The Main layout begins

[meathdane]

Been quiet recently, however i have been busy making a burst at my cars with the good weather.

As with many of us, I was struggling for space to craft a layout, but I've been lucky enough to be given full run over a garage at home with a decent sized space for a layout. Ideally I would love to use the full garage but with 3 restorations underway, I do need to leave space to work on my cars as well as a little bit of communal storage.

The area I've designated for the trains is approximately 23 × 9.5 foot, giving loads of space for scenics and a fiddle yard. I will likely stud this section off and put a membrane in to ward off the inevitable dust from doing car bodywork and paint as well as a door. 

The layout is still very early on in the planning stage, but I want to have

DCC

Round the wall layout with lift out section

Double main track all around the layout, with 4th radius minimum curves, and long points.

A station capable of taking a double 141 headed 7/8 coach train with goods facilities including container traffic, fert, beets and gypsum traffic.

Plenty of scenics, including rural and a small town section.

8 Lane through fiddle yard

Thanks all!

Dane

[DJ Dangerous]

The space looks great! I hope to have a long run down one side of the garage, some day!

[Rob]

Best of luck-  getting a space identified is the first step!

Looks decent size potential there

[meathdane]

50 minutes ago, Rob said:

Best of luck-  getting a space identified is the first step!

Looks decent size potential there

It was a big first step! Took me best part of a week to clean and sort the place! 

Designing will be the longest part! It'll be revision after revision until I'm happy (which may be never )

[Rush and Lusk]

Trains and cars - a glorious cocktail of youthful interests (irrespective of actual age !), of I suspect, quite a few on this forum - best of luck with this great project. 

[meathdane]

2 hours ago, Rush and Lusk said:

Trains and cars - a glorious cocktail of youthful interests (irrespective of actual age !), of I suspect, quite a few on this forum - best of luck with this great project. 

I'm 26 myself but I don't think I ever mentally progressed beyond 10

[Broithe]

59 minutes ago, meathdane said:

I'm 26 myself but I don't think I ever mentally progressed beyond 10

I've been around a good bit longer and used to admit to 14, but I've had a hard couple of years and will accept 15 now.

[meathdane]

52 minutes ago, Broithe said:

I've been around a good bit longer and used to admit to 14, but I've had a hard couple of years and will accept 15 now.

What's that saying? You're only as old as you feel?

[Rob]

What era roughly are you thinking- '90's maybe by the mix of what you are looking at?

[meathdane]

On 15/8/2022 at 2:15 PM, Rob said:

What era roughly are you thinking- '90's maybe by the mix of what you are looking at?

I'll probably not set an era, I've everything from early green A classes to pointed arrow IE, however the majority of the fleet is BnT, so probably 60-80s predominantly with a modern cameo every now and then.

Container traffic I want to use mainly 20fts on flats

[meathdane]

The main layout has begun in earnest! Two baseboards built and leveled measuring 8×2 and 7×2.

The beauty of backing onto a solid cavity block wall is the ability to fix a length of 2×1 which gives me the back side level meaning the front side is the only area to worry about.

Just awaiting more timber to continue the build now!

[Rob]

Decent progress in a short space-  great to see so keep the updates

Fair play on doing it yourself too!

[meathdane]

43 minutes ago, Rob said:

Decent progress in a short space-  great to see so keep the updates

Fair play on doing it yourself too!

Much appreciated Rob!

I'd be alot further along had I not underestimated the amount of batonning I needed! Another 15 lengths are ordered, so I should hopefully have nearly 30ft of baseboard done by Sunday! All going to plan!

[meathdane]

Unfortunately I didn't get as far along as I had hoped so far, the paint rack, tyre machine and pillar drill are blocking progress and to get that moved, there is a pair of MK2 Escorts that themselves have to be moved back to my uncles yard, so everything is on hold until they move.

That aside, Baseboard three is built, another 8x2 board, bring the total length of usable baseboards up to 23ft so far, a rake of 12 gypsum wagons can be seen in the back left corner for scale

Baseboard 4 will drop a couple of inches to give the layout a variety of elevations, I'm planning to include a small dock/town street in the lower area

With not a lot else to do, I've turned to trying to pin down an exact track plan, though its hard to scale and plan for space with just my mind and pen and paper. As well as sitting by the window the arrival of my Ferts, loaded and empty 40s

[meathdane]

After finally managing to get some Flexitrack and paintwork, the 4 platform station area is beginning to come together, still waiting for things to get moved, but progress is progress!

