what are people doing on their layout right now

[Sprintex]

This is why I did all my track testing with the baseboards on the floor. There was still one 'incident' when my cat Tigger, who had so far done his best to look uninterested, decided my little 04 shunter was good "mousing" practise and batted it as it went past Luckily it didn't have far to go so no damage.

Once happy that it all worked nothing ran until there was proper edging to stop any errant stock from doing a lemming impression


Paul

[SidmouthJunction]

One of my colleagues has a large DCC HO layout, on which something very similar happened. A brass Big Boy, worth in excess of £1000, had been left on speed setting 1, and crept silently along a siding without a buffer stop, eventually nose-diving onto the floor, a good 4' below. To most people it would have been considered destroyed, but fortunately my colleague is very handy with a soldering iron and has virtually rebuilt the whole thing. Now that line has a buffer stop and a large fence soldered up from heft brass angle around the end!

[Skyline2uk]

One of my colleagues has a large DCC HO layout, on which something very similar happened. A brass Big Boy, worth in excess of £1000, had been left on speed setting 1, and crept silently along a siding without a buffer stop, eventually nose-diving onto the floor, a good 4' below. To most people it would have been considered destroyed, but fortunately my colleague is very handy with a soldering iron and has virtually rebuilt the whole thing. Now that line has a buffer stop and a large fence soldered up from heft brass angle around the end!

Skyline2uk

[Kris]

I'm currently watching the rain out of the window whilst cutting out legs for the viaduct. Each leg has 2 sides, however only 4 more to go. After that it's on to the main sides.

[jivebunny]

Well, DCC Supplies have saved the day and found me a spare Britannia body shell which is on its way as I type. I must say I'm very happy, not to mention relieved at not having to shell out £100+ to replace my 70000, particularly as I'm already considering adding Oliver Cromwell and Duchess of Hamilton to my preserved fleet and that would have set things back somewhat.

I hope you lot don't mind me feeling a bit less stupid about throwing my Brit off my layout now that you've shared your stories. Placing the layout on the floor isn't an option for me unfortunately, not only because the dog likes to leave hair everywhere, but also because I too have a cat with a fond interest in model trains. She spends most of her time outside ridding us of mice and moles, but when she gets within pouncing distance of a train zipping around she really has no mercy, as I found out at Christmas.

JB

[daveg]

Glad you could get the spare body, JB. DCC Supplies are just 8 miles from me. Sometimes an expensive trip!

Our cat catches mice and voles on a regular basis but alas no moles, which is a shame 'cos our lawn looks like the Somme!

He has however shown a keen interest in the most recent acquisition, a Farish N class, while I was attempting to run it in. Paws off Blue!!

Dave G

[railsquid]

Right, another weekend, another round of false starts to look forward to 

Priority is to get the wiring sorted out, which I need to do before ploughing ahead with the scenery, so I am of course mainly fiddling about with the bits of scenery I can do without affecting wiring. Things are slightly complicated due to this part of layout being mounted on foam sheeting on thick IKEA shelving, making below-board wiring tricky, so I'm excavating channels in the foam as I go along. Already done that for the points wiring, but I have this obsession with isolating sections so need to wire those in as well. Which means I need to make some kind of control panel for the switches. And work out a sane wiring method so I can integrate this section into the putative main layout at a later date.

So, backscenes, hmm, what can I do there...

[railsquid]

Good news - after casting around the Japanese interwebs, I came across a useful tip, namely convenience stores provide reasonably-priced colour printing services, and looks like the free images I have my eye on are of suitable resolution for printing, so after some experimentation I've uploaded it to the "cloud" and will toddle along with the baby, once he wakes up, to print it out. It will only be a standard paper print, not photo paper (which would cost ca. 10x more), but cheap enough for experimentation.

[daveg]

I will very soon  be facing the same challenge/dilemma as you, RS.

Scenic and simple wiring is virtually done on the branch line board (Eddingford).  Just the final tunnel portal to fix along with the now purchased backscene so I must now stop fiddling about and get on with the major task of building the main board.

I have all the bits (I hope) and have started constructing the baseboard. Wire in Tube point control will be a new thing for me but hopefully won't be too much of a challenge. I will be surface mounting the tubes and a 5mm layer of Plastazote will raise the track enough hide the mechanism. Isolated sections, electrical switches and associated wiring are already giving me the jitters.

Plenty of opportunities for tears and tantrums but looking forward to having at least one full working loop so I can do all that essential 'testing'!

Dave G

[railsquid]

Ironic thing is, I was originally planning to go DCC to save wiring hassle, but as I have acquired a vast number of non-DCC-compatible stock (older stuff and Japanese), it would be more hassle (not to mention cost) to fit everything with decoders.

Good news - after casting around the Japanese interwebs, I came across a useful tip, namely convenience stores provide reasonably-priced colour printing services, and looks like the free images I have my eye on are of suitable resolution for printing, so after some experimentation I've uploaded it to the "cloud" and will toddle along with the baby, once he wakes up, to print it out. It will only be a standard paper print, not photo paper (which would cost ca. 10x more), but cheap enough for experimentation.

This is going to be a case of third time lucky. First time, I uploaded as photo prints by mistake, second time I managed to upload the same file three times... Still, for a quick and cheap experiment doesn't look too bad, even though this isn't the correct part of the picture I wanted:

[daveg]

Looks fine to me, RS.

Illusion of depth is what backscenes can often lack. With yours, the hills give the idea of distance.

I'll post and update of my efforts on my thread - in due course!

I've stuck with DC for similar reasons. I have miles and miles of cable!!

Dave G

[Newportnobby]

It may not be the right part of the picture but it does blend in rather well

[paulprice]

I've managed to do a spot of weathering, and 2 brake vans, 3 parcel vans, and an Ivatt have all got themselves a little dirty 

[jivebunny]

Nice brake vans!

Today I have been mainly exploring the limits of my running in layout... 

Not just for the sake of it though, I was testing Dapol knuckle couplers for reliability and sorting out any that tended to uncouple due to hanging too low.

32 Mk3s, 2 DVTs and 8 HST power cars later and I'm done. The power cars were the worst for random uncoupling, I had to glue the couplers into the pockets on most of them as there was just too much vertical play, so with a heavy train the drag was causing the power car couplers to slide up and out of the neighbouring coupler... Yet another thing Dapol didn't bother to test before sending their products to market.

Tempted to use Dapol magnetic couplers on the locos, end coaches and the front of the DVT to assist in operations. Some testing to be carried out, methinks!

The Farish 87 is de-motorised for drags and runs along quite happily without adding too much weight to the train.

JB

[paulprice]

I even threw a little grime on one of my old Ivatt's