An overdue update and abandoning TT:120

It's been eight long months... and the shelf layout is gone, and the roundy roundy is gone. Both were dismantled due to frustration and lack of progress. The shelf layout didn't make much sense and the roundy roundy wasn't wide enough.

Over the past eight months I rebuilt both to more sensible track plans but ultimately they faced the same fate.

The shelf layout got rebuilt using a 3 point track plan inspired by Paul Marshall-Potter's shelfie3 layout and the timelapse shown here - https://albionyard.com/2024/06/22/time-after-time-shelfie-3/

The Peco track and points got relaid like so:

A simple back and forth for mostly wagons using the 08.

Which is fine - I even got to the point of fitting seep point motors, making use of the electrofrog capability of the unifrog points, new DCC system - the whole shebang.

Similarly the roundy roundy got dismantled too and rebuilt as this - 

 

Inspired by the famous OO Bredon layout, it worked really well and would've no doubt made an excellent first layout if it ever got completed. But we had a reshuffle at home which meant the 5ft x 2.5ft baseboard got moved into my home office/spare bedroom but the only way it could fit was such that the 2.5ft end was accessible without clambering onto the bed. This obviously was never going to work. I tried reworking the trackplan but no. So that got ripped up too and the Hornby track sold.

So now what am I left with - well, the shelf layout needs to be dismantled and I can no doubt sell the Peco points and bits of flex track. The seep motors are reusable as is most of the wiring, switches and DCC system.

But I've got a lot a TT:120 rolling stock sat in boxes and I started to accumulate cheap OO items too which is leaving me in a pickle.

My main interest in railways is the LMS as well as the Midland and LNWR railways. It appears it's going to be a long old time before any rolling stock for those railways is available in TT:120. So far all we've got for LMS is the massive Princess Coronation and Stanier 57ft coaches.

So this got me thinking, and being the skinflint that I am, I realised that for the price of a single Stanier coach, I can get 3 decent albeit old OO coaches. There's the Airfix corridor and non-corridor stock, Mainline's period 1 and 2 coaches, Hornby's non-prototype Period III stock and others. That's without even looking at the recent releases.

Similar for the price of the Princess Coronation, I could get 3 or 4 OO locomotives in LMS livery if I'm lucky - everything from small tank engines to Black 5's and bigger. Sure they might not be DCC ready but that's easily sorted if I need.

Which makes me think about the value proposition of OO as a beginner's scale. This is no doubt helped by the demographic certainty that nobody wants to talk about that results in lots of OO stock being available time and time again.

So now here I am planning a 6ft x 4ft beginner OO layout on 4 portable boards that can be put either on top of a bed, or in the living room, whenever I want to play trains.

It's inspired by a CJ Freezer plan I found in one of his old trackplan books - 

And by the excellent layout created by YouTuber KV12543 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUz6pv9-_A - this series of videos really shows how even a 6ft x 4ft layout can achieve realism and I love the names!

However instead of a terminus as in the original plan I've gone for a passing loop station located close to a mainline junction, with a small goods yard and engine shed to justify running some of the bigger locos and longer trains. Yes it's a trainset layout, and yes it's compressed beyond reality but there is a charm to that which I think some of the more prototypical layouts lack. To begin with I'll stick to DC control since it'll be relatively simple using a one/two engine in steam approach and the setrack points will control power in the fiddleyard as required. There's even space in the future to add a turntable on the upper left hand board to make operations more realistic. There will be a suitable backscene with tunnels/bridges to disguise the scenic break of course.

My plan is to use the Hornby buildings that I remember from my childhood (although I'm aware the current ones use stickers for the textures so I'll try to obtain the original versions if I can). The country station set (R8000) will fit in the left bottom corner, with a bridge over to a station halt set (R590) lengthened with an extra platform or two. I'll make use of the trackmat accessory sets 4+5 to round out the buildings. The upper half of the layout will be for storage/fiddling with enough space for most of the locos I've acquired and a couple of sets of coaches/wagons. In the scenic bottom half the track will be a mixture of streamline and setrack using the newer unifrog curved points and small radius electrofrog points to improve slow running. I'll stick with setrack points in the fiddleyard.

I think this will be a more productive project than trying to continue with TT:120. The total projected cost of this layout is roughly half that compared to the equivalent sized TT layout with a similar amount of rolling stock. Although as mentioned in OO I've acquired a good selection of LMS tank and tender engines that reflect the reality of the LMS in the late 1930s/early 40s much better - and at a much lower cost. They also aren't aflicted by the teething issues of TT:120 locomotives such as the issues with motors, bogies catching and causing shorts and coaches scraping around even wide radius curves.

So I plan to offload my TT:120 stock onto eBay and continue picking up OO bargains whilst I continue to plan this layout. Hopefully I'll keep this more up to date with my progress.

A tale of track and ballasting...

 I've been experimenting with track painting and ballast this week.

I don't want a uniform look to my layout, as like the real thing, track colour and ballast varies over time as bits get replaced. To that end my approach is to take my time and complete the track painting and ballast in stages.

