John Amrstrong in Track Planning for Realistic Operation makes a couple of interesting points which have stuck.

1. Try and make a portion of track laid down for more than one purpose. (Efficiency in the use of the available space)
2. Don't repeat the same thing twice.
3. Plan for more edge (accessibility)

With point 1, I think going with a longer road number 2 followed by a left hand point into the yard proper about 100cm farther down which creates a Road Number 2a (see Nhill track diagram )
- this in effect can also be used as a head shunt.

With Point 2 i touched on in my previous post - why create another town with the same core principal which is to shunt and take refugee for a cross

With point 3, try and plan to lay your tracks closer to you rather towards the back for cleaning and maintenance, depending on height, 60cms to reach could cause problems.

Here is a youtube video of a train length which seems realistic for a B Class (could even get away with a double header S and B? Not sure.)

Some things I learnt

Having visited the Brisbane Model Train Show recently, it got me thinking about my own layout and more so the short comings. In summary, it boils down to trying to do too much is the space I have.
IMHO, the biggest contributor to a realistic model train layout is the scenery. Without realistic scenery, my model layout is simply a trainset.

So, with this mind, I decided to once again change the layout!

Now, I learnt by looking at various signal and track diagrams, real railroads use *alot* of space and that 100 meters in real life is about 100 cms in HO scale. So I have decided to expand No1 and No2 roads so that when a long train comes into a stop for a cross, the tail of the train is not just fitting in, but has some space at the end just like in the prototype. Also, if I want to double head or even triple head now I can with luxury and not worry about the ass end fitting into the loop.

Now to me a long train is about 14 VLX Box cars - which looks pretty long anyway. This is the maximum length train I intend to run - (about 200cms long)

So, gone are the foreground tracks on the plan and if I want to just watch trains go by I still have a loop - this will only happen when I am not playing realistically - such as to a timetable.

So some of the lessons learnt

* 100 cms is about 100 meters in real life which is approx 7.5 VLX wagons (40foot wagons)
* Don't lay down too much track
* Scenery is a must have - including structures
* Think big (track plan wise e.g. for loop, and yards - 100 cm crossing loops won't cut it)
* Focus on one area and do it thoroughly
* No point repeating what's already modeled in one scene again - e.g. on the plan I had a station at opposite ends - maybe better to have a country scene at one end and an immediate station scene at the other.

Anyway, unfortunately I learnt the hard way.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Good luck!

Sealing the Shed

Well I have been busy the last two days sealing the shed. I went out and bought a Selleys Sealant Gun and Sealant and began to seal the shed as much as I could. I hope this will stop the dirt and dust from coming in. This is a titan shed and the way the shed is made, the sheet metal has an opening every few cms allowing not only dirt, but also grass, spiders and cockroaches!

So I set out and sealed every hole I could - although it will be impossible to stop these creatures for entering, at least it should slow them down somewhat - I couldn't believe the amount of daddy long legs under the workbench. I really hope this works.
The geckos were the worst as they leave their droppings everywhere - if anyone has had some success with sealing their train room I'd like to hear about it.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Brisbane Model Train Show.

Cheer!

Ballasting!

Well, I felt the urge to give ballasting a try this weekend. After taking some advice from Al (who is MonsterRailroad on youtube), I basically used his technique.

I started on a curve just incase it didn't come out right. Well, I think the curve didn't come out too right, and then I did another section, making sure to highlight the drop to the sides of the track just like in the prototype. This took me like one hour for a 1.2 meter track, before I finely sprayed the ballast and then sprayed the PVA/water mixture.

Here are some shots and a video of the curve I did as the first attempt.

BW Car - Partially Complete

Well here are some photos of the BW Car partially complete.
Overall I am happy with the result. Just noticed that this is my longest 'wagon' on my layout and hope nothing exceeds this length.

Breakthrough

One of the detector / signal circuits did not work correctly all the time. This is the signal for the branch (or the lower aspect). Sometimes, it would work when a train went past the signal, other times when I pressed the switch for the green aspect, it would automatically go back to red straight away and on yet other times, it would stay green for say 10 secs and switch to red all of a sudden! I spent ages trying to work out what was wrong, even cut the strip of track into two blocks (one of the top aspect and one for the bottom).

Well today I removed the BOD circuit and noticed when I moved the 2.2uf cap the signal would turn to red even though I didn't have the feeder wire looped into the transformer! On closer examination, I found that one leg of this cap was not soldered properly! So, as I eventually suspected, a bad solder joint somewhere. So next time I know to look straight at the circuit(s)!

Well here are some videos from today:

BW Car

Well since it has been raining incessantly today, I decided to work on my BW Car. Alot of work to build one of these, however, with most of the components put together, at last the kit is looking like a passenger car. I had a lot of trouble putting the floor together with the sides and ends. Also, painting the window sashes is really hard to get that nice smooth look. If anyone has any tips on how you guys put these AW/BW SEM kits together, I will appreciate it.


Cheers.