do the rear shuttle lines. I also need to get onto the backdrops as they will need to go in next so plenty to do.

Have a good trip Rick and we'll catch up at some point. Cheers Neil

Hi Peter, I'll have a bit of a look and see what I have. Most of it is stuff from the old layout so Scottish style cottages, there was a couple of Townstreet buildings, some shops. There was a few scratch built buildings including a pub. I think Jeff said he had a meeting in August so you're welcome to have a look if you're up this way. Great pictures as always. Hi Rick, nice to see you too, hope all's well. Cheers Neil

Yep that's right. It's set in era 2 30's and 40's in Bavaria. Cheers Neil

Hi Peter, what sort of buildings were you after? I've got a few boxed up from the old layout. Yeah I still have ballasting to do as well but it always keeps making its way to the bottom of my list. Cheers Neil

It had been a while since I've been working on my layout I've forgotten what I needed to get and what I already have. I did have some of this information on spreadsheets but am not able to find them either now. For example, I could have swore that I had 4 Lenz LS 150's (point decoders); 1 that I'd broken and 3 that worked. Couldn't find the third working one so ordered another. Lo and behold, I'd just bought another one when I came across the missing one the following day! Inevitable really. So, after that, I went through all the storage boxes to see exactly what I had in them. Found most of what I had with soem nice surprises too. Still a couple of missing items though. Also changed over my stock from era 1 to era 2 as this is what I will be running mainly. I had a couple of base board areas which still required completion. One which would only hold buildings and was going to be constructed of lighter plywood. The other area was a square hole in the main station area which I'd left for access. I did have a square bit of chipboard on the floor underneath the layout which I had always assumed to be the piece which filled the hole. I tried it in the gap and surprise, it didn't fit at all. No idea how that came about! I then cut a new piece of chipboard to size and fitted it so the track work can continue when I get more in a couple of weeks time. The other bit that needed completion is the bit in the right hand corner here. I cut a piece of plywood to size. Doesn't need much strength here as only buildings on top. Now the plan was to have parallel shuttle lines running down the very back of the layout. I had already cut some chipboard for this. However, when I married up the cut chipboard with the bridge sections it seems that the bits I cut were too narrow. I'll still be able to use some of it but will need more. This picture shows where the shuttle line will go and the difference in size between the two bits of chipboard. This also gets further complicated because I will be attached the backboards with backscene to the back of this. I'm having a bit of a pause to think about this. My current thoughts are to scrap the previous stuff I cut and just buy more chipboard and cut it to the right size so that it fits straight on both sides. The section below will be the old town and have old world buildings. I have a few in storage which I can use. The plastic bridge to the left is the one which the shuttle lines will cross. While I was doing this I thought I'd pull out the buildings I had for this section to see what I had. I was going to order some more but am now thing the ones I made weren't bad so might make some instead. There's certainly some space to fill. The walls will go round the edge closest to the rail lines. This view shows how it will fit in with the main station area. On the opposite side of the station area I was going to put in some services like coaling sand etc. The size here will be limited by the curved shuttle line cutting in and arching round. I had already cut the base board for the shuttle line so this will give you an idea of the space available. I might have to recut this and make it wider next time though. Not completely convinced there's enough room but will build all the items and move them around to see how it all looks. I had originally intended to put the turntable in here but, clearly, that's not happening. I've run out of track now so in the meantime I'm building all my kits. Have a bit of a backlog of these. Might scratch build some new buildings but will see where I'll place the existing ones so that I can tailor the new ones to available footprints.

Hi Peter, yes mate. Doing a fair bit at the moment; struggling with digital control of German signals at the moment! I'm bringing my blog over here gradually so you can see what I've been doing. I was trying to see what you did with that new bit at the back of your layout but am working my way through still. Plenty to catch up on. Looking really good though mate. Cheers Neil