I purchased three types of ballast from Hornby - grey, grey basaltic, and limestone. I also purchased 3 railmatch paints - sleeper grime, dark rust and light rust.

These are the results:

The limestone and grey basaltic on their own are clearly overscale for TT 120. The grey on it's own looks... odd? I'm not sure why it looks so rounded.

I then decided to mix all all three:

Hmm, not sure! 

Moving onto a stretch of Hornby track (since that's what my roundy round layout uses) and I tried a mix of just the grey and grey basaltic rock. I also tried two different mixes for the rail sides; starting with a few drops of water I added all three paints for one half and then just the two rust colours for the other half.

Much better I think! I intend to use the mix of just rust colours for the sidings and less used sections of track. I'll also use the three types of ballasts in different areas of my layout, perhaps with some chinchilla sand or finer grey ballast added to improve the overscale look. The limestone for example can be used nearer the tunnel mouths with a transition to the grey/basaltic mix, and in areas like the engine shed I can just use the basaltic rock which dries darker. A black/grey wash with some coal deposits should help set the scene.

But first, I need to paint all of the track!

Update on the roundy roundy

 It's taking shape.

The baseboard arrived a few weeks ago and was promptly set up, drilled, drawn all over and painted.

The final track plan is as follows:

And so far it has proven to provide sufficient operational potential to keep my occupied during my running sessions.

Control is provided by my Hornby Select - currently connected by a digital power clip in a convenient place. A better permanent solution will be thought up in due course but this works for now.

Point motors are a Hatton's variety which I think were a bit of a bargain:

They're based on an old H&M design from what I can gather, which allows for both point control and associated accessories (signals, crossing gates, etc) using piano wire or otherwise. But, most importantly, these came with DCC decoders (and built in CDU) for the grand total of £9 each. So far reliability has been fine. Some of my points are located close to the edge of the board so some ingenuinty was required there (utilising the accessory arm and extended pin with the help of a glasses hinge screw and some soldering) to allow the motor to be orientated 90 degrees to the normal alignment.

Operation is relatively simple via the Select and the power seems to be enough to power everything so far whilst running sound locos.

I may look to build a control panel at a later stage as the method of operating them via the Select isn't the most intuitive but works for now.

Some buildings have started to appear too, sans painting, as they're quite enjoyable to construct. Big shoutout to 'In The Greenwood Laser' on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/inthegreenwoodlaser?_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l2563

So, next stages are to test some more (read: play with trains) before I start ballasting and creating scenery (tunnel at one end), make some backscenes from plywood to attach all around the layout (with a 10cm lip at the front) which will then allow for lighting etc to be added too.

It's nice to have a semi-permanent layout where I can just run trains without too much effort, especially in time for all the incoming models I have on pre order for next year (Class 50, Princess Coronation, HST, 57' coaches, etc).

That all said, my end to end Vulcan layout isn't abandoned - it will just be taking a more leisurely time to construct as it's more of a diorama than a layout.

As yet unnamed layout

So I got a bit tired of not being able to run trains. A semi-realistic diorama layout like Vulcan Halt was never going to be fun in the same way as a model train set in the eyes of a child is fun but I hadn't anticipated how demotivating it can be to spend an entire afternoon trying to get a point control system to work and never having the opportunity to just run trains. Also, with it it being an end to end layout, this limits the pleasure of just seeing trains going by.

So, a new plan emerged after I spotted ready built baseboards for sale on eBay for a relatively reasonable price, complete with folding legs. Total size was 5ft by 2ft 6in. Not too large and just enough space to get a double track loop onto with enough straights to accommodate 3-4 carriage trains.

Using the Hornby TT track extension packs as a starting point, I've devised this plan to fill the space:

 

Not too dissimilar to the Hornby TT track plan but with some changes to keep it within the 2ft 6in width. It's partly based on Plan No.4 from the Peco N Gauge Setrack Planbook too.

1. Station area - enough platform room to accommodate 3 carriage stopping express trains with a loco on the inside track but with 2 bay platforms for local passenger/parcels trains (not sure whether the engine shed will stay there yet or be adapted into a platform roof. This was necessary since there isn't enough space on the outside loop to fit a platform unless it was very low relief. The station area also includes a small siding for a pilot locomotive (when we get one - or my Class 08 for now) to wait complete with coal staithes etc.
2. Goods Shed area - linked to 4 - to accommodate local freight traffic with 2 sidings for storage of wagons. The immediate siding will be used to hold locomotives not in use (thinking a diesel pump etc can be placed here). The goods shed is accessible via a diamond crossing from the outside line as the inside line will be primarily used for passenger traffic to access the station area sidings above.
3. Road crossing onto the layout and signal box.
4. Factory/industry area of some kind served by the goods shed.
5. Residential/commercial area with a car park outside the station - the grey area obviously being a road to link all of these areas and leading off the layout.

And that's it in a nutshell. It should be a relatively straight forward build - I haven't added any inclines or hidden areas (tunnels etc) but perhaps a bridge and tunnel section could be incorporated in the top left so the layout has two exit/entry points.

