Sandy Hills The new layout

[sandy]

Hi MG............ The old controllers I have had for years and they still work just fine. Sandy Hills is OO gauge.
Today I have made temples cut from left over roll of lining paper by laying it along the main line station tracks, and taking an impression of the tracks from which I will lay them on to 18mm ply sheets and cut out the platform shapes.

[Mountain Goat]

Not sure why but a scene I looked at looked smaller than 00. Yes. Actually prefer older controllers and somehow I abandoned DCC because after spending time with it it was the clunky switches and the cogratulating myself when my wiring all worked etc! (A good few hundred wires as I went overboard to build duplicate control panels with track section indicators in each panel to show who was switched into which panel, and stud contact on the panels for 46 sets of points... Took me a month and a half of evenings to wire up and my then 3 year old brother took to it and we could both run trains on the compact layout and we did not have a single accident! He was only three! He understood the whole control panel at that age, switching in track sections and controlling points from his own independent control panel cut into a hole at the end loop of the layout. My duck under control panel was in the middle. Shame I did not take photos. Had an elderly guy who was a professional newspaper photographer take a photo or two but every one had me in the way of the layout as he refused to take photos of the layout without me in it. Lovely photos of me, but not so much of the layout. Sadly he has very likely passed away as he was in his late 90's. I do miss these people!)

[sandy]

While doing Sandy Hills MG I have had problems with wiring but all sorted now except the SL90 double slip. I am thinking of taking it out and putting in a crossover in its place to make things easier for me. I just cant get the switching wired properly on the double slip. People have tried to help me with it but I am complete dumbo with wiring. Seem to manage everything else OK, except double slips.
Perhaps I should have put one of my newer A3s pulling the coaches in the picture to help you see the gauge.

[Stese]

I've got a Double slip to go into my DC layout... I'll be switching the frog polarities with the point motors. I'll try and document it all in some way.

[sandy]

Thanks for reply Stese but have ordered a cross over now. Will be putting in a couple of points at the main line station so locos can change from up and down lines to get into the loco yard.

[sandy]

Hello everyone not been well last year but much better now. I have to report Sandy Hills layout is no more had to dissmantle it because we moved to a cottage near Coldstream just over the boarder from Northumberland in Berwickshire. I have a spare bedroom in which I am starting a new layout, but do not have any idea what it will be like yet. Not even got the baseboards set up yet. I do know it is going to be smaller than the last one as the I dont have so much space as I had in the other house. It will be a tail chaser. Because of the lack of space I may change to N and sell off all my OO gauge stuff. Anything could happen.
Happy new year to everyone from my Lady wife and Me.

[bulleidboy]

Happy New Year to you Sandy - good to see you back. If your starting from scratch you might consider TT120 - it's slightly bigger than N gauge - just a thought. BB

[Walkingthedog]

Nice to hear from you again Sandy. Barry's TT120 suggestion sounds good.

[Too Tall]

Obviously the size will dictate - but another vote for TT120 if there is room.
This is my layout on a 8ft by just over 3ft board if you hadn't seen it: viewtopic.php?t=5184

[Mountain Goat]

While doing Sandy Hills MG I have had problems with wiring but all sorted now except the SL90 double slip. I am thinking of taking it out and putting in a crossover in its place to make things easier for me. I just cant get the switching wired properly on the double slip. People have tried to help me with it but I am complete dumbo with wiring. Seem to manage everything else OK, except double slips.
Perhaps I should have put one of my newer A3s pulling the coaches in the picture to help you see the gauge.

Sorry for late reply.

Double slips act as two back to back points so are wired accordingly. (If wiring for DC cab control, the double slip is where one powers the track feed on the two outer rails).