Do you have any model railway projects on the go?

[Cowley]

Half of the track pinned today and this arrived from Train Tech. Very impressive little signal.

View attachment 77371

Ah one of friends has some of those and I think amazing. I love the feathers...

 

[MotCO]

Half of the track pinned today and this arrived from Train Tech. Very impressive little signal.

View attachment 77371

What scale is this?

 

[FrodshamJnct]

What scale is this?

It’s OO.

 

[Cowley]

Ok so my backscene arrived through the post the other day and although I was going to save it until I had the timber to make the fiddle yard properly impatience got the better of me and I cobbled together some ply and just stuck the thing up anyway.
Well it was only £12 so when I do it properly I’ll just get a new one. The result is though that from certain angles if you crop the photos down it looks pretty cool I reckon.



It’s made it all look a bit more 3D. I ended up spending about half an hour just staring at it from different angles...

 

[Iskra]

It looks excellent, a great addition!

 

[Cowley]

It looks excellent, a great addition!

Thanks. I think it’s actually got some Fells in the background but I won’t say anything if you don’t.

 

[Iskra]

Thanks. I think it’s actually got some Fells in the background but I won’t say anything if you don’t.

Yes, on close inspection it looks a bit Lake District/Pennine/Southern Scotland, maybe that's why I like it

 

[Cowley]

Yes, on close inspection it looks a bit Lake District/Pennine/Southern Scotland, maybe that's why I like it

I can only assume that the sky was a bit clearer back then...

 

[FrodshamJnct]

Ok so my backscene arrived through the post the other day and although I was going to save it until I had the timber to make the fiddle yard properly impatience got the better of me and I cobbled together some ply and just stuck the thing up anyway.
Well it was only £12 so when I do it properly I’ll just get a new one. The result is though that from certain angles if you crop the photos down it looks pretty cool I reckon.

View attachment 77420View attachment 77422View attachment 77423

It’s made it all look a bit more 3D. I ended up spending about half an hour just staring at it from different angles...

Looks brilliant! Where did you get them from?

 

[Cowley]

Looks brilliant! Where did you get them from?

Here you go Tom. They do all three main scales

id Backscenes – Scenic Backgrounds N Gauge – Many to Choose From | eBay

Id Backscenes – Scenic Backgrounds N Gauge – Many to Choose From Shot by a professional photographer and printed to a high standard on 180 gsm heavyweight paper (standard) or Durable, waterproof poly (Premium), these backscenes add depth and detail to any layout.

www.ebay.co.uk

I used spray carpet glue to stick it to the board so that it didn’t wrinkle up. Had to get it right first time though because it dried almost instantly!

 

[FrodshamJnct]

Here you go Tom. They do all three main scales

id Backscenes – Scenic Backgrounds N Gauge – Many to Choose From | eBay

Id Backscenes – Scenic Backgrounds N Gauge – Many to Choose From Shot by a professional photographer and printed to a high standard on 180 gsm heavyweight paper (standard) or Durable, waterproof poly (Premium), these backscenes add depth and detail to any layout.

www.ebay.co.uk

I used spray carpet glue to stick it to the board so that it didn’t wrinkle up. Had to get it right first time though because it dried almost instantly!

Great, thanks for the link. I’m hoping to get the last bit of track pinned down this week and then move on to ballasting. The Train Tech signal looks great although it’s not a snug fit in Peco Setrack when sliding into the rails, so I’m going to sneak in one Hornby short straight as it works perfectly due to the much tighter fit and better connection. I figure once it’s all weathered and detailed it’ll barely be noticeable. The other option would be to cut off the track joiners from the signal and solder wires to it and then splice into my bus, but I don’t have a soldering iron and this was only meant to be a fairly quick lockdown project!

 

[FrodshamJnct]

Rawie buffer stops arrived this morning and installed!

 

[Cowley]

Rawie buffer stops arrived this morning and installed!

View attachment 77494
View attachment 77495

Wow they look the part!

 

[FrodshamJnct]

Wow they look the part!

I’m really pleased with them. Not bad at all for just over a fiver a go.

 

[Cowley]

I’m really pleased with them. Not bad at all for just over a fiver a go.

They almost make me want to go back to 00...

In other news, you know that you probably need to get out more when you steal some black cotton off your missus and spend three hours wiring up tiny telegraph poles just because it’s difficult.


(I know that they look a bit tight but I’m working on the premise that they’ll start sagging over a few months)

 

[FrodshamJnct]

They almost make me want to go back to 00...

