Model Railway Forum

Bandit Mick wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:24 pm Hope your not getting bombarded by lots of advice and hope this doesn’t repeat a previous post, but - when laying track you can temporarily fixit by using drawing pins across the sleepers - this way any changes are easier to make without damage occurring. Hope this helps.

Thanks, non of the track is pinned down, I had one pin in the last layout to prevent stalling from movement of the track. It's also why I've stopped trying to fit the motors under the baseboard.
Thanks for the tios.

Brian wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 8:11 pm Do not use Polystyrene! It melts wiring insulation and is far too soft for anything reliable. Any solvents used later on will melt it too!

All this scrimping trying to save a few £ is going to cost far more long term.
A piece of 9mm or better 12mm plywood purchased each week/month as you can afford it and then build up with a timber under framing will produce a firm baseboard and is IMO really the only way forward!. Failure to do so will only lead to long term issues with running!
Remember, the baseboard is the foundations of the model railway, exactly like the concrete is the foundations of your home. A poor foundation results in later problems!
Do it right first time and all will be good thereafter.

Thanks Brian, appreciate it. I think for the time being I'll loosely lay track on the top of the boards as I have it. The trains do run, see how much interest and use it gets whilst earmarking the setup costs.

I'm looking to follow your basic double oval with sidings vplan out of your biok, if I have enough working points.

What's the best way to join the two loops curved points 608(?) or the standard 612/613?

If possible avoid curved points as they frequently cause derailments. Peco are better IMO than Hornby but I don't use Setrack. I'm a Peco Streamline fan!

Discard your curved points. More trouble than they are worth. They will only add to your derailment problems.

Ah ok thanks guys, I just saw some curved points for £40 and wasn't sure if better/worse than standard ones.

Anyway, this is what I've now come up with loosely based on Brian's double oval with sidings out of his Newcomers guide book, with side and back added on.

Before wiring in switches will just run power feeds to inner and outer ovals.

The track is very close to the wall. Something will hit the wall coming off the curves.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 9:17 pm The track is very close to the wall. Something will hit the wall coming off the curves.

Yes, I wasn't sure how much clearance was needed. I have pushed a car around which clears it by my thumbs width. I may look to remove a single straight from each of the lengths Inc sidings, if I get issues.

On my old layout everything sailed round until I bought a King class loco. On curves it had a large overhang and hit walls, platforms and fences, so I rearranged thing so it didn’t. Then I bought a Class 40 diesel, that did the same. More rearranging.

When I am ready to wire I will first start with the Hornby r407? The green on/off switches that I have 3 of.

I've just about got my head around plugging the 3 switches into the positive of controller 1 and out to the track, so l can switch power on/off to the outer, switch 1, inner loop switch 2 and siding switch 3. Now if I repeat the process on the other side for controller 2, could I have controller 1 operating outer loop, switch 1 and have controller 2 operating sidings, switch 3. I don't understand if sharing same switches, how it'll distinguishes between the two controllers, as both switches 1 & 3 be "on" ? Or is it because the point position would isolate the 2 isolating controller 1 (operating switch 1 outer loop) from controller 2 on switch ,3 inner sidings ?

I'm just trying to understand the wiring. I have a Hornby hm2000 twin controller, firstly is this suitable for comon return ? Does each side have it's own winding or not?

I would like to be able to run a couple locos one on each oval on one controller and separately run a third in the sidings independently and if possible swap them over, so the siding loco can come into main and vice versa and also control the 3 sections outer, inner loop and sidings) from each controller. So we could have 1 control to shunt whilst my youngest has the other controller driving a train around the loop and then swap over either by swapping places or ideally drive trains and switch the controller's?

Andy if you are going to use multiple controllers you will need to put in isolating joiners where a train will pass from one controller to another. My railway is one complete track and has eight controllers so a train will travel on every line and return to where it started passing through eight different sections where it’s speed can be changed or stopped at stations. Have a look at “ my layout” by Puddles in members layouts to get an idea what you can achieve with DC .
Puddles