Sean

Quick progress on this one!

Excellent, im going for 1970's but passable as 60's by changing out the cars and rolling stock. the dockside module feels like its gonna be a real "layout in a day" piece as learning to cobble was going to be a big annoyance for me but for standing i have everything in stock and ready to go, and its one of the first things to be done! to tidy up the massive crack ive taken that panel off and as soon as everyone is awake ill just give it a shave again with the chop saw to bring it back to a square edge and ill offer it back up with the square edge facing the baseboard join and screw into place, that will close it but creates a mid baseboard crack then but as you say it is easily remedied with filler. As usual ive just built the baseboards from crap left around the place, this time an ikea cd holder unit that fell apart and the boards just happened to be the perfect width, whilst free it does create the work of a lot of filling in the little holes and chips around it. so that is to say I was going to have to go heavy on the filler one way or another anyway and its no real extra work!

found it, and now im very intrigued, was the clew heritage centre an ex railway building by any chance? i get the impression that the line may have ran paralell to the road road behind the wall where all the yachts are parked out of water. it then curves in behind or infront of the clew center(good store on 25 inch i THINK) with the point into the 2 seperate sites just beyond that. not sure though. its squinty work reading all these old maps and comparing to modern imagery. I think i have given myself way more geographic references than i need now given how small the layout actually is. whats the story with the really low sea levels also? it seems to be down on some maps but not others, making things ever harder to trace than they should be.

some non railway shots to add reference points hard to see any evidence of a railway today except for what we know from geohive. would those old buildings in the foreground possibly be the mills you are referring to? on important point that has been annoying me, i see no evidence of cobblestones really at all. where there ever any? call me lazy but if i could get away with the dock being on hard standing it would make me a happy chappy indeed lol. shame this part of it has been forever lost to time. although ive been amazed by what we have found so far and who knows what will appear going foward. hmmm maybe if i look at some of the older maps and squint really hard it will come slapping me in the face

A small but significant job has been carried out today. My most recent build had been wracked with derailments pretty much anywhere the track crossed from one base board to another. So I am very conscious of it this time around. So I salvaged these dowels from an old kitchen table and went about adding them to the dock They are basically the exact same as the DCC concepts product. But without the price tag. Unfortunately this has highlighted some of my raggedy carpentry skills as clearly the panel for the station baseboard has not been cut perfectly straight . Not a huge worry as I have plans to partially rebuild the middle board, for the moment my main concern is that the trackwork joins up accurately every time. And without fishplates, which if does. It's only a small panel anyway, which I can easily replace, or I could open up the gap a bit and stick in a stream. Although that may get messy As stated in the first post, I have been rushing to get this part done quickly as once I get the track laid down to the dock I want to again remove this module and work on it as a standalone piece. I want to build it up to as close to exhibition standard as I can get it. This is due to it being a living room piece but also as future practice for any exhibition layouts that I might decide to build. I won't be holding the station module to as such a high standard as this will be more so a place to play trains, eventually it will get the full works treatment also though but I'm thinking longer term there.

