what are people doing on their layout right now

[D1042 Western Princess]

Working on the assumption you don't have a magic wand, what exactly have you done to reach this euphoric state please, Greg (I'll also assume no alcohol was involved )

NO alcohol, I promise, although even I, a near tee totaller who thinks of a wine gum as 'excessive consumption' was almost moved to drowning my sorrows in a sherbet dip at one point!
I laid my track, wired it all up and everything was just as it should be - electrically at least, just before Christmas 2014.
I then laid loose ballast, my first (AND LAST) experiment with it, having taken the precaution of lubrication (model railway oil) all over the pointwork - not sure which type but guaranteed safe to use on motors and such so that the dilute PVA didn't 'gum up the works' and went to work. Lovely, the next day everything was working well - except the electrikery which refused to no matter how much I cleaned up the track and the pointwork.
Eventually I managed, with much rough language such as 'darn it' and ' ' AND EVEN  ' ' on occasion, not to mention scraping, bending, scraping, cleaning, scraping and rubbing with all kinds of things, and a lot of advice from here  gradually, point by point, yard by yard, I managed to get something moving by Easter!
I had firmly resolved to dump the entire layout in a skip by this time if I didn't get something moving soon.
It was then, with the loco yard finally freed and working, and about half the goods yard ditto, that I moved on to the final part which I (think) I have just finished (but not counting on it  ). So after 7 months of trying I now have a layout that seems to work nearly as well as those who have never built a layout before put together overnight!
Anyhow, I have now run a Hymek from one end to the other without a problem, hence my happiness - unless of course those pesky gremlins have got at it while I've been out!

[Newportnobby]

Glad you finally reached nirvana - even if it doesn't last too long without some repetition of the elbow grease. Never resort to the skip but walk away and try to keep calm please.
It would be a great shame if all your efforts came to nowt.

[D1042 Western Princess]

Glad you finally reached nirvana - even if it doesn't last too long without some repetition of the elbow grease. Never resort to the skip but walk away and try to keep calm please.
It would be a great shame if all your efforts came to nowt.

Easier said than done, but NEVER again will I use loose ballast - too much work.
It's ballast strips for me in future after these experiences.
Thanks for your support though Newportnobby.

[railsquid]

If I won the lottery to the extent I could say "goodbye job, I don't ever need to worry about money and more importantly time again" I'd throw away my existing track and start ballasting hand-built code 40 track. As that's not the case (so far, maybe if I spent less money on trains and more on lottery tickets...) I'm kind of happy I live in Japan where there are two kinds of track: Kato Unitrack and Tomix Finetrack. The advanced modelling magazines here recommend the later for static layouts (Japan being a country of eternal space shortage) as it's more realistic (or less unrealistic). As I have vaguely traumatic memories from an earlier era of OO-gauge ballasting attempts, I'm even happier that the tub of ballast I bought the other day is mainly to fill in the space between tracks, not rails.

[D1042 Western Princess]

If I won the lottery to the extent I could say "goodbye job, I don't ever need to worry about money and more importantly time again" I'd throw away my existing track and start ballasting hand-built code 40 track.

If I won that much I WOULD drop my current efforts in a skip and have the layout built be an expert so that I could get on with what I truly enjoy - running trains.

[Malc]

Been wiring and fitting the arc welder kit I got from dear old Colin (trainsdownunder) last year. I built it and tested it when it arrived. Just got around to putting it in a box and adding it to the layout.

[daveg]

Been wiring and fitting the arc welder kit I got from dear old Colin (trainsdownunder) last year. I built it and tested it when it arrived. Just got around to putting it in a box and adding it to the layout.

I unpacked mine that I've had for ages just this morning and thought a quiet Thank-you.

Dave G

[NeMo]

Finally mastered faded paintwork! Although my airbrush is cheap and cheerful, I managed to do a decent job on my Dapol 'Western'. I've got two of these models, one of which is factory weathered, so I wanted this one to look different. So instead of adding dark grime to the model, I wanted to fade the colours back a bit, as seems to have been common among Western Region diesels in the 1970s.

