Model Railway Forum

Work on the new layout continues. The boards are all but done, albeit with a few corners to be filled in and joins to be levelled up. Once that's done, it can all come down again and I can start laying the track on the bottom level.

In accordance with the recommendations of Site Admin, I shan't post any more images directly to the Forum. Instead, I'll just give the URL of the flickr album (as I did before) and refer to specific images in the text.

The work is documented on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53775591@ ... 4075/page3

Cheers,
Artur

A bit more work has been done in filling in gaps and resolving awkward issues, mainly the silly slanting gaps in the platform tracks towards the northern end of the station (decided just last night to see to that). Not much left to do now, I'm grateful to say.

The work is documented on flickr (pix 218, 239-244): https://www.flickr.com/photos/53775591@ ... 4075/page3

Cheers,
Artur

Looking mighty impressive so far.

Thank you for your kind feedback, gentlemen. Work on the baseboards is now *really* all but done; there are two tasks remaining that I know about. ;o) The latest stage of the work was providing for a new double slip on the southern edge of the old layout.

The work is documented on flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/53775591@ ... 4075/page3

Cheers,
Artur

I am still gobsmacked seeing so much track in one place.

The building of the baseboards is done, except for a couple of small details best left till a later date. Now I can start tidying up and sweeping that floor.

The work is documented on flickr (pix 252/3): https://www.flickr.com/photos/53775591@ ... 4075/page3

Cheers,
Artur

There will be a small hiatus now, as I've been roped in on getting the garden ready for the winter: mowing, pruning, cutting back perennials, sweeping leaves etc and carting it all up to the organic recycling depot. This will probably take the whole weekend.

As described before, once the baseboards were complete, they all had to come down again to permit the laying of the track, starting on the lowest level.

The first section of track laid was the so-called northern sidings tailshunt, completed today. This had to go in first, so that I can put contrun2 back in, which sits above it. The NSTS consists of Peco Streamline treated steel track, which needed some rigorous cleaning up before it would hand over the current to the test loco properly. It is a kickback road, located beside the northern loops under the contrun 2 section, and is intended to accommodate the rear end of trains backing out of the northern sidings, so it probably will never get a loco on it under normal running conditions. A test was carried out, partly to see how the steel rails "worked" (I suppose they're OK but I'm not going to trust them on running tracks) and partly to see the first turn of a wheel. It's been a long time since operations ceased on the old layout in Munich and it's nice to get back in biz again.

The work is documented more fully on flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53775591@ ... 913122057/

Cheers,
Artur

Very impressive indeed. I don't think I could manage that length of track - perhaps that is why I wasn't a railway man .
Jim.

Well done.

Thank you again for your compliments, gentlemen. I've now started to lay the northern loops. No steel track here, mainly nickel-silver: Streamline and a bit of Fleischmann brass on the curves, Roco rigid yards on the straights. All this track is second-hand but the points are new. The nice thing about the hidden sidings is that you don't have to worry about the track being a bit wiggly or long gaps between the sleepers or sleepers not lying parallel. And you don't need to ballast it.

As I mention on flickr, the video is invaluable for showing up faults (e.g. doglegs) that escape the eye.

The work is documented on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53775591@ ... 3524354145

Cheers,
Artur