Ah so heres where we deviate from history. The line up to the goods shed never existed however the dock line remained in use for regular "dock stuff" right up until 1977 and seen regular loading right up until the very end. Going along with the "backwater" or auxiliary line description, I have more 121 class's now than any other loco and to be honest i actually quite like how they look running bonnet forward (attracting me to the earlier liveries in the periods which i do not normally model), so going with the concept that there is a turntable at a main station 2 or 3 miles away it gives me a nice precedent for bonnet forward running, ala barrack street. Occasional goods works very well as it also means the required rolling stock can chop and change "as needed" the little goods barn thing is not at all dissimilar to those DWWR station houses that are being discussed on the other thread. Agreed. Had no idea this set of photos existed and it fills ina lot of gaps re scenery and the station "house" which has me rethinking some things i had initially set out for such as the abandoned platform, I could easily put a little abandoned shack on it and the oddly positioned watering point seems like a no brainer to put in somewhere. a favourite of mine for planning old lines. and of course it raises another question. did the dock line always stop right where it does on the 25 inch map here or would it have ever continued on further down the quay? handiliy one of the buildings i am waiting to print is actually a little weighbridge shack that should go in nicely just over the road on the dock module. are there any more photographs of the railway infrastructure on the quay, or even the quay itself to see what sort of buildings were on it and what sort of brickworks would have been used back in the day to build it. Agreed, and it goes back to what i was saying on the other thread. the gauge seems a lot wider in this than in a lot of videos, but also the sleeper density, there are a LOT of sleepers down under this track and that kinda makes me think neither bullhead nor code 75 would actually look "right" if used to model this line but in the same regard that it could be argued that code 100 does not really look "right" at all unless its got an american loco running over it. why is there essentially no ballast and a heap of grass on the tracks in places? looks very cool but maybe a challenge to model.

Now theres a house i can afford.

as anticipated the baseboard and trackwork have happened very rapidly indeed! Minor trackwork adjustments as always but the overall plan has not changed and the dock module has a straight transition to the other board. The compact size means two of the boards can be permanently joined for improved point running. Some placeholder buildings and platforms gone in the usual stuff that may change in time. My priority here is finalizing the trackwork so I can break away the dock module and work on it exclusively for a while. I also need to find a reliable way to join/split this module and keep the track aligned. I can get the dock module progressed fairly fast as I have most of the items to finish it in stock Except for some scalescenes buildings I still need to print. Deutz at the dock! 132 shunts accross bog land! was torn on whether I will buy or make the dock walls and cobbles. I have some nicely sized polystyrene bits in stock and loads.of filler so I said I'd see what I could rustle up after a few YouTube videos. First and second attempts respectively. Very pleased with the second attempt and I might salvage the first one yet as the filler is very forgiving (it's also rock hard in under two hours!) Should look the part once painted up and washed. Even a light sand from here I am thinking would work wonders on them but that's for tomorrow to know and me to find out. I wanna get a bit more prototypical with this, despite the vagueness. So probably going to have to pick your brain for some of the local goo/knowledge about specifics of this line and backdrop from time to time This particular track plan which you uploaded/authored(delete as appropriate) many moons ago has always stuck with me as one of particular interest, Alas, the length has always made it super challenging to effectively build everything as i would have liked it to be. I think ive found a very effective balance here thats going to look super interesting when the board is more decorated up.

132 calling at the lake with the railcar on a summer heritage excursion. Unfortunately little has happened over the past 2-3 weeks as i have been getting over some illness however i did decide i should tear up the continuous loop and start again as the thing was just fraught with derailments due to being on a terrible set of baseboards. that did give me the chance to alter the plan a little yet again and change most of the small points out for express points. it has really cleaned up the look in particular around the hard sweeping turns into sidings which have now greatly smoothened out. it should also decently improve running once i get back up and running. It has also changed the alignment on the double tracking pulling it in to a more realistic looking distance and seperating the 2 sidings from the run around loop. Still the same few bits to call it "finished", I have just been particularly lazy as of late.

If theres no room in the Jail for anto the rapist and his 300 previous convictions then what hope is there for a trio of "Art enthusiasts" who either do not reside in the state or have an easy means to get out of it. On the balance of it, that would be a far more serious crime. Is the compensation awarded enough to cover the cost of damages and repairs?

