Noel

Guys lets chill and give the mods a breather - its time consuming, difficult at times, a thankless role and difficult to get the balance right and please everybody. I'm sure they as much as anybody like banter and good humoured 'craic' on this form, so as long is its harmless, never gets personal and doesn't cross certain lines or break the obvious rules. I've seen week moderation destroy other vibrant forums leading to a minority gradually running amok and ruining it for everybody, and other forums where the moderation was over zealous and killed off the traffic. Personally I find the moderation policy here a good balance and the tone and good humour on here a pleasant relief.

Some really nice photos. Nice to see more locomotives than boring ICRs.

Fools and their gold!

Sadly nowadays little boys (and even some big boys) prefer to spend more time passively watching something entertain them on LCD screens rather than toys of yesteryear such as model trains, scalextric, meccano, climbing trees or kicking footballs, etc. Hence the demise of hobby stores in general.

They seem to sell toys and all manner of other stuff too https://www.facebook.com/mcculloughsbangor

They look great. Looking forward to the rest, and WOW that's an incredible layout.

Ahem - has this thread entered la-la land?

PS: I liked JM's plan with the option to remove the reverse scissors half way down the platform. That plan has a lot of operating potential.

Hi Westport You are quite right the design of the baseboard and track plan need to be taken into account. How much depends on whether the baseboard will be fixed, moveable (i.e. house move), or fully portable. If the latter, joints in the baseboard need to avoid points and if possible the joint in the baseboard at track joins should be as perpendicular to the track as possible to make track alignment easier when reassembling layout boards. That's a whole subject in itself. As you said consideration should be given to positioning of points to avoid joints and structural cross members which make point motor installation and ongoing servicing easier. Routing and trunking for under board cabling also worth thinking about. In some cases it may not be possible to avoid placing a point over a cross beam, but there are ways of siting a point motor a few inches away from a point (i.e. rods, rod and tube, like model aircraft controls, etc). There are many different and equally valid methods of constructing baseboards, from one level table style to 3D layered open systems using lots of foam or timber lattice structures. All I can suggest is the old proverb "keep it simple" Noel

Hi Westport. Good luck and enjoy the planing for your layout. I only comment because you have requested same, and hope its of use. One of the mistakes some of us myself included make is to have too much visible track density that may not actually increase the operating potential. Getting the ratio of visible storage sidings to running track is a personal preference and a balancing act. Not sure what track work you are planning to use, but if you use flexitrack and streamline points rather than set track you will manage to better utilise the available 11ft x 5ft, which is a good size, and also avoid the layout looking too geometric. Also use of curved points at the start of curves can save a lot of space as well as add to visual appeal. Again this is just a personal preference, but consider avoid having all non curved track dead straight. Using track work such as peco streamline code 100 or code 75 also allows for closer track separation and can avoid the set track toy train set look as well as save space. Best advise I can give is to plan, plan, plan, before cutting, nailing or gluing anything down. I used to make up "dry loose assembled" sections of track and point work to test how they might fit and look before committing to fixing anything down. You can use paper templates, but there is nothing like actual track to give you visual feedback. If you loosely tack down your finished track work before committing to ballasting, you can test operate it and make any changes before permanently fixing it and ballasting. You just never really know how operating options really work until you get to operate and shunt trains and rolling stock. Hope this makes sense and is of constructive help. Noel

Glad you enjoyed it. Yes I will get an LMS or GWR express running when I get a chance to DCC convert a few of my old tender locos. I've only DCC'd a few tank locos so far. As to the sound, there is a 141 sound coming from one loco on the upper loop, and I added a few sound effects to the clip while playing with iMovie which is new to me. Used to use Pinnacle Studio for video editing before moving to mac 2 years ago.

I love watching videos on your fabulous layout. The lush green scenery and atmospheric buildings are fabulous. That station building complex near the end is just superb.

Well its a free world so if somebody in the past up the cash to buy this stock in the first place, free enterprise gives them the perfect right to do with them as they please! Even like James May, who paid for the right to throw away the boxes of stock he bought at a specialist model railway auction on the recently posted BBC clip. (obviously deliberately done for dramatic programming reasons). Being the 'boffin' he is who likes vintage everything, I bet you in real life he keeps all his toy's boxes.

€75 for three wagons, thats €25 per wagon, which is just a BR wagon repainted - I think not

That looks superb. Love the roof light shadows cast on the rear wall.

Hmmm crazy price for a mere Lima with a poor chassis, not to mention a less than popular loco livery

Classic Dave

Glad to hear it

Mind you this 905 was a good system in its day. They could be plugged side by side into an array with rows of hornby point levers placed on top. I still have one but gutted the innards around 1978 to put a scratch built inertia controller in it. Mind you this was "THE ONE" everybody wanted but couldn't afford. It was the best of the best in its day. The HM& Duette

A Hornby one from that era HM 2000 Which was a massive improvement on the 4 step Hornby Dublo controller I first used. I remember the unique click click click noise it made as you rotated the knob.

1. Sharks cannot get into the canals (i.e. cannot jump over multiple lock gates) 2. Most species of shark found in Irish coastal waters cannot survive in fresh water 3. Its a very poor attempt at a hoax

that looks more like an RC shark!

[video=youtube;Hcu-dE3LUuo]

I'm distracted playing with model trains too much - need to get on with scenic landscaping work! Short video a bit amateurish but fun driving model railways Hopefully by the time I next play with iMovie there will be some greenery for the trains to run through

Looking good. I particularly like that last photo scene. Your dead right. I'm 22 years at our layout and I haven't even got near the beginning of the end, put perhaps nearing the end of the beginning thanks to inspiration from the incredible railway modellers on this forum.