Further dismantling

Today i had planned to spend time at the Glasgow show but due to the weather it was not to be. Instead i spent today confirming the track plan and cleaning up all the electrical components from the layout so they can be reused.

Im quite pleased with the plan as i have finally got a layout that can take a loco and 5 coaches or a loco and 12 SLUs such as PCAs or HEAs, so i can finally operate it prototypically which must be a first for me.

I hope to get the track tomorrow so i can get on with it. I tend to work fairly fast as i tend to enjoy myself doing it. So therefore expect to see me wiring it up next week. I want to do the scenics better on this one however, although the previous layout was acceptable i thought i could do much much better so i will take longer and investigate different methods first before deciding what i want to do in the hope it improves.

Anyway enough for today.

TIMBER

Well new boards are built and ready to go. They follow the exsisting construction of 12mm chip on a 2x1 frame except these ones are braced and firmly screwed down and have been treated with a varnish to seal them.

Tonight i mainly played around with track plans using the peco templates and now have a virtually workable plan. Hopfully i can get some track in the comming days and begin laying!!

On a seperate note our new board band package was activated today and its just so much faster (averaging 16mb) so i hope to upload more photos than i did before.

A change...

Well it had to happen didnt it. Something went wrong with Westleigh and go wrong it did. Id noticed that there was a slight hump at th joins. On closer inspection it tuned out the boards were warping and saging. I tired to brace it but too late. They were shot so it had to be replaced so two boards have been scrapped. The orriginal scenic break board has been retained however as it is structurally sound but has been braced anyway.

All this mean is i can no start again with a new plan and eased curves. Im stil clarifying the new plan at present but hope to have something soon. Needless to say the new boards will be well braced!

A new expanding plan!

Well things have changed somewhat since the orriginal plan. I've redesigned the fiddle yard to provide me with a mainline and a siding yard. The mainline yard deals with through trains and the siding yard (the 3 roads) provides for the sidings. I'm planning to use setrack points on these simply because of cheapness and when i budgeted it all out orriginally it came to £260! By using S/H setrack points i can reduce it by nearly £90!

Its next show will actually be in Chippenham again in September this year. Well the exhibition manager was obviously desperate but it will be a useful shakedown.

A bigger better empire.....

Check back tomorrow for the full story!!