In other news, you know that you probably need to get out more when you steal some black cotton off your missus and spend three hours wiring up tiny telegraph poles just because it’s difficult.
View attachment 77525View attachment 77526View attachment 77527

(I know that they look a bit tight but I’m working on the premise that they’ll start sagging over a few months)

Looks amazing! That second photo in particular could easily pass for the real thing.

 

[Peter C]

In other news, you know that you probably need to get out more when you steal some black cotton off your missus and spend three hours wiring up tiny telegraph poles just because it’s difficult.
View attachment 77525View attachment 77526View attachment 77527

(I know that they look a bit tight but I’m working on the premise that they’ll start sagging over a few months)

They look brilliant - well done! I'm now wondering if I could use that technique for my layout. I've seen a few electricity pylons on layouts but not too many telegraph poles with cables running between them. Very good work!

-Peter

 

[malc-c]

On and off over the past ten years I've been getting the odd waggon, loco and a few kits, but never had the space or funds to start a layout. Well with the two eldest children now flown the nest, the back bedroom has become my study / man cave. Sadly my mother passed away last November, and having received a little cash I now had the space and the cash to get a layout under way, but it wasn't until the lockdown did I really get started.

All but one of the loco's I have are DC, but wanting to go DCC I built my own controller based on the miniDCC project. I also converted an old GF class 25 to DCC, seen here

One of the original post at the start of this thread commented on the costs.... I couldn't agree more... it's quite frightening to realise that the loco, and the half dozen coaches is £250 - £300 running round in front of you. I joined the N-Gauge society and a good 50% of the wagons running on the layout are their excellent kits, which are a fraction of the cost of RTR, and you have the fun of building, painting and weatehring them.

I'm still not happy with the platforms, but I had to work with what I had, which was 9mm foam sheet insulation, sheets of sandpaper and the internet to scale and print off slabs etc. But as all modellers say "Its My railway"

 

[Cowley]

On and off over the past ten years I've been getting the odd waggon, loco and a few kits, but never had the space or funds to start a layout. Well with the two eldest children now flown the nest, the back bedroom has become my study / man cave. Sadly my mother passed away last November, and having received a little cash I now had the space and the cash to get a layout under way, but it wasn't until the lockdown did I really get started.

All but one of the loco's I have are DC, but wanting to go DCC I built my own controller based on the miniDCC project. I also converted an old GF class 25 to DCC, seen here

One of the original post at the start of this thread commented on the costs.... I couldn't agree more... it's quite frightening to realise that the loco, and the half dozen coaches is £250 - £300 running round in front of you. I joined the N-Gauge society and a good 50% of the wagons running on the layout are their excellent kits, which are a fraction of the cost of RTR, and you have the fun of building, painting and weatehring them.

I'm still not happy with the platforms, but I had to work with what I had, which was 9mm foam sheet insulation, sheets of sandpaper and the internet to scale and print off slabs etc. But as all modellers say "Its My railway"

I love it!
Those platforms look fine to me @malc-c. I haven’t joined the N gauge society yet but a friend of mine is a member and I bought some log wagons through him that a assembled. They were pretty straightforward to make really and once I’d painted and weathered them and my friend made me some teeny logs they definitely looked the part.

 

[malc-c]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Yes, the N-gauge society kits do look really good when finished, as those log carriers show.

 

[Iskra]

Some excellent work on display recently

Does anyone have any experience with 'flexi-track,' is it easy to use?

 

[Cowley]

Some excellent work on display recently

Does anyone have any experience with 'flexi-track,' is it easy to use?

Yes I’ve always used it Iskra. It’s not that hard to work with either, although the tighter the curve the more it wants to straighten again. It will stay in the shape you want it to a certain extent and personally I’ve always glued track down rather than pinned it because I don’t like the way pins can squash the sleepers if you go to far.
What I would recommend is getting something like a cutting disk on a Dremmel for chopping the rails level as the cleaner the cut the easier it is to get fishplates on.

 

[malc-c]

Some excellent work on display recently

Does anyone have any experience with 'flexi-track,' is it easy to use?

Flexible track isn't hard to work with. It will follow the shape you put it in to a degree, and then you can pin it or use glue such as copydex with the pins being removed once dry. A mini drill of some type with a cutting disk is used to trim the end of the rail. I found that if you use a 0.7mm drill and pre drill holes every 4-6 inches normal track pins work well through a layer of 3mm cork on top of MDF baseboard. N-gauge flexi is more flexible than OO or O as the rails are thinner. I used an aluminium bar, around a metre long as a guide for keeping the straight sections straight.... It's not difficult to lay, just have a go

 

[Iskra]

Yes I’ve always used it Iskra. It’s not that hard to work with either, although the tighter the curve the more it wants to straighten again. It will stay in the shape you want it to a certain extent and personally I’ve always glued track down rather than pinned it because I don’t like the way pins can squash the sleepers if you go to far.
What I would recommend is getting something like a cutting disk on a Dremmel for chopping the rails level as the cleaner the cut the easier it is to get fishplates on.

