Had quite a constructive weekend.

Had quite a constructive weekend.

I wasn't too happy with the "Flour" siding coming off the main like that so I have now abandoned the dock road and made a siding running behind the station to the Flour merchant, idea inspired by the track diagram of Nhill, Vic.  This has the added benefit of reducing the total number of points on the layout by one.  I like it whenever I reduce trackage, I take it as a big plus.  I am thinking GY and/or GJF traffic on this siding?

Also didn't like how road 3 was coming out of road 2, so I have added a curved point at the beginning of the yard which makes road 2 longer, and made road 3 a partial head-shunt.  See schematic below and photo.

Also, power-routed my double-slip which is in its new location given the changes mentioned above.

Spent alot of time trying to wire up the signalling.  It's a rest nest!  Unfortunately I think I blew one of the bi-colour LEDs so will need to re-wire another one of those.

Also had some time to run some trains and do some shunting in a very casual manner.

Had quite a constructive week and a track-plan

Had quite a constructive week.
Changed the approach to the (small) town (bottom of track-plan).  Initially I had a Left hand Curved point.  I didn't like how the main line was on the deviating track and I didn't want to have the secondary road nearest to the edge, so I shortened the
secondary road and replaced the curved left hand point with a right hand point.  This made the approach longer, however it reduced the secondary road somewhat.
Power routed three points.
Moved the colour light signals to the other side which was formely staging, as this side is now a yard and station complex.  Signals are active but do not detect presence of a train and drop to red at this time.
Changed the point work at this location so I have a couple of sidings / head shunt on the eastern end (anti-clockwise is heading to Melbourne).  The double-slip is moved to the secondary road.
Add some paste to existing trees I had created a while back.  Inspiration comes from Geoff of Spitters Swamp Creek fame.  Still need to paint them up and add foilage.
Started cleaning some rollingstock wheels - some were incredibly flithy.  Took me a few hours just to do about a dozen.  I used Acetone and ear-buds. Locos also run alot smoother now.

Here is the trackplan for those interested.

0-5-0 Staging

The following changes made since last post.

Due to the lack of main-line run,  I have done away with the concept of staging, using the good old 0-5-0 instead.

One side of the layout will be a smallish yard with some shunting possibilities, the other, a small outback town with two roads, one being the main and the other servicing a goods shed, a silo and a cattle siding (for example Gerang Gerung  (photo))
I usually run one train at a time.  This train will run a few laps until I am content, then it can do a number of things:

1.  Shunts at the small town
2.  Shunts at the larger town
3.  Crosses another train at the larger town or
4.  Goes directly "off line"

All locos and wagons are stored away so every time I want to run a train, I basically make up a consist on the fly.  One thing good about this is that I can have many consists programmed into the controller and don't have to worry about killing a consists after a run.  The down side is that there is much more handling of the rolling-stock.  Removing and adding a new train takes under a minute so its quite easy.  For the precious space that I have got back by not using staging, which is basically nearly 6 metres, it is of little trouble to me to manually stage trains.

Lift Out section

Since I now have the layout connected in a continuous loop, one of the things I don't like is bending down or ducking under for access.  If something is annoying me or I just don't like, it moves to the top of the to-do list immediately, and hence I spent the last two days working on a lift-out section.

Unfortunately, one side of the duck-under is the entry/exit to/from staging and this is on a curved section, with about six tracks.   The other end is not so bad as it is pretty much straight.  The job took me longer than I thought as I also wanted to isolate a section of track just before the lift-out section and to do this I had to isolate six tracks from staging and the other side of the lift-out section.  I used a common push button, so that when the lift-out section is in place, the push-buttons are in a depressed state allowing current to flow to complete the circuit.  I found this idea on the net sometime back so credit to that person.  Unfortunately I didn't keep the link.

Craig was kind enough to lend me his cutting tool to quickly cut the rails as well as some spare copper plates.

For now I used the standard 1200 x 600 x 12mm ply which is not too difficult to lift out and used some nails for positioning.  I will need to look at some other mechinism for aliging the lift-out section, one thought that comes to mind is a latch or something similar.

With temps hitting 45C in the shed, I had my work cut out for me, although I would prefer a hot day over a rainy and wet one!

The real test of this will be the next 12 months, with rain and humidity, and winter time where temperatures in the shed can go down to 4C.

So far the trains run through pretty well and it's so nice just to walk in without having to bend.  Alot of effort but it should be worth it.

Some photos:

Some sound suggestions....

Some sound suggestions from fellow VR modeller Anthony has got me back on the layout with renewed interest!  One suggestion was to have the main line on the far side of the operator.  By just making this change, the approach looks so much better.  Anthony was also kind enough to drop in and discuss layout modifications.  Another excellent suggestion was to have the industries, which are located on the "wings", to come off road 2, hence not fouling the main line, just like VR prototype practice.
And a final suggestion was to go back to having a continuous run, which facilitates having only one staging yard, rather than two.  This also enables me to run trains continuously whilst I am doing odd jobs or when visitors come over.

Yesterday I purchased another 1200 x 600 x 12mm ply which will be used for a lift out section as I dislike bending all the time to get into the layout.  Will need to work on this another time.

So the layout now looks like this:

Layout dropped back to four roads from five, with the main line on the far side.

Goods Shed road nearest to the operator

I like the space between the running lines and the secondary lines

Station long enough to hold four pass cars and a B Class loco

This road leads to the cattle siding, from road 2.

The peninsula - another industry can be modelled here.

Staging on the opposite side

Approach to town, with an industry on the left.

Approach signal and industry on the right

I really want to add some greenery and vertical structures, like a station building to make things look less flat.  Hopefully this will be achieved in 2014.

Peter's Place..........

A few weeks back we had the opportunity to visit a layout in Mt Gravatt.  The layout is simply stunning scenery wise and some scenes reminded my of the Border Ranges!  The layout is NSW themed and although not finished, it just looked amazing.  Here are some videos:

As 2013 Draws to a Close.............

.
..Well it's nearly the years end and I still find myself unconvinced of the layout I have created so far.  The past few days I have come to the realisation that what I would like to have in relation to a layout is not what can realistically be be achieved with the space I have.  There is too much compression which to me looks unrealistic.  I think for the new year I will concentrate on seeing what I can realistically achieve with the space I have.

Any of the VR major towns such as Dimboola and Horsham, which I tried to model, involves to much compression for my liking.
Photo's below show the problem I see as of too much "compression":

One thing I learnt is that I like to see trains running, like being a railfan track-side, so the idea of depicting one of the smaller towns, such as Gordon, Jung, Dooen, or Buangor, having three or four roads max, with enough space to add some atmosphere, may be a better alternate.  Being on the Western Main line, I can realistically run quite a number of freights, and have the off Roadside pull up, and I really enjoy seeing trains cross in loops.  What I would like and what I can realistically achieve is on either side of the spectrum.

Here are some photos of the locations mentioned from Mark Bau's wonderful site, all small and lovely looking places:

http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/gordon/gordon.html
http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/jung/jung.html
http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/dooen/dooen.html
http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/buangor/buangor.html

Some others:
http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/trawalla/trawalla.html
http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/avoca/avoca.html
http://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/wal_wal/walwal.html

Lets see how the new year pans out....

Love to hear your thoughts...reply below....