Mixed up some matt white with matt faded BR blue (from Phoenix Paints) and then airbrushed it on very slowly and gently. While my airbrush doesn't seem to get a perfectly fine mist, speckling is only visible in macro photographs. In real life, it looks fine.

This chap has some Shawplan plates (D1013 'Western Ranger') that'll need to be glued on at some point. Assuming Glue'n'Glaze will do the trick. Anything better I should try instead?

Cheers, NeMo

[Dorsetmike]

Killing 2 birds with one stone, test running to check wiring and any dodgy rail joints using my new Farish SR N class, as part of its running in.

It's happily pulling 8 Dapol Maunsell coaches and looks like it could handle more than the 8 I'm using

[Newportnobby]

Finally mastered faded paintwork!

A very good effect, and much as I remember many a blue diesel from my yoof

[D1042 Western Princess]

Finally mastered faded paintwork! Although my airbrush is cheap and cheerful, I managed to do a decent job on my Dapol 'Western'. I've got two of these models, one of which is factory weathered, so I wanted this one to look different. So instead of adding dark grime to the model, I wanted to fade the colours back a bit, as seems to have been common among Western Region diesels in the 1970s.

Mixed up some matt white with matt faded BR blue (from Phoenix Paints) and then airbrushed it on very slowly and gently. While my airbrush doesn't seem to get a perfectly fine mist, speckling is only visible in macro photographs. In real life, it looks fine.

This chap has some Shawplan plates (D1013 'Western Ranger') that'll need to be glued on at some point. Assuming Glue'n'Glaze will do the trick. Anything better I should try instead?

Cheers, NeMo

NeMo, a brilliant bit of painting there but I wish I hadn't seen it without name/number plates.
I saw too many like that in real life when they arrived for cutting up (my bedroom overlooked the Con Yard at Swindon) - I have to admit it brought a tear to my eye to see one in such a condition again.
But a testament to your painting skill, looked at another way. Fortunately I know yours only has the plates taken off for painting.
Greg.

[Bob Tidbury]

I'm a great fan of Westerns and I read in one of my many books that the blue ones suffered from paint fading and peeling from the salt water yet the Marroon and green ones suffered less . Very nice job NeMo .
Bob

[D1042 Western Princess]

I'm a great fan of Westerns and I read in one of my many books that the blue ones suffered from paint fading and peeling from the salt water yet the Marroon and green ones suffered less . Very nice job NeMo .
Bob

The sea water didn't help, but I believe the main cause was some chemical in the washing plants and the fact that the Westerns (although adored by most of us, and mainly loved by crews) were hated by BR 'managers' and thus not really given the care and attention they should have got.

[PostModN66]

Finally mastered faded paintwork! Although my airbrush is cheap and cheerful, I managed to do a decent job on my Dapol 'Western'. I've got two of these models, one of which is factory weathered, so I wanted this one to look different. So instead of adding dark grime to the model, I wanted to fade the colours back a bit, as seems to have been common among Western Region diesels in the 1970s.

Very nice work NeMo.

What's the model photographed on?  Is it your new layout.......?

Cheers  Jon 

[NeMo]

NeMo, a brilliant bit of painting there but I wish I hadn't seen it without name/number plates.
I saw too many like that in real life when they arrived for cutting up (my bedroom overlooked the Con Yard at Swindon) - I have to admit it brought a tear to my eye to see one in such a condition again.
But a testament to your painting skill, looked at another way. Fortunately I know yours only has the plates taken off for painting.

Having a bedroom window looking over Swindon during the 70s must have been a bittersweet experience indeed! Have you seen a book called "Last Years of the Westerns"? No idea where my copy went, but as I recall it was filled with photos of work-worn 'Westerns' on the mainline as well as partially scrapped ones in the Swindon yard.

I'm a great fan of Westerns and I read in one of my many books that the blue ones suffered from paint fading and peeling from the salt water yet the Marroon and green ones suffered less.

Supposedly it's the anticorrosion chemicals they used in the washing plants that caused problems, with the cleaning at Laira being especially famous for stripping locomotives back to the primer.

In my case this is all about learning the skill and using it on a locomotive where this sort of effect would be reasonably authentic.

Cheers, NeMo