Sean

When i buy sand for an aquarium i usually just grab the cheapest stuff off the shelf which generally needs to be washed thoroughly or else your brand new aquarium quickly turns into a large puddle of illuminated mud.. Quarter fill a bucket with sand, fill up the rest of the way with water, agitating the sand as much as possible. this leaves you with a bucket of muddy water, pour off the water and repeat, after about 10-20 passes( yeah it can take a while) the water will stay crystal clear no matter how much you agitate the sand, Im not sure if just straight up boiling it would remove all of the salt but it might be enough for this application. you will lose sand doing it this way so get more than you need, another common method is to half fill a pillowcase with sand and let the hose run through it for a while but ive never had much success with that method.

now unscrew the plinth and place it on your layout!

now sold, to the man who knows where i live

Pretty delighted with how its shaping up. going to need a mountain of filler though as i overdid it on the windows. (eye it up cut it and then measure twice) Went back to the lima mk2 and cut out the toilet windows to fill in my oopsie, also cut out the battery boxes and put them underneath and took the metal weight and fit it inside of the shell. Pretty much considering this side done, besides the aforementioned fillering, and a fuel cap and the weird indent thing beside it. on the other side I just have to add the doors in and source egv grilles from somewhere. its sitting a little high at the moment but the bogies are running on what seem to be quite oversized oldschool wheels, Gonna borrow some wheels from a dapol kit to see how it sits before i do anything further to address this as the ride height will change when i fit those. Will also look at replacing the D link with a magnetic coupling for overall fleet compatibility. im not too bothered about getting the roof detail correct as this is just intended to be a quick and dirty build to fill a gap in my mk2 rake until somthing better is released and it will also give me a chance to practice my painting a little more.

robbed from another thread.

spent today cutting up an old triang mark 1 and adding sides to give me a rebuilt dutch van shell, very primative looking right now but im confident i can turn it into something nice looking. wasnt sure i had the proportions right but the more i am looking at it the more it seems like they are adding the windows and doors seems like its going to be the hard part. the bogies are off a lima mark 2 but its all sitting on a damaged project 42 chassis i had lying about

Testing of the inclines has concluded and the results are in! VID20230630191408.mp4 now that things are up and running i can actually focus on how the rest of the layout is going to look and operate.

cant argue with that are you able to tell us where the prime mover sounds came from? I had always assumed it would have to be Australia but with mention of a crossley engined diesel shunter earlier on in the thread you have me pondering now .

Go on, give us a wav preview

bit tough when there are very few examples of the crossley engine still around and even fewer of them which are actually operational and even fewer again(if any) that actually get started on a regular basis.... I remember it being promised to us on the basis of the lads actually getting proper access to a running prime mover unit and exhaust stack. cant do anything without source material. theres a class 28 esu project to out there to fuck around with if your really hard up to get sound, but i cannot speak for how authentic sounding it may be...

I tried to stay at 2% (1:50) but one section is noticably more so thats where im truly worried about, ill finish the dcc bus tonight and finally get to do a test run. I mean if it doesnt work out wont that be a proper excuse to run a double head 121 LOL

where do you get this from? I can only find the insulating boards local to me.

Literally just building a bus myself. im also just using off the shelf household stuff. https://dcc-ex.com/reference/hardware/wire-gauge.html https://dccwiki.com/Wire_Sizes_and_Spacing I found these two links pretty good for wire sizing info, if in doubt go for the larger size. Wires at my local shop were measured in mm2 and not awg so its handy to have the conversion table in your pocket when you get there. the feeder wires i sourced are awg and not shown in mm2 so again the table comes in handy. the larger gauge wire is essential on larger layouts where power will be travelling over a distance and there is potential for a voltage drop. if building a small layout such issues will not be as readily apparent and you may get away with a few sets of feeder wires. there is no correct answer you just have to build the thing to suit your needs. Happy modelling!

The end of a raised branchline finally laid leading to what should be eventually a "quarry" (or maybe a beer factory who knows) area. not very prototypical for the location but the siding is built to take 12 Tara's, it also sets a scenic break for trains running around the main loop to dissappear and reappear, ive also left room for more roads through the "fiddle" area now in the future but thats not something i'm gonna focus on till later. the actual scenics for this line have always just been planned to stay quite basic and could later on end up having quite a ballinacourty type feeling as the intended equipment is simply going to be some sort of nondescript "hopper loader" that will be generic enough to suit most types of hopper wagon that have been produced. im also toying with the idea of there being another small station along the way but something is telling me the layout would be much better as only a single station affair that emphasises on scenery around the rest of the room. after this there are still 2x 7 foot stretches of baseboard on either side of the room which i have not yet made any plans for, i do want a sort of bog road crossing somewhere however. I had been building up a dcc bus last week end but i lost interest half way through so finishing that will be my next step, after that it I will finally be able to run a train and see have my calculations in building the incline worked when i try to pull this massive rake up it, I will video that test for my own embarrasment As you can see ive also barricaded myself into the room so now its a bit of climbing or crawling any time i need to get in or out LOL

Been a little out of sorts with the hot weather lately,(Shut up, Dave..... ) so progress has slowed right down and I havent been updating or replying to the thread. still plenty going on though. heres a little sneak peak of what ive been at.

Come on @DJ Dangerous time to do your bit

jaysus i need me some of those.

Whilst i do agree ,I also think with such an abundance of RTR passenger stock on the horizon that it may eat into their "must have" status that they seem to have now.

One thing ive been wondering lately, will the upcoming park royals somewhat kill the demand for cravens when they land?

Add one more to that list, ba dum tish.

you were only just saying he has it way too easy, make up your mind

I heard you were in the market for a 5152, that would wrap things up nice and neatly

Can i take 5102? already have a pair of 5152 and want to add some variety to the rake

calm down chap they havent closed the doors yet

I think yous are correct, i dont see a hint of blue in the handbrake wheel when i zoom in.