Enjoying my layout and the trains

I have been really enjoying the layout and running trains.  Infact this last weekend I have been also been doing alot of shunting.  The Brake feature on some decoders you find nowadays makes shunting so much fun.  I really use to detest pressing the buttons or thumb wheel repeatedly to stop a loco.  Now, with a press of a button I can bring a loco to a halt or ride the brakes.

Also have been doing some scenery work.  Pretty happy with the results so far.  The fence posts I think came out pretty good as well as the dried grass work which I did today.

I have been doing operations in the following manner all this week.

Basically I make up a train on the far side of the layout which is like a fiddle track.  All empties are located at the rear of the train.  Any loading that needs to come off is usually at the front.  At the main station, I pick up any wagons destined for any Eastern Locations, in my case, since I am modelling Western Victorian, mainly Dimboola station, I imagine any cattle wagons are full for Melbourne and any Tank wagons are empty.  I only have four sidings, namely Cattle, VR, Flour Mill and the Oil Siding, with the Goods Shed also available to generate inbound and outbound loads.

So with this I sometimes shunt the appropriate siding.  DOWN trains from Melbourne will shunt the Oil Siding and other Tank cars stay on the train for the journey further west.

Any new train I make up at the fiddle track comes into the station immediately, then after shunting will run a few laps of the inner loop.  This allows the feeling of the train actually clocking up some miles.

I did this type of movement six times during the weekend and enjoyed it.

I have also been playing round with some electronic projects in the space of external audio with a LM386 op amp but it didn't go too well.

Some video