Kirley

After all that wiring I had to take a break and run some trains. Class 201 No. 229 with an Mk 4 rake Class 201 No. 8208 with an Enterprise rake NIR CAF 3000. Here is a short video:

I take it from your pictures you are going with the brass chassis and you have a decoder fitted. Have you test ran it yet, looking forward to seeing it finished.

Vibrant is the word that jumps out when I see this layout, excellent work.

I’m sure it’s a great feeling of achievement Stephen to reach this stage at last; you must reward yourself with a few hours just watching them go round and round.

I redid the Control Panel Box making it larger and then brought all the wires from the Points into it, red (Storage) on the left hand side and blue (Main section) on the right with an area left for the remainder of the layout yet to be built. If you think adding dropper wires was fun wait until you try this! The lid for all the control switches has been covered in Perspex and switches for the Storage Section added. Now to connect it all up. It seems ages since I ran a Train!!!

Again welcome to the Site. It will be great to seeing your experience been displayed in your new layouts development.

Thanks for sharing Patrick

No extra resistors required and as you say they even remember the point position when you turn the power back on again.

They are from Heathcote Electronics, WWW>heathcote-electronics.co.uk

DCC Supplies. You can order from USA but the postage and time delay are prohibitive.

This post was originally posted on Sunday but was lost when maintenance on the site was carried out. I’ve been putting off the onerous job of connecting all my points to a central control panel until now. I had all the wires running through the layout and the first job was to get them across the floor area so I made this trunking. To take them up the Control Panel base wires were encased in the framework and emerge inside the Control Panel base. I am still not decided on the size of this base. As all my Storage Section is out of sight I need to know what direction the points are facing so I got these contraptions but have yet to work out how the correctly wire them.

Thanks Ger for your useful comments -keep them coming. I was hoping that through the dirty windows all you would see is a big dark lump like a Diesel Engine. As for the cab... it’s still on the etch but I could cut enough back (about 10 mm) of the plates to give me a floor base for the drivers seats. If that does not work then it’s back to the drawing board.

I take it by now these posts are lost, should I re submit them?

Cut out all the glazing except for the Cab side windows, a slow process especially the way I do it. Cut out one, leave it and when I come back cut out another one. When I fixed the white metal sides to the Hornby bogies I found the space between them was 26.7 mm. The fuel tank supplied was 25.7 mm so something had to go. As I did not want to touch the Hornby bogies I decided to take off about 2.5 mm of the white metal fuel tank. To ensure good traction I kept all the weights from the Hornby Chassis and had a hole drilled in the steel to give access to the bogie pivot and wires.

Stephen, my posts are still missing and I remember in one there was a reply to my post which I answered, curious and more curious!

I did about 4 or 5 posts last night, still missing.

All my posts from last night are still missing?

That's a repeat from last year but well worth watching it again

Used Barl's suggestion of the ribbed edge of a CCD case.

Thanks for the update

I put up a number of posts last night and this morning after Site Maintenance they have disappeared?

I was working on the windows when I remembered an aide I had used before. It’s digital callipers, I got mine from Halfords. Using the bottom front of the model as a base line I used the callipers to mark out the windows top and bottom. The sharp metal edge of the tool can be used to lightly mark a straight line. That’s the best I can do so now it’s cutting out glazing time. I’ve decided to use the Class 55 chassis and it has been cut and shut and the white metal bogies added to the wheels. Progress slow but steady.

With all the ongoing scenic work track maintenance was neglected. So it was the ideal opportunity to try out my new CMX Clean machine. First I cleaned all the rails with a drywall mesh wrapped around a piece of wood. Then using nail polish remover (NPR) I dampened a paper towel and laid it over the tracks. Then holding the locomotive on the paper towel with power on, the wheels are cleaned with the NPR as you can see by the residue left on the towel. The Clean machine was easy to use, top it up with NPR and slowly haul it round your tracks. I have turned it on its side so as you can see the dirt it lifted.

Looking good Kevin