Chufferlands Holiday park. Time to rip it up and start again

[Lewis Nash]

Very sad to hear that the layout is no more
That tunnel looks very well built,I hope that can be salvaged, I will be interested to see the Chufferlands Holiday Park Mk2
A little tip though...
Use Peco Streamline points in your rebuild,the amount of hassle I have had with hornby set track is unbelievable
Kind regards
Lewis

[jim moore]

great project glad to see i,m not alone with curved sidings some times you dont have the room great to see keep up the good work
cheers

[Big Al]

Hi Everyone.

I have just re registered with a new username, but "Chufferlands Holiday park" was my previous layout.

For some reason I could not get into the old "Big Al" registration, I think it may be because of an old email address, which is no longer viable.

12 years or so since I last posted, not that long really, ha ha.

I've dipped in and out of the site occasionally but never had the commitment to get going, with a layout, again properly.
I got close with an experiment in December 2018 when I set up a small base board measuring 78" x 24". I was inspired by "Small Layout Scrapbook" website and used flexitrack to make a long oval in 00 gauge. Generally it worked well for small locos and is set up in the loft but is basic track on base board. I will get some photos of it soon and post them on here.

The one thing that always seemed to prevent me from getting a proper layout under way again, was the amount of work that would be required to get to a good, happy place with it all. In light of this for the last year I've been hovering on an idea, a different approach.

I have been renovating an insulated shed space in my garden next to my workshop, its mostly for storage of work related, family and garden stuff. It measures 5ft 9ins by 9ft.
I am planning to build a layout in that space, the layout will be 4ft high (lots of storage underneath) and it will run round the outside and be accessed through a removable section or possibly a gate.

The idea is simple treat the majority of the layout as a large fiddle yard and only landscape/model a section of it. That way I will avoid the stress of the whole gargantuan task.

I will also bring down the afore mentioned layout and re size it to 2ft x 5ft 9ins and install it on the end wall, about a foot below the, round the wall layout.

So after 12 years I remember very little but I'm looking forward to learning it all again, I've already watched a load of Youtube videos and of course been lurking on here. Over the Easter holidays I'm going up to the loft to retrieve the various track and points I have. I done a good few plans using Scarm, which has been very helpful. It will be a DC layout and the wiring will be the first learning curve.

12 years ago I used Photobucket to post photos. I assume my account on there will have the same problem (old no longer existent email address) and doubt I will get that going again. I requested a password reset but nothing so far.

Can anyone suggest a good, easy platform to allow me to add photos??

Its good to be back again.

Cheers Alan

Mod edit: User reinstated as BigAl

[centenary]

Hi Everyone.

I have just re registered with a new username, but "Chufferlands Holiday park" was my previous layout.

For some reason I could not get into the old "Big Al" registration, I think it may be because of an old email address, which is no longer viable.

12 years or so since I last posted, not that long really, ha ha.

I've dipped in and out of the site occasionally but never had the commitment to get going, with a layout, again properly.
I got close with an experiment in December 2018 when I set up a small base board measuring 78" x 24". I was inspired by "Small Layout Scrapbook" website and used flexitrack to make a long oval in 00 gauge. Generally it worked well for small locos and is set up in the loft but is basic track on base board. I will get some photos of it soon and post them on here.

The one thing that always seemed to prevent me from getting a proper layout under way again, was the amount of work that would be required to get to a good, happy place with it all. In light of this for the last year I've been hovering on an idea, a different approach.

I have been renovating an insulated shed space in my garden next to my workshop, its mostly for storage of work related, family and garden stuff. It measures 5ft 9ins by 9ft.
I am planning to build a layout in that space, the layout will be 4ft high (lots of storage underneath) and it will run round the outside and be accessed through a removable section or possibly a gate.

The idea is simple treat the majority of the layout as a large fiddle yard and only landscape/model a section of it. That way I will avoid the stress of the whole gargantuan task.

I will also bring down the afore mentioned layout and re size it to 2ft x 5ft 9ins and install it on the end wall, about a foot below the, round the wall layout.

So after 12 years I remember very little but I'm looking forward to learning it all again, I've already watched a load of Youtube videos and of course been lurking on here. Over the Easter holidays I'm going up to the loft to retrieve the various track and points I have. I done a good few plans using Scarm, which has been very helpful. It will be a DC layout and the wiring will be the first learning curve.

12 years ago I used Photobucket to post photos. I assume my account on there will have the same problem (old no longer existent email address) and doubt I will get that going again. I requested a password reset but nothing so far.

