Some photo updates

Not a whole lot of action this month, with a lot of time spent playing trains with the kids.  I have packed up the Aussie stuff and cracked out my US trains which are primarily Wisconsin Central focussed.  

More ballast has arrived (4kg), so I have been ballasting a bit early morning and late at night, having laid almost 2kg over the last 3 days.  


The front corner of Jonestown has progressed with some dirt and greenery.  WIth more ballast laid, some more dirt will go down this coming weekend.  


A single SD45 pulling a string of Roadrailers.  I haven't run these Bowser models for about 15 years, and they still go pretty well.  


A WC grain train departing Jonestown Yard and heading for the temporary bridge.


While not part of the layout design, a temporary bridge allows the layout to be a continuous run which is keeps trains moving while I work on various things.  It also creates a bit of a headache when you want to run trains so operations do get more interesting.  The bridge is not normally in place for proper operations.


I have installed two Taa Valley Hex Frog Juicers.  While I have used a lot of cheap switches which double as a point lever and frog powerer, I do like these for their simplicity.  I have used them on tight yard points where a switch was hard to install.   


Patched Algoma Central SD40 is now WC6004 with a short turn at Nathan's Point, about to start some switching.

Enjoy!

2019 in Review

A lot of scenery progress has happened in 2019, with the photos below a testament to the activity that has happened in the shed.  

A few notable aspects that have occurred this year:

1) Signal are installed and powered by switches.

2) All Tortoises are installed (except two that I am still thinking about) and controlled from fascia panels.

3) Fascia is installed right around and painted black.

4) Nathan's Point and Heidiville have ground throws installed and wired up for frog power plus track is fully ballasted with a lot of dirt and grass now installed as well.

5) Ballasting in recent months has consisted of 4kg of Matt's Ballast Dunmore HO.

6) Expansion joints have been cut after a rather warm start to summer and track buckles in some locations.

7) All track is now painted flat camo brown ready for ballasting

8) A lot of industries have some form of building and activity to make it look ready for business.

9) Clean up has commenced and more stuff to go onto Ebay!

Enjoy to photos!

Update on Nathans Point

After a few weeks of ballasting and scenery, I thought I should share some photos.  

Along Nathans Point, all ballast is now laid, dirt is down in most areas. and a little bit of greenery.  Today I painted up the stand-in silos (based on Edgeroi but only 4 silos rather than 5), and also knocked out a simple foam-core 'Sadleirs' warehouse for 3-4 vans.  The awning is big enough for US high-cube boxcars for when I run my Wisconsin Central stuff.  

I ended up experimenting a bit with the ballast which has ended up with the main and loop looking like they have been freshly ballasted.  The loop is an old bag of Chuck's Martin's Creek which I really like.  Since I ran out, I have been mixing a black with Marulan to get a dark flecked ballast.  I just purchased 4kg of Matt's Dunmore for continuing the mainline, and this look a little more brown.  Will see how it goes.  

I also have a static grass applicator to crack out, so will see how that goes.  The dirt is from down the street next to the train line, so pretty authentic.  Sifted it a few times to get the fines.  

The industries just need a tidy up and the station for Nathan's Point is also 95% built (Walkers A3/Bombala station kit).  

The plan from here is to get Nathan's Point to a near completion stage for scenery, while I also continue to lay mainline ballast.  I might bypass Heidiville and crack straight into the main yard to get that looking realistic.  

Enjoy the shots of the silos and Sadleirs at Nathan Point  

Nathan Points - New Sidings

Spent a few hours in the train shed this long weekend doing a few jobs here and there.

Main project was to wire and switch in 4 signals for Nathan's Point and Heidiville.  These are controlled at a panel near the front end of the shed so a train controller can give signalled authority for the single line sections.

Also installed about 8 slide switches which are for manual point changing but are also DPDT so I can power the frog.

Finally, three new sidings have gone in.  Two at Nathans's Point and one on the peninsular which is accessed from Jonestown Yard. 

The new siding at the south end of Nathan's Point.  This will likely be a sugar siding to add more traffic for my steel trains, but it could also be a concrete batching plant.  Concept is for it to take 2 or 3 wagons at a time.  

