Tuesday 31 December 2013

Its nearly there

Most of the floors are in now apart from the top two.  I have managed to pick up some working lights from a club mate, so I can lose the plastic ones.
 
 

 
 
The finished build is just around the corner, honestly....

Sunday 29 December 2013

Back in the attic.

It has been a few months since I posted and nothing has been done really.  I have been looking over track plans and looking over the web for some ideas.  But the House and Christmas took over.

I have been looking into Automating the layout using Rocrail or JMRI, I am not sure which one to go for, so I will need to read up more about each.

http://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php

http://jmri.sourceforge.net/

I don't believe you can do much shunting in N Gauge, so watching long passenger and freight trains will be the way forward, and being able to run the layout from a PC appeals to me.  So I am moving back into the attic for the time being.

With a revised track plan, the Ground Level below will be the only part of the layout with buildings and details on it.  The Upper level will be large yards for loco storage and sidings.


The picture shows the mainline station at the bottom which can hold an 11 car train (there is an 8 car N700 on show to make sure I have the size correct).  I am going to use the Kato road plates to create my city streets. As you come out the Station you will pass the carpark I am building on the right which will be attached to a shopping mall via a bridge over the road.  As you pass through the city you come across the Football Stadium, opposite the mainline Station.  From there you will pass into a smaller station.  When into a tunnel, where the scenery will end onto the Helix to take you up to the Upper level staging.
As you come up the Helix you will head Left passing the siding which can hold a 16 car Shinkansen, the down into the first of the staging area's.  Loop down the bottom an back up to the top of the Helix, I will be using this siding mainly for freight and the few odd ball locos I have, such as the Snow blower.  Heading around the Helix and down into the High level Sidings where I plan to keep my passenger stock.  The full layout has be designed as a dog bone allow continuous running, and all the sidings can be passed as there is a loop around each.

As I am looking to run the layout automatically using Rocrail or JMRI this should give me enough sidings to store loco's and a huge mainline to run loco's.

Its good to get back into design and building this layout again, it will be good to blow the dust off my loco boxes and give them a run.

Merry Xmas all and have a Merry new year when it come to you.