Can anyone suggest a good, easy platform to allow me to add photos??

Its good to be back again.

Cheers Alan

Photobucket will not allow you to post photos to other sites unless you pay them a monthly \ annual fee.

Use www.imgbb.com which is free and allows you to post medium or large thumbnail or just the url for your pictures.

[Big Al]

Thanks Centenary, I'll check that out tomorrow.

[Big Al]

Many thanks to Dave-00.

He has very kindly reinstated me with my original log in details.

So I'm back to being me again, no more imposter syndrome.

I had a quick look up in the loft yesterday and I have enough track to create a good layout.

Once I have the planned storage shed organised, hopefully two weeks time, I should be able to get a proper start.

[Admin4]

Many thanks to Dave-00.

He has very kindly reinstated me with my original log in details.

You are welcome, I look forward to a new layout starting its journey in the near future.

[Big Al]

I measured my small layout that I made in September 2018, 78ins x 24ins. I wish to have it across the back wall of the new room around 1 foot below the new proposed layout. The new room is 9ft x 5ft 9ins (68ins) so I have to cut it down by 10ins. its already really small for 00 gauge but its an experiment. please see below a bad phone photo, from when it was built.

The door into the room is on the 68 inch wall. The new proposed layout will be around the room but the base boards will be wider (18ins) along the long 9ft sides and only 8" along the door wall and the back wall.

The small layout as pictured will be 12 below this. I've done a basic line drawing in paint as below.

Having done this I realise that height is going to be very important as I need to be able to view the bottom layout. I will give this further thought but step one will be to reduce and install the smaller layout and see if it is going to be ok. It may be better to make the small layout the higher one???

I think I should start a new layout thread, as I've been out of "forum life" for a long time, would that be a better plan???

I had forgotten how much fun the whole forum process is.

[Phred]

Big Al wrote:
my small layout that I made in September 2018

I don't think I have ever seen a baseboard quite like that. It's really rather beautiful. I can imagine it being framed and mounted in a gallery somewhere.

[Bufferstop]

12 years ago I used Photobucket to post photos. I assume my account on there will have the same problem (old no longer existent email address) and doubt I will get that going again. I requested a password reset but nothing so far.

Good news Big Al, and a bit not quite so good, your Photobucket images are still there! but a lot of them have a swirly watermark across them. A few years back they pulled a dirty trick and cut off access to them unless you paid up, but they didn't delete them just made sure you couldn't used them for gainful purposes.
Anyway welcome back, I wasn't around when you were here before but I will certainly be having a plow through your old thread. Your old ID would have been deleted some time back, but as Dave has done, reinstating it is pretty simple. We started deleting unused IDs because of the security risks but it was too much like hard work.

John W

aka Bufferstop.

[Big Al]

"I don't think I have ever seen a baseboard quite like that. It's really rather beautiful. I can imagine it being framed and mounted in a gallery somewhere. 8"

Thank you Phred, you have me thinking now. Not sure what the wife will say when she comes home and finds it hanging above our bed.

When I made it I raised the track up on MDF because every time I see railway lines they always seem to be higher than the surrounding land, just generalising of course.

[Big Al]

Photobucket images are still there! but a lot of them have a swirly watermark across them. A few years back they pulled a dirty trick and cut off access to them unless you paid up, but they didn't delete them just made sure you couldn't used them for gainful purposes.

I seen the watermark and thought it wasn't there before.

Is there any reason we cannot upload photos straight from our laptops, if the photos are reduced to a suitable size?

[Big Al]

Many thanks to Dave-00.

He has very kindly reinstated me with my original log in details.

You are welcome, I look forward to a new layout starting its journey in the near future.

Cheers Dave, I'm looking forward to getting started. I just have to get the layout boards installed then ill be up and running.

[Bufferstop]

Is there any reason we cannot upload photos straight from our laptops, if the photos are reduced to a suitable size?

Use the attachment method for posting image, it tells you as part of the process if they are too large. In the panel below the editor select attachments and [Add Files]. You can include five with any post. Having selected the images you want, put your cursor where you want the image to go and click [Paste in Line] otherwise you'll find them all at the end of the file next time you open the post. Apparently adding the images increases the traffic which is what the current hosting site wants, and it's less of a faff than putting them elsewhere. If you already have the photos on one of the hosting sites they all have a method for publishing them, then it's a matter of copying the public URL that they give you and pasting it between a pair of [Img} tags.