Si2020

A quick photo showing the station building wiht one of the kit built locos that are used on the layout.

Had a couple of sound fittings come in recently. One was the new Bachamnn 94xx and Bachamnn 9F. The 94xx had working lamps fitted bth front and rear with the rear one being able to show both white and red depending on direction of travel. The 9F also had working lamps fitted with the lamps programmed to show either express passenger configuration or express freight. The top lamp will come on and off as part of the freight lamp code but can also be switched on and off as required. It also had a rear lamp with both red and white being able to be shown and firebox flicker. Unfotunaty i didnt take a photo of the lamps working or the firebox flicker working.

Hi all, The grass was soon added to the top wall. It still needs the a bit more work even now and finally i hope to get the bridge in over the track and we have been looking at putting a signal in as a bracket coming off the top of the wall. Will have to make firm plans as we hopefully have a show for March next year and a possible magazine article.

Due to the size of the layout, being just under 40ft long, we only get chance to set the layout up at shows or on our working weekends. The working weekends consist of 2/3 long days were we just work down the list of jobs/snags that we have come across. The photo below was taken during one of those weekends and gives a nice view up the layout that you normally can't get due to the bridges being in the way.

Been a while due to varous factors, some of which I will go into in the future. Has this on the bench recently a re-spray of a Hornby sentinel. I'm currently on with another one that is going to be a bit different.

The steps up to Station rd.

Track laying was started with the inside point and the stock rail with a hour or so of threading chairs on to the rail.

A view that you don't normally get when the layout is up, taken whilst doing a spot of track repair after a rail got pulled out of a couple of chairs at a show. Thanks

Next up has been crossing construction. Now just to add to the fun (they do say the hobby is fun......right ) I had to have the crossing V jigs custom made as i have 1:12, 1:13 and a 1:14 and the ones avaiable from the 2mmFS assocation stores only go up to 1:10. I will take a photo of the jigs when I next get the box out but this is the result of about an hours work Thanks

Thanks, I found it easy with or without the sprue attached. The key to it all is getting the end free of burrs so that the rail slides in nice and easly and dosnt slice the chairs in two. Curved point baldes are the easy bit in my eys but when my first go at point building was a 1:8 curved 2mmFs point then anything after that is easy.......isnt it??

Hi all, One of the issues with a round layout is you have to have curved track work which means handbuilt track work, well I didn't really have a choice as you have to build your own track work in 2mmFS. So after gluing down the templot plan I made a start gluing down the sleeper strip. Lost count how many there was to glue down.

Next up is a N gauge class 28 3d printed body which came in to be painted. After several hours of sanding the body to remove the print lines in places it was treated to a few coats of phoenix BR Loco green post 54.

First task was to ake up the plain line work using the 2mmFS easi track track bases which as you may be able to make out is a sprue with two sections of base per sprue. I spent several mornaing and evenings threading the rail in to the bases after dressing he end of the rail. When you build things you find little short cuts to make things easier to do and again as you can see in the photos I first started to thread the bases on to the rail using the same side of the sprue. This reduced the amount you could thread on so I would have to keep cutting the bases off the sprue,slide the bases down and start again. One morning by accident I threaded the other side of the sprue on and found that you could put more bases on without cutting the sprue and get the bases in the correct postion. This improved the production rate and I managed to get all the track for the front made up in just over a week.

Having been part of the EM team that worked on the track project I can give you a slight in sight in to the cost....... Without giving exact figures (as im sure the EMGS or Peco wouldn't want me to give them out)but to give an idea if you have enough cash to buy a high end large family car then you may have enough to get plain track base and a left and right hand point done. A lottery win would help if you wanted to expand the range quckly.

Hi all, So another layout of mine that has been stalled for a good few years now and I though posting it up on here may give me the reason to get it back out and start work on it and the possible exhibition invite for October 2021. Please excuse the bad photo as its the only one i could find of it before I made a start on the track. The layout is 4ft 6 inch across and folds in two for transporting and stoage. It will be DCC with computer control to enable lunch time covers at shows and also to allow me to set it up at home and watch the trains go by.

Whilst we where exhibting at the 2019 Derby exhibition we had this visitor on the layout for the weekend This isnt our work but its was built by a friend of ours BUT it is on the list of future projects to be done.

HI, I think I've got a bit of crossed wires. Re-reading you post, you are going to use P4 wheels for the narrowness of them to hopefully give more room on the wheel face/wheel boss to fit inbetween the axles boxes?? This may be ok but I would still expect you to have to remove some of the back of the axles boxes on some models to enable the wheels to be abe to be set at 21mm, bearing in mind that the 21mm masurment is rail top to rail top so doesn't include the rim width size which will add extra width needed

I think you may have got the EM and P4 the wrong way round as the P4 wheels are wider apart than EM and may require you to remove some plastic from the back of the axleboxes to get the P4 wheels in (asuming you are using P4 wheels gauged out to 21mm. Since I've been brain washed by those suppliers of green boxes (I'm blaming them for this next bit ), Hope fully in the new year I will be making a start on building and layout to 21mm as I already do 2mmFS, EM, P4 and scale & so doing Irish railways to 21mm is the right thing for me to do. Yes you will need to make sure your track work is built to a fine tolernace but you can always do what quite a few P4 exhibtion layouts do and use EM wheels to give a deeper flange to help with the track holding aspect. Yes that does happen and a lot more than people know

Thanks, at one show a well know modeller called it the Satanic North when he first saw the layout which I think describes it well.

The station area