New member from Bucks with a train in a train

[DickBrowne]

Or, at least, that's the plan.

Does that need some explaining? I guess it does. 22 years ago we moved house and in the garden was... An old tailway carriage from our old branch line. How old is it? Well, my dad played in it as a child, and it was definitely there when the original owners had hte house built in 1938, and had been there for some 20 years before that when it served as changing rooms for tennis courts. To the best of our knowledge, the carriage is around 150 years old.

For many years I used one compartment (of two) for an office, but I'm now allowed in the house and my former workspace was becoming a dumping zone, so I cleared it out (then changed all the wiring, so it needs clearing out again!) and the plan is to build a layout around the outside - it's 8 feet square, so should give me some interesting options, although it will need to wend it's way through some cupboards.

AS for me, I'm an IT geek, pubilished author, watchmaker and engineer - I love working with my hands and usually have a winter project to restore; I've done everything from motorbikes and cars to lawnmowers, lathes, stationary engines and vintage watches. This project will probably take a few years, but it's something that my wife and I have wanted to do for many years, and so now is the time!

I will, I've no doubt, be asking lots of daft questions along the way, so apologies in advance for that, but I promise to research before asking those questions. I'm thinking that I will eventually go DCC rather than DC, so my feeling is that it's best to invest in this from the start. The latyout will be OO scale and the theme (because we love a theme) is Midsomer Murders, which my wife loves and as we found a Midsomer Norton station in a local model shop over the weekend, that pretty much gave us a ready-made theme. I'm seeing a town on a couple of levels, a lake to drown people in, a church for things to fall off with people in the way, and a number of other areas where people will meet their grizzly ends.

Any Midsomer suggestions welcome - I love an idea!

Cheers all

Richard

[Puddles]

Welcome Richard
Don’t forget the Police Station, it will be a busy place.
Great idea of having the railway in your old carriage.
Good luck with your project.

Puddles

[Mountain Goat]

Hello. Welcome to the forum. Seems an interesting project. You mentioned about DC or DCC. I personally think that grasping DC first is the best plan as learning DC then gives one a basic understanding and experience with any loco issues that crop up etc, which is then useful for DCC at a later date, so though if deciding for DCC one can go straight in as it works out slightly cheaper than going for DC first (Though DCC users ideally need a small DC controller to first test locos on before fitting DCC decoders so maybe the DC route first is cost effective after all).
Have you decided on a scale and gauge as each one has plusses and minuses. The most popular in the UK is 00 and I used to model in it, though through initially through financial circumstances I ended up scratchbuilding with the occasional budget kit in 0-16.5 as I find the scale nice to work with if one likes making things oneself, and the gauge is the same as 00 uses, though ideally sleepers need to be larger and have larger spacing but one can hide them under ballast if required and use 00 track.
There really are quite a lot of interesting options with scale and gauge. 00 as mentioned above is the most popular, but there are also smaller as well such as TT or N. Not much available in TT as yet though recently has had interest from a few manufacturers while N is fairly popular but no where near as popular as 00 (H0 if outside the UK which uses the same track as 00 but has a slightly smaller scale).
Narrow gauges have the advantages of using the same larger scale as their standard gauges, but they can fit in smaller spaces and turn on much tighter curves. 8ftx8ft seems a lot initially but the space soon gets eaten up, so narrow gauges may come into their own, but it all depends on what one imagines the Mid Summer Murder scene to be as they did film in wider settings than just the initial village area. (Often wondered if so many murders in just the one area would have recieved serious government attention so in reality the setting had to really be a much larger area or every other person living in the village would be up for murder and the ones who were not would have alread been murdered by now. Seems like a dangerous place to live!)

I have a friend who is interested in old railway coaches as he is starting a railway and finding remains of coaches that were either historic to this local line which has a slightly reduced height loading gauge and slightly narrower as well as it once was a canal, or on the hunt for the occasional item that would fit the line. It is fascinating to see what he finds and comes up with next and how far some of the old coaches once used on the line actually got after they were no longer used. (Initially no one knew any of them survived or any of the similar coaches to the ones origionally used and it has been amazing to discover not only coaches but locos as well, some of which have been rescued already and are awaiting the long process of restoration).

Regardless of real or model, this hobby is fascinating and can keep one enthusiastically amused for years!

[IanS]

Welcome, and remember the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask!

[Stese]

Hey Richard!

Welcome the the forum (commonly referred to as the friendly forum.. and its an accurate description!).

Hello from a fellow IT Geek.

Sounds like you have the location and the general skills to excel in the hobby.

Look forward to the progress.

Regards,

Steve D.

[bulleidboy]

Welcome Richard - You have joined a great forum, with lots of help, information and fun. I look forward to seeing a photograph of your carriage in the garden. BB

[Brian]

Welcome Richard, we look forward to reading more from you.

DC (Analogue) or DCC (Digital) train control has to be a personal choice. However, if you're thinking of going DCC later, then personally I would take that step and go with it now. Otherwise you can waste a lot of hard-earned cash on one system only to stop using in the near future!

[Stese]

Hey Richard!

Welcome the the forum (commonly referred to as the friendly forum.. and its an accurate description!).

Hello from a fellow IT Geek.

Sounds like you have the location and the general skills to excel in the hobby.

Look forward to the progress.

Regards,

Steve D.

[Bandit Mick]

Welcome. We’ll all be interested in the progress you make with this novel theme.

[DickBrowne]

Thank you everyone for the kind words of welcome. I think I can disprove the theory that the only daft question is the one not asked. I’ve experience in this!

I’ve been having a play around with some ideas for layouts whilst clearing the carriage this week and initially thought something like this may work:





However, I really haven’t been happy with this and today spent a bit more time roughing out this:



Which seems better in my inexperienced mind.

Please bear in mind that the board this part is in will be around 6-8 inches wider once I start to commit, and this is only one end - it will have a town (mostly raised) with a station to the left hand side and a small village to the right, and the track will then disappear into a cutting or a tunnel which will take it onto my desk, and out the other side.

Once past my desk, it will turn through 90 degrees and come across the door (which I’m hoping to bridge with a hinged section) and then another 90 degree turn before disappearing into the infamous cupboard tunnel and then linking up with the track you see here.

Ambitious for a first layout? Possibly, but I’m thinking it will take long enough to complete that I may never find out!