Initially when I got the idea of buying this baseboard (which hasn't arrived yet) I had the thought that TT was the wrong scale for me and I'd be better off selling up and going to N gauge but then the fiddly-ness of TT has already been an issue (re: the point control fun referred to above) so no doubt N would be worse. I had a look at the locomotives on offer though and whilst there is more, a lot would have to be sourced second hand and is old enough to not be DCC ready, let alone able to accommodate sound easily and I've already been spoilt by the DCC Sound in TT scale (not to mention the cheaper cost with the HM7000 decoders). Track in N would be a challenge as well as by all accounts the newer rolling stock doesn't play well with Peco Setrack where as so far Hornby TT Setrack isn't causing major issues so it's far easier to get started.

Vulcan Halt isn't going away either - I intend to build both layouts on and off simultaneously so that when I'm fed up with not making progress on the more realistic one I can go to this and just enjoy running trains round and round.

Ta ta for now.

The permanent way

 So, finally after 9 months or so the track has been pinned and glued for the entire layout and I've also painted the baseboards.

In hindsight I probably should have done that to begin with, but hey ho. 

I need to take a break for a while as I've started a new job and my credit card needs some relief from buying things but my next steps are as follows:

1. Point control - I've decided to do this manually but there's a couple of approaches; wire in tube method or something like the Ratio 138 Point Control Unit set. I'm going to buy one of the ratio kits first to try out as it may require lifting the point work again so I want to get this sorted before I move onto the next step.
2. Ballast, paint and weather the track - I've never ballasted track before so this will be interesting I'm sure. I intend to do a test section on one of the fiddleyards to begin with just to get my technique right.
3. Finish off the signal box and buffer stops - this needs paints and interior detail so will require a few more purchases. I am tempted to try the Ratio N gauge kit for the interior details. The size difference isn't as big as it is to OO but I'll have to see how it looks. I also have some other Ratio N gauge kits on my wishlist to buy - telegraph poles and wooden plank sheeting with which to build the level crossing. I found on eBay some TT scale crossing gates too so that should come together nicely. There is a Noch crossing kit if the gauge difference is too big to look okay.

 And in other news:

My A4 from The Easterner set is poorly; since fitting the HM 7000 decoder for DCC control I wasn't happy with the noise and vibration during slow speeds. 

So I disassembled it to try and figure out where the issue was.

At first I found a random screw which I thought might be catching on the mechanism:

But removing this didn't improve things. So I diassembled it further until I got to the motor and it became clear this was the issue:

You may need to turn it up to appreciate the difference. Basically the motor is only smooth in operation above speed setting 25 in the HM DCC app. Now as my layout is end to end it's unlikely to spend most of it's time above this speed.

So I've emailed Hornby technical services for their advice and to see if they can repair it for me with a new motor.

In the process of the above (and removing the decoder to test it on DC vs DCC) I've also managed to break off the plastic lugs that hold the tender in place so it permanently sits skewiff now:

So I'm hoping they can help fix that too.

On the upside, they replaced my power track sharpish and I've sent the Hornby Select controller that I won on eBay for £30~ to them for a firmware upgrade so at least even if there are problems, Hornby's customer service is at least pretty good in resolving them.

More testing and wiring

 So today was pretty productive.

The track is still not fully permanent but dropper fishplates have been installed, wiring has been permanently connected and I even added a convenient little holder for the controller.

I've decided to stick with the included R7229 controller, because despite all of its faults its just plain nicer to use than the HM DC bluetooth app and even after fiddling around with all of the circuit PWM settings I'm not convinced its doing any better. I may upgrade to a nicer gaugemaster combi or similar at some point but it's not a priority now.

I'm pleased with how easy the wiring turned out, and I can easily add in the HM 7000 adapter cable in the same way too when I go to DCC.

Just awaiting a pin vice drill from Amazon and then I'll be sticking the track down permanently. I also want to paint the non-scenic areas with some primer just so it doesn't look quite so unfinished.

 

Track testing

 I've spent the last few days measuring and cutting track, attaching fishplates (which I hate!) and today testing the layout with DC power for the time being.

So, running from the left fiddleyard, down through the halt over what will be a level crossing before the points, past the entrance to the works sidings, and then out onto the right fiddleyard.

There's enough room either side for the Class A4 and 3x BR mk1 coaches so basically any train that would've been seen passing through this section can be accommodated.

And best of all, due to the modular nature - I can always add in a loop and expand the layout further in the future when I have space.

Tomorrow's job is to pin the track down permanently, wire it up for permanent DCC and DC power which thanks to the simple track plan is relatively straight forward. I may then start building the Peco signal box and buffer stops that have been sat on my shelf for months now.

 I've also ordered the ballast, spreader and PVA so at least the layout is finally taking shape.

 For point control, I've decided that wire in tubes will be sufficient for the 4 points - motors would be overcomplicated I think.  So I also need to work out how I'm going to accomplish that.

My only criticism so far is that the fiddleyard baseboards from Scalemodelscenery are a different height to the main baseboards. I've improvised and added some feet to elevate it to the same level but I've no idea why they didn't just standardise the height. They must have assumed people would use them together.