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!

Laying Cork and Track - Nathans Point

Nathans Point station is the 0.00km mark on my layout which is a bit unconventional since most terminus locations are the end of the line.  Well, this is the start of the line in my book and it is also where I am starting the track laying.  While the layout isn't a TOMA, I intend on working on Nathans Point (all 8m of it) until we have fully operational track and maybe a bit of scenery.  

I have been laying 3mm cork, cut from a 1220mm wide roll.  A good straight edge and a sharp box-cutter knife are essential.  I am using a piece of aluminium angle as the straight edge which is the perfect width for HO scale trackbed.  

Nathans Point arrives as a single mainline and splits into three tracks (main, loop and grain).  The end of these sidings is a couple of sets of crossovers to allow cross over movements.  The main moves are for the passenger service to come off the main and run into the platform.  Off the loop end is the intermodal terminal.  

The main is designed to be a dead end, but I will build a bridge across the doorway for continuous running at times.  It won't come out for operating sessions, but will be good to get some kays under the belt of new wagons and locos before they go on the roster.  

So far I have laid a few metres of track and the 5 turnouts at the southern end of the yard.  The photos show the intended use of the sidings.  

I still need to install and wire up some tortoises for the crossovers, but that shouldn't take too long.  

Things are progressing well!

Layout Planning - Nathans Point

A few photos of layout planning from last week.  The first one is a pano of the layout shed, then a few shots of Nathans Point (along the wall), and a coupld of shots of an SSR at Heidiville (the penisular).

Enjoy!

The New Nathan's Point

It has been along time between posts, and I have been happily focused on my prototype blog Rollingstock News for the past few years, although I am very keen to get back into the modelling.  

Since my last post, the old Wills St layout was set up, powered, and the mainlines were operated on DCC for a couple of years.  The round and round nature of the exhibition layout didn't really fill the void for me, so I was more than happy to part with it to a fellow modeller down the coast who I believe has it set up and operating in DCC. 

With my shed having been empty for more than 12 months, I decided I needed to get cracking while I had  a chance.  Over the January 2018 period I managed to complete all the benchwork in the shed, and then life got busy again, so everything went on the backburner for a while.  

In the last week I have taken delivery of a large roll of cork and a lot of track and points, with the intention of commencing track laying in August.

I intend on going back a posting details about my benchwork, but for now, as as introduction, below are a few present day photos of the shed and layout planning.

An overall shot of the layout shed from the access door.  Length is 9.8m and width is about 3.8m.  The bottom right is the terminus Nathans Point and the far left wall is the main yard terminal of Jonestown.  With the large peninsular, mainline runs are nice and long.  

A bit of planning for the grain receival terminal at Jonestown.  The mainline will come around the wall and loop into Jonestown Yard in the foreground.  Grain trains will need to be broken up into smaller portions to be unloaded, similar to what happens at Graincorp Carrington.

The terminal of Nathans Point with a small intermodal terminal on the edge and a simple country platform against the wall.  A removable bridge will be built to allow continuous running at times, but is not part of the operational plan.  

The town of Nathans Point, with a mainline, loop, and grain loop.  The layout is designed for trains of about 4m in length as a maximum.  Modern era trains will feature prominently on the layout, especially SSR and PN.  

Enjoy!