Flexible track isn't hard to work with. It will follow the shape you put it in to a degree, and then you can pin it or use glue such as copydex with the pins being removed once dry. A mini drill of some type with a cutting disk is used to trim the end of the rail. I found that if you use a 0.7mm drill and pre drill holes every 4-6 inches normal track pins work well through a layer of 3mm cork on top of MDF baseboard. N-gauge flexi is more flexible than OO or O as the rails are thinner. I used an aluminium bar, around a metre long as a guide for keeping the straight sections straight.... It's not difficult to lay, just have a go

Thanks. It seems like a lot of effort for the one piece I would probably need. I will see how much space I have once I've put the rest of the track down.

 

[Jozhua]

I've got a tiny HO micro layout built inside a shoebox stuck in a draw lol. (I have very little space in my flat)

Basically, the idea is to build a little station/shunting layout inside a shoebox, so it can come out and be packed away easily. I managed to build a tunnel from a kit, which looks surprisingly good.

Anyone got any tips for say a quick release kind of mechanism, because I don't want to tear the track up once I've stuck it down just to connect it up

 

[Cowley]

Anyone got any tips for say a quick release kind of mechanism, because I don't want to tear the track up once I've stuck it down just to connect it up

That’s sounds really interesting. I’m not sure quite what you meant by a quick release mechanism though @Jozhua?
Any chance of showing us what you mean?

 

[Cowley]

On and off over the past ten years I've been getting the odd waggon, loco and a few kits, but never had the space or funds to start a layout. Well with the two eldest children now flown the nest, the back bedroom has become my study / man cave. Sadly my mother passed away last November, and having received a little cash I now had the space and the cash to get a layout under way, but it wasn't until the lockdown did I really get started.

All but one of the loco's I have are DC, but wanting to go DCC I built my own controller based on the miniDCC project. I also converted an old GF class 25 to DCC, seen here

One of the original post at the start of this thread commented on the costs.... I couldn't agree more... it's quite frightening to realise that the loco, and the half dozen coaches is £250 - £300 running round in front of you. I joined the N-Gauge society and a good 50% of the wagons running on the layout are their excellent kits, which are a fraction of the cost of RTR, and you have the fun of building, painting and weatehring them.

I'm still not happy with the platforms, but I had to work with what I had, which was 9mm foam sheet insulation, sheets of sandpaper and the internet to scale and print off slabs etc. But as all modellers say "Its My railway"

Somewhat inspired by your video @malc-c, I finally got around to uploading my first clip onto YouTube tonight.

It’s of 33102 heading towards Barnstaple with the mixed stock for the early morning Barnstaple to Paddington service in July 1987.

 

[Peter Kelford]

Some excellent work on display recently

Does anyone have any experience with 'flexi-track,' is it easy to use?

It's pretty standard stuff. It works well but it's certainly worth buying a track cutter and file or else the track can only be laid on the straight. I would assume that you currently use setrack, remember that flexitrack will not keep a curved shape unless pinned down and that you will need fishplates.

You don't need a Dremel, I lay it with no power tools but a decent file and sharp pliers specifically designed to cut track.

 

[hexagon789]

But as all modellers say "Its My railway"

Exactly, the most important and no. 1 rule in railway modelling - "it's my railway and I'll run it to suit me!"

Somewhat inspired by your video @malc-c, I finally got around to uploading my first clip onto YouTube tonight.

It’s of 33102 heading towards Barnstaple with the mixed stock for the early morning Barnstaple to Paddington service in July 1987.

Nice wee vid there Cowley, but are you sure that 33 is filthy enough?

 

[Peter C]

Somewhat inspired by your video @malc-c, I finally got around to uploading my first clip onto YouTube tonight.

It’s of 33102 heading towards Barnstaple with the mixed stock for the early morning Barnstaple to Paddington service in July 1987.

Very nice - I like the added sound
That service is quite interesting - I've always found "interesting" services on model railways, well - interesting - as normally you just see random trains going round and round. www.hondawanderer.com is good for interesting services - I've done a quick search on there for Lapford and here are a couple of photos (not sure if they're your era but they could help with scenery):

P874 Lapford 1 August 1990

50031 Lapford 16 September 1990

Hope these are interesting.

-Peter