General Update

I managed to weasel about 10 hours this weekend in the shed, and progress has been very good, although I could easily put in another 10 hours for wiring and installation of Tortoises.  Here are few photos of where I am up to:

The overall shad taken from Jonestown Junction.  The long mainline run along the left hand wall and back down the peninsular is wired up and gives a great mainline run.  The points in the bottom left of the photo are ow installed and just waiting on the Tortoise to go in.

Another shot of the overall layout.  A little messy and I keep moving my work space to suit progress.  The large space down the left will be Jonestown Yard (6 track, on layout staging/fiddle/functional yard).

Jonestown Junction.  The outer loop is the main and the inner is the Grain loop.  Junestown Junction has a wye.  Why?  Because I can!  The bottom left of the photo is a dead end leg of the wye and will go to a small steel siding, but it will also allow me to put in a lift out bridge to allow continuous running on the layout, as it is built as a point to point design.

Jonestown Junction again, but you can see the points on the right which will swing trains into Jonestown Yard.

Enjoy! 

Tidy up at Nathans Point

I'll have to post some photos of the climb after Heidiville, as I now have the track completed on the back side of the peninsular and along the long wall of the shed, giving a good run to a temporary station.  

Below are a few shots of a quick spruce up of the terminus at Nathans Point.  

A bit of paint and a vacuum does wonders!

Enjoy! 

Progress at Heidiville

Progress has been steady on the town of Heidiville over the last week, with a few hours put in over the weekend and an hour in the morning and evening before and after work.  Here are a few photos showing progress.  

Most of the cork is down and the track arrangement is being planned.

The main and loop are pretty much confirmed but the grain loop is a work in progress.

The train is all down for Heidiville (left side of the peninsular), and the 'blob' infront has been trimmed up.  Inside the blob will likely be a rural town, with the mainline starting a climb on the left side of the scene divider.

Droppers installed and getting ready for a morning of soldering (and a good burn too!)

The Heidiville panel.  This is an improvement on the Nathans Point panel as this has LED lighting installed to show the route.  Green is for the main and yellow for the loop or diverging route.  Only the main has Tortoise point motors and the rest are manually operate with the Peco spring still installed.  This is only a temporary panel as I printed the design out on some A4 paper and glued it direct to a bit of 3mm craft board.  I did the track plan in Excel.

The next section being worked on is the climb between Heidiville and the large yard at Jonestown.  This will rise about 70mm over 3.5m creating a decent climb for loaded trains, before dropping again back to level ground.  The single line main will pass through hills and valleys for about 8m, although I have two locations eyed-off for main line loading (one grain and one container pad).    

Tonight we had a short running session between Nathans Point and Heidiville with a grain train, a gas tank transfer, a steel shunt and a passenger service.  

Enjoy!

Nathans Point Update

Its been a busy couple of weekends in the train shed.  Here is a bit of an update:

A temporary control panel has been installed for Nathans Point.  This allows control of the Tortoise point motors.  The final panel will also have orange and green LEDs to show the route.  Apologies for the sloppy wiring, but I was keen to get this one section up and running so I can move on with other parts of the layout.

The back of the panel with the DPDT switches.

The NCE DCC system is down the end of the layout.  I intend on making this shelf the control area for all the various DCC and 12V items.  

Once of the Tortoise point motors installed.  I had to cut into the L Girder to fit this one.  Not great, but not a big issue either.  

G535 sits on the track as power is turned on for the first time.

Success!  All the droppers were wired to the track bus without issue (except for two burns from the soldering iron!).

The track and the droppers.  A pretty tidy finish, but should have aligned them closer to the end sleeper.

The droppers before being wired to the bus.

Enjoy!