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/news/hornby-cancels-the-titfield-thunderbolt-train-set/

Although the other layout is not yet finished, I have been talking myself into building a small inglenook that could be Placed ontop of the main fish tank in the living room as a place to display rolling stock on. Well ambitions have gotten the better of me and that idea has now morphed into somthing a good bit larger. Had been looking for a prototypical location to base it on which narrowed me down to 2 completely different scenes. either the south facing yard at greystones (omitting any kind of station), or westport quay and branchline to the dock(also omitting the station except for the loading platforms). I also did not like fintona, as unusually i did not want to have a run around loop due to space constrains. however in the end it was realised that without it a very long headshunt would be needed regardless so tried to squeeze one in as best i could. Greystones would be simple, but westport has been a favourite of mine since getting back into the hobby and would give the opportunity to model a real bit of "countryside" rather than having a layout completely centric around a yard on station. we all love wesport to the point that it has been done to death, but its a very versatile little terminus. SO i got to work on making the smallest iteration of this plan that i could with the following constraints: it has to be built from existing in stock track and it must follow the rules of the inglenook game. it also MUST incorporate the dock scene to be located in such a way that it does not feel incredibly bunched in ontop of the station and as part of the same facility. a LOT to ask but i have an 8 foot wall off of the slaney lake fiddleyard, so it has been designed to fit into this space. taking this length into consideration, and the fact that I still want a fish tank display piece, I have designed to build the layout over 3 baseboards which I will A. allow me to work in phases, B keep a module downstairs as i am working on it or to be left as the display piece whilst i am building the others and C allow me to later make other modules which could extend or change scenes within the layout as i will explain below. The track on the right at 250 will be the existing fiddleyard which will be laid with traffic from both layouts in mind and a clear thru road for layout to layout running. The dock module on the left will be quite simple with an extended single track down to a small dock area built to accomodate 3 wagons plus a locomotive with the level crossing gate shut, this module will be built first to later become the living room piece if and when desired. it also allows for a small branch off through bare boggy land to the docks and creates a feeling of seperation between the dock and station. short 3 wagon loads can be pushed and pulled from the dock which in real life would be a couple of miles away. the middle board is essentially westport quay station. scaled down to as small a size as possible whilst maintaining the rules of inglenook. the headshunt will be big enough for loco+3 and the siding will just accomodate 5 wagons. the station house and platform have long since closed and all that will remain is a old abandoned platform with plenty of weeds etc growing up out of it. Quite often we see stations modelled in quite a detailed fashion with the yard areas either omitted or very much scaled down. I want to challenge this concept by focusing on the goods, with passengers being an afterthought or simply nonexistent, this makes sense from another point of view also. Era wise I am aiming to be around 1970s with the main stars being my supertrain 121 and 141's But a caveat to this is that i also have a grey 121 which i am wishing to run on this(and BNT on the shopping list) and lets face it is going to see all manner of stock when connected to my other layout so the era is simply going to be "loose goods" and left at that. lack of any station signage and only generic sort of road and dock signs from the general period should mean that by lifting all of the cars and rolling stock and changing them for those from a given decade means i will be able to change between given eras depending on what i want to operate at the time.. my other layout is very rigidly sticking to half of a certain decade whilst this one will allow me a bit more freedom in that regard. the railcar will also operate on occasion to the abandoned halt. but rarely. the station also has a through road. meaning with given space the middle module and right modules could in time be used with a continuous loop of track to create a round and round circuit. The third board is mainly just a means to connect to the fiddle yard with some space left over for some boggy fields. the loop is on a bend and squeezed into a tight space im mostly planning on running dapol loose coupled stuff, with the slightly bigger couplings so im not as worried about issues here but it is a concern. running older stock like this also means it should be more forgiving on the hornby trackwork, which is once again reluctantly being used but actually makes sense for this one. Another version of the third board will also eventually be built which will just be a bufferstop and headshunt with no connection to another layout. for standalone use should i ever want to use the layout away from home. Plans wise its pretty simple. I'll get all my baseboards built at once, decide on an underlay system and lay all of the track, from there ill split the layout back up and build a board at a time starting with the docks. Expect progress to slow as i am still finishing the other layout but the boards and trackwork should happen quickly enough.