For scenic areas, 48" radius curves will be the minimum, with some tighter 3rd and 4th radius curves in hidden/non scenic areas.

As well as long radius points wherever possible, with mid radius points for storage areas and short radius for the depot only.

 

Early days yet, but it's beginning to start to look kind of like a layout!

[meathdane]

We have movement at last! Got around to wiring and the first locomotive has moved under its own power.

Kadee uncoupling magnets next to be fitted and tested along with the arrival of two more double slips and the station area can be fully laid and wired up

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by meathdane

[raymurph]

Looks great, it's a fine big space, I'm envious! 

[meathdane]

Progress is slow on the main layout, a minor amount of tracklaying done, awaiting an insulated partition wall, sockets wired and so on, so all stock has been moved back into boxes for protection until thats done, along with the purchase of a efficient space heater with antifrost setting to protect the locomotives

Edited January 4, 2023 by meathdane

[The Derry Road]

Great start, well done TDR

[leslie10646]

I heartily agree. Wow, 23 feet long and no roofing struts, water tanks etc etc to contend with - you lucky lad.

Keep it up Dane, you'll soon need more wagons!

[meathdane]

22 hours ago, The Derry Road said:

Great start, well done TDR

Many thanks TDR!

 

21 hours ago, leslie10646 said:

I heartily agree. Wow, 23 feet long and no roofing struts, water tanks etc etc to contend with - you lucky lad.

Keep it up Dane, you'll soon need more wagons!

I have to say I do feel very lucky!

 

Not to worry Leslie, as soon as I finish (and start) the 10 or 12 Provincial wagons I have in the queue, I'll be back for more!

[JasonB]

Coming along nicely. That's an impressive area of space you have to work with. Enjoying watching this progress. 

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

This looks great, you're making fine progress lad, I'm hooked already, fair dues. 

[meathdane]

Finally have a more complete idea of how the station area will look with one or two minor revisions, allowing for plenty of passenger operations.

Moving ahead to designing the goods area, as can be seen in the back left of the photo, without trying to cram too much trackwork in and allow for infrastructure and roadways so the station and goods area doesnt feel like its isolated and on its own. With that in mind, I may remove platform 4, and use that line as a holding line/runaround and compress the goods yard lead closer towards the current trackwork

I'm considering going down the route of the DCC concepts Lenz black shuttle module to operate from the planned branch line station to platform 3/4 (currently where the green coaches/goods wagons are)

Hopefully I can get onto Baseboard 4 soon, which will be a small viaduct scene over a river (similar to Navans viaduct), which will hopefully give the needed elevation for some scenic variety

[jhb171achill]

This is looking very promising!

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

You have plenty options, well done. 

[leslie10646]

Thanks, I'm breaking the Tenth Commandment again - and on a Sunday!

[meathdane]

Took a notion and decided to start scenic work on one corner, I'm happy with the trackwork, fully tested with Steam, Diesel, DMUs, Coaching stock, and twin axle and Bogie freight, all running smoothly.

Trying to construct it to look like the branch line was there originally and the main lines were added after, with an older stone style bridge transitioning into a more modern plate girder style bridge and a cutting to allow the two main lines to pass through.

Raised section was built from offcuts from my first layout attempt and packed with insulation foam, followed by expanding foam and cut down to suit.

 

Bridge is a hodgepodge of wooden offcuts, clad in foam board and plasticard, waiting for Slaters embossed plasicard to make it look more bridge-ey. I'll have to get more embossed plasicard and foam board to create the cutting walls before using Sculptamold to build up/fill areas before plaster being applied to lock it all in.

 

Thanks all!

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

Great work lad

[meathdane]

46 minutes ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

Great work lad

Thank you very kindly!

[JasonB]

Great start. Amazing, how even a little work can completely transform one corner of the layout. 

Looking forward to watching this progress. 

[irishthump]

Looks great! Can't wait to see more....

[Patrick Davey]

Superb - looking forward to progress updates!