Catenary will be installed from the staging yard, along the rear track around and through the three tracks past the station back into staging. There will also be two tracks for parking electric locomotives near the turntable (but not connected to turntable). All switching will be done by diesels, then the cars placed on one of the through roads for collection by electric loco.
Three more stone hoppers just arrived, these complete the second 8-car set for the stone loader operation. The raised sides on the two recycling cars will be removed - definitely not needed for stone use! They just unclip, as they are an addition to the basic car. Eventually all stone hoppers will be repainted.
And here is me thinking I am taking too long to get it going! If not the need to do other jobs (like fitting handrails up the stairs), it would be more advanced. My wife says I must have it running before our first visitors arrive - son Matthew and family.
Alan, you could always go 1/1 scale. There's a station not too far from you that needs some scratchbuilding. Can't be too far away, Vukovar Croatia, and it looks like you could buy it for a song.
Ha! Not too far away, but it looks rather beyond redemption! Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII using Tapatalk 2
Just a few more turnouts to connect up with slide switches and I will have one complete track in operation from staging, around the layout and back to staging. Hopefully will have something running in a day or two. I will test first on DC then go to DCC. (Layout will be switchable between the two for testing new locomotives before fitting decoders).
Indeed. Here is me sitting on the Dubrovnik city walls a few years ago. Note the number of NEW roofs! This place, like many others came under incessant bombardment from gunboats and artilliary. Some of the recovered weapons
Yeah, the Balkans conflict ended in 1995, I think. But Slovenia was not involved thank goodness, so our old towns are still intact.
I am finally back from my trip to Florida and the Daytona 500 and I see that you have made some good progress. I will agree that beer is a good thing to have in the train room. I had the opportunity to visit Dubrovnik when I was in the Navy in early 1970. We were the first American warship to visit for many decades. That is one beautiful city that I enjoyed very much. The people were great and the food fantastic.
Two of the three tracks in the station are now in place, also the first of the six staging yard tracks is down, Will now fit the wiring bus so that each section can be connected as it is laid. Soon be time to test some track! Looks like a wiggle in the rear track needs adjusting!
Keep the photos coming and don't drink too much of the beer. Makes me want to get my layout extention going. Hopefully I will get a plan worked out soon. Looking good !
After wiring some links from tracks to bus wires, the first test running took place today, on DC at first, before connecting DCC tomorrow. I used a brand new locomotive as it has not yet been fitted with DCC decoder. I realised that running from the yard round the layout and back to the same yard is in effect a reverse loop. So to save having to do special wiring, I am splitting the yard into two, which basically makes an end-to-end layout, but folded around. At least now the trains will actually go from one location to another, even if they end up a few inches from where they started!
Got the track relaid into two seperate yards (alongside each other). Turnout switches fitted and wired, but a few more track insulating breaks to do and some more dropper wires to the bus. I will then switch over to DCC for testing before fitting new locomotives with decoders (and some with sound). My wife insists on driving an "opening special" train around the layout, so I will have to fit a banner for the train to break, I guess! This event will be captured on video when it occurs in maybe a week's time.