The larger express type points are far more reliable than hornbys little points, they also plumb into set track geometry without issues. you cant do this with any of the larger peco points from what i have found however for smaller points peco ones are very reliable and hornby ones are the devil. I think the peco curved point may be the same as the hornby one but im not 100% sure, peco have a template you can print on their site. railmodeller express will allow you to plan the layout in peco.

I think its a lovely looking steam choo choo that is not necessarily being marketed towards prototypical scale modellers. Maybe some people just like collecting jintys or their only concievable space to build in O gauge is out in the garden. And as i said in the other thread. it will most likely look smashing with a whole heap of grey dapol vans following it! not every toy train we buy needs to be pulling the exact set of toy trailers that it pulled in real life along an exact carbon clone of the exact same railroad it travelled along in real life.

There are far too many Zeros on the left hand side of my bank balance on days like today....

Im pretty sure they are not, hence the appeal, conveniently they are swamped with a backlog of appeals at the moment. so It would have made a lot more sense to just pay them the 9 euro. Between this and addresspal making it up as they go and not being able to prove the money has actually gone to customs it does make me a little bit suspicious of where that money is going. Im not the only person online who shares these suspicions.

Just so you know. Anpost are billing for customs on packages sent from the north right now. Currently have one in appeal. Not sure if I'm just unlucky or the NI protocol doesnt matter anymore as I sent in the appeal over a week ago and have heard nothing.

These are exactly the kind of trains my layout will be catering to, with a particular focus on the tipp liners as they were prototypically very short and i am limited to a fairly small run around loop so it makes sense. stock wont be prototypical to any one particular line though. I try to focus on stock that could have plausibly ran on the infrastructure of my layout so avoid things like cement bubbles for which i have no loading facilities for and focus very much on palletised and containerised stuff as it suits my kinda layout. safe to say my saving up for a couple of tara packs has turned into saving for a couple of fert packs, and its why im crying out for curtainside cements and some sort of 20ft flat chassis. A much slated loco but i have been thinking about it lately and i actually just love mine too much to sell, it has super crawl performance for the motor supplied and im going to DCC my one for when the RPSI mk2's are out and they will be shared between this and a grey 121 They actually look half decent towing a rake of grey dapol boxes as well. I dont really care too much about accuracy when running steam stuff so its pretty much all rule 1 there!

briquettes not actual turf.

now this is good news with such a small run, and recent ramblings around moar beer kegs, I cant help but think just what other P42 goodies might be on their way to us in the near future. and what about tiny little forkliftable bales of peat to go into our newly unveiled 48 ton variant?

I dont mind waiting as long as i know what im waiting for so im not out shopping for alternatives when an RTR is coming.

There's a magnetically fitted panel somewhere in the jacks that you have to pry off to reveal a 21 pin socket.

I thought that as well, and to be fair he made it abundantly clear that he was nitpicking because he could find little wrong with it, he was definitely a little hard on it in the performance categories and im sure if he had spent a little more time with it instead of rushing out the review to compete with all the other ones that are popping up he might have gotten the few little teething problems ironed out. Its the same standard of review that he gives to all manufacturers and to be fair he takes plenty of opportunity during the review to use this loco to bash the others for not even coming close to what accurascale have achieved with this loco. the carpet thing is just his solution for having a big layout without a whole lot of free space. I dont think its particularly bad, we get to see how the stock runs on less than ideal surfaces.

I built a reverse loop lately. Is it DC or DCC?

Very little has happened as I have been unwell. However I did manage to get in and fix up some trackwork last night. Thought it was a bit of a waste using a curved point in a freight yard to I lifted it and swapped it for the point off to the wye. Now any point curves on the running loop are of the express type and things are running great. Now I just have to redesign that frieght yard! Not many trains have run as I have been deciding on whether to use DC or DCC on DC, leaving things in a half wired state as I have been evaluating what I want to do . Thankfully I'm waiting for a shipment of Lais decoders tomorrow so that issue will be put to bed and I'll be running fully DCC on DCC again. Will be nice as this has kept the terminus out of action in the meantime.