I had a bit of a hold up with construction of this layout back when I was building it. Funding had become an issue as we just had our new house built and needed to buy lots of stuff for the house, create gardens, driveways paths etc. Then my wife got sick and was unable to work for a year however all back on track now and work on the layout had now resumed. There's a few things happening; lots of kit building for the city scene and railway yards, track laying, point instalation, electronics instalation, board building and backscenes. Kit building I'm building the kits with one coat of paint and not bothering to detail or weather them. This is more so I can move them around and get them in the right place before finally settling them in a permanent location. Once a permanent location is found I'll finish off the painting and weathering. Track laying Have laid two circuits of the boards and am in the process of adding yards as time allows. The wiring is loose and in choc blocks until I get my ECoS detectors after which a more permanent form of wiring will be done. I have already isolated all lengths of track in anticipation of the block sections. Point instalation Using my favoured combination of Lenz LS 150 and Tillig motors. Yep, they are noisy but then you know they've sprung. Ran out of LS150s the other day so more on order. Will finish of the last points I have when this arrives. Only two left at this point. Will get more later in the year. Electronics Had been thinking about moving to Zimo but don't think it gives me anything more and costs a lot. Will be staying with ESU for the duration. I don't think there is a better controller out there. I think my issue was that, having bought the ECoS when it first came out, it is the black and white screen version. I'd like the colour but don't need two ECoS's so can't really find a reason to buy a colour one. I'd like one but it's a lot of cash only for the colour screen. I'd get no additional functionality. I suppose I could get round this by using software which I was thinking of before. Maybe further down the track I'll get a lap top and use RR and Co? Anyhow having decided on sticking with ESU I've ordered the ECoS detect modules and am waiting on them coming. Will do a bit of rewiring then. Board building For this section of the layout board building is almost at an end. I made the last board for the rear right corner the other day. It's not been put in place yet as it will be in a difficult to access position. I intend to add an upper level which will be one terminus of the shuttle lines that will run along the back of the layout. I'l fix this in and also the back boards will be attached to this too. The plan is to try out all the buildings for this area before hand and come up with the best fit, do the paths roads etc before putting it in. Currently I'm using it as a workbench for kit building as shown below. Backboards I found some ok backscenes on sale from Modelbahn Kramm which I've ordered. I'll modify these a bit but some of them look ideal. The city I'm building is modelled on Rottenburg and the back scenes seem to be just right for this. Nice size too 40cm high, which isn't bad. I was just thinking the other day about how much better it is having a designated railway room actually in the house rather than having to go out in the garage. It's heated, has air con and I don't have to go out in the rain. If I get a spare minute I can just pop in and do stuff rather than it being a minor expedition. Here's some pictures of where I'm up to. This is the main station area. This will have platforms etc. The area to the left will be coaling yards and other services. The area to the right will be old town. At the very back of this section will be two raised shuttle lines where I'll leave two locos to shuttle back and forward. I will mainly focus on era 2 but will occaisonally run era 1 and 3 if I feel like it. This is the track laying at the main station area. Still ongoing and probably will be for a while. This is the duck under bridge just as you come in the room. It is still a lift out section but I will be nailing it down as it's not too hard to duck under. I've tried to make the layout pretty close to eye level as there's no point buying highly detailed stcok and detailing your layout if you can't see it. Besides if the kids can reach it, it's history. On my last layout the kids liked to play on the grass section with their dinosaurs when I wasn't looking! Triceratops can play havoc with your grass and scenery. This area is to the immediate right as you come in the room. This will ultimately be hidden behind backboards and another layout will be built at the front part. Still not sure what I'm going to do here. Originally I had wanted to build a Scottish coastal scene but am still thinking about this. Another option would be turntable and sheds but I'll leave that for now as I have enough to do elsewhere. That's where I'd got up to at this point. I aimed to pick up some more track at the Caulfield show as Orient Express usually come to that and they are the guys who I buy my Tillig track from locally.

Layout's looking really good Peter.

Looking really good Peter.

Looking very good Richard.

I got round to finishing off the base boards. The track plan isn't really finalised and I have to do the initial tracklaying to see what will work. The layout, or rather the track I'm laying, is for the Bavarian layout. The plan is that this layout will occupy the main base boards as depicted below. There will be an eight track station with a city scene behind . Still deciding on whether turntable is feasible or not. These are the tracks that go round the edge of the room. There are remnants of the old layout here which I hope to incorporate into the new one. These take the German lines behind what will be the UK layout. This is the line that will go behind. There will be a backdrop on front of this to conceal it. In order to gain access to the layout a duck under or bridge was needed. This is it. It is not fixed down so can still be hinged to make a flap or as it is; a lift out. I found a good supplier of cork for underlay. It came nicely packaged in very precisely cut sheets. I am also still thinking about a large board for storing the ECoS and a laptop as the aim is to have it all computer controlled. This is the size and sheet of MDF I had in mind. One of the idea's I had in mind was to attach it to the underside of the layout however while pulling it out to take this picture I realised how heavy it was. I am now thinking about making it into a wheeled table that can be pulled out and stowed away when required. That's all for now, next step is to lay some track.

We knocked our house down and built a new bigger better one and out of that I got a bigger garage with a bigger workbench, a room for computers and models and, best of all, a designated layout room inside the house which has air con and heating. No more of that layout in the garage nonsense. We moved in a couple of months ago and the dust has started to settle on the sorting the house out. As my time has freed up from house stuff my focus has shifted back to hobbies so I have started building a new layout. The room is 3.5metres by 4.5 metres and will feature two layouts on opposing sides of the room The plan is rough and ready at this point. Some parts are fixed and others I'm still figuring out how I am going to do. I have made half the base boards and will do the rest once I get some free time in December. This is one of the baseboards. Most of the base boards will be this frame format. It'll help to keep the weight down. The majority of the layout will be train line running through scenery. On one side of the room I will make a scene based on Lower Largo with viaduct and harbour. On the other side I'll have a German city scene modelled on Rottenburg. This will have a station with about six platforms. The main line from this layout will go round the back scene of the lower Largo layout. Both lines will go around the room. The current problem is the Lower Largo line will have to go round the front of the German station when it is at the other side of the room so I am looking for ideas to disguise or hide it. Anyway here are the two benches where the station and city scene will be. Ignore all the crap underneath. It will be covered over at some future point. The track will be 130cm high all the way around. The lower benches are 110cm high and will feature a raised track. This will allow me to have slopes coming down from the track bed. I'll also have to have some kind of a raising and lowering bridge for the track at the door to allow access. We'll that's it for now. I'll post some more once something noteworthy happens. cheers Neil

Great Pictures Peter. Looking really good. Cheers Neil