The grain complex is unchanged, but might grow in size and become more of a sub-terminal, so it can receive and dispatch grain, leaving Heidiville as a mid-section country silo, and Jonestown as the port or mill destination.

The new boxcar siding.  This is designed to be Sadleirs and will receive 3 to 4 boxcars and may a container wagon at times.  A large loading dock will go in as the back drop.  An X200 will be the shunter, as the loading dock will only be able to handle 3 boxcars at a time.  Potential to also use this as an SCT depot, and also with my US outline.  

A couple of the signal that have gone in.  The facing signal is green/yellow and runs off the Tortoise DPDT and only gives a turnout indication.  The opposing signal is a starter and shows green/red and is controlled by a separate switch.  I have placed it at the end of the turnout yet it will authorise both the main and loop.  It gets expensive to start running lots of signals.

A new second siding on the peninsular.  This will be all steel, probably with  slab on one track and structural on the other.  A large steel yard will go in between.

Enjoy!

Layout Update - Painting

After a bit of a break over summer, I have got back into running some trains and trying to get the layout into a decent look with minimal effort, in preparation for a few running days around Easter.

The two main improvements have been the installation of the island divider and subsequent painting of the sky blue right around the layout, and the second aspect has been the installation of a fascia and the subsequent painting of that into a black finish (need a little bit more paint to complete!).  

The overall layout needs a good clean up as it has become the home to tools and materials of late.

I'm keen to add a few more sidings at Nathans Point plus another set of cross overs, but will see how operations go to start with.  

Also need to install a few Hex Frog Juicers in the main yard and some PSX circuit breakers as the next project.

Cheers

A little Progress

Been making a little progress over the last week, with some tidying up in the train shed, the installation of another Tortoise point motor and the completion of the Jonestown loco depot. 



I've started to install a PSX-4 circuit breaker for my four districts and just need to an an auto-reversing module for my wye/triangle.  I haven't fully installed the PSX-4 as I need to read a bit more about programming it on DCC, so don't want to kill the layout before I know what I am doing.    

I have designed a basic signalling control panel for positioning at the main entry to the layout where a 'network controller' can control the primary signals on the layout to provide authority for trains to move between towns and take key routes.  All signals on the layout will be wired back to this main control panel.  There will be a few route indicating signals where high risk points are, but these will be automatically set by the route through the Tortoise power and do not show a stop indication (only Proceed/green and caution/yellow).  

The control panel will be operated with ON/ON DPDT switches where signals are Green/Red, or with ON/ON/ON switches where you can also have yellow for a turnout indication.  I'm not planning on any LED or light indicators on the control panel as I would like to have this completed sometime this century!  I simply don't love wiring and soldering all that much.

The control of all turnouts is the responsibility of the train crew.

I'm hoping to get a start on backdrops and fascias soon, and also need to rejig the NCE UTP panels and wireless base station back onto the ceiling.

Hope to get another update in a few weeks time.

Cheers

Adding Staging

After thinking about adding an interchange siding, I set of on a conquest to add hidden staging.  I should have planned this from day one, but thankfully there were a few good spots to add tracks without too much trouble.  Better yet, I had a few spare turnouts, all of which were the correct size and orientation!!  

On the main, approaching Jonestown I have added two turnouts.  The one going towards the wall gives me about 3m in length, and will be hidden by a low backdrop panel.  The one facing the yard will sneak down and around the layout, before splitting a a set of points and hiding under the elevated section, giving two 4m long staging roads.  I am also extending the head shunt at the end of the photo and this will lead to staging also (single 4m track). 

Looking the other way.  I laid this siding this afternoon so will post some more updates soon.

The other staging track (and original interchange idea) was from Heidiville.  This track will go through the backdrop and sneak long the raised section and wrap around the back of the layout, giving another 4m long staging siding.  I did this siding in concrete sleepers so it looks like it is a different network connection.  

So, after a week of thinking, I have ended up with 4 x 4m staging tracks and a 3m staging track, making it seem like there are lots of different connections to my little train world.

Enjoy!