first layout

[outcastjack]

That looks fantastic its moving much faster than my layout I am very jelous of your railway room

[mark22c]

just a little update with my goods shed, i decided to block up the main bay and went with the smaller with the bricked arch and have added a small office. still a fair bit of work in it yet but this has given me a real confidence boost as far as scratch building... i just may have bought my last kit!

[hobby boy]

when i looked at that goods shed you made, it made me think it came out of a kit (for some reason). Thats quite good.
The best i've evver done is make the model out of ice cream tub plastic and papier mache it over!

Hobby Boy

[SouthernBoy]

...this has given me a real confidence boost as far as scratch building... i just may have bought my last kit!

You've done a really great job on your goods shed, very impressive for a first attempt
Any idea what you'll tackle next?

[mark22c]

gee... loads yet. signal box, station masters cottage, foot bridge, lamp hut and other little sheds including a small shelter for the other platform, road bridge... maybe a manor house and gardens with a bit more practice. i dont supose its real scratch building as im using wills pattern sheet and accessories. my own plans though

[mark22c]

i've decided to rip everything up and dismantle my board ... and start over with a round the wall type setup with lifting section for access by the door allowing a continuous run the room is 12.6 x 11.6 feet and it will have to be easy to dismantle as we will be moving some time in the future and free standing as im not allowed to fix it to the wall "by order of "her" downstairs"
basicaly one side will be deeper to give room for sidings/station and stuff, the window section will be a viaduct as thinks it will look nice and the rest will be about 10 or 12 inchs wide(maybe more) rolling countryside with a double track.
im going to try and salvage as much of the track as i can but will probably buy a shed load of semi flexy track and use that (about £90 worth ) and loads of new ballast:cry: again
will keep you posted

[Infrontcat]

...and free standing as im not allowed to fix it to the wall "by order of "her" downstairs"

Mate, all you need to do is drill an occasional hole to steady the structure which you can easily fill-in when you go. As long as you've got sturdy legs, then you can make it very solid just by effectively tacking the structure rather than fixing it fast!

im going to try and salvage as much of the track as i can but will probably buy a shed load of semi flexy track and use that (about £90 worth )

Thing is fella, you can always use the slightly knackered track for a fiddle yard or even sidings where you might expect the track to be a bit ropey anyhow. That or use it in the yards where you could cover up any blemishes in the sleepers with a healthy overdose of 'ash'

I have had two 'round the walls' layouts and they were both bloomin' marvellous. Actually, strictly speaking, my garden railway is a 'round the fence' design, so I suppose I'm really on number three!

Good stuff fella, do keep us informed of your news and trackplans as they evolve!

Cheers

Tim

[mark22c]

infrontcat it was your layout that inspired me to change mine, its one of my favorites here:wink: i have made so many noob mistakes with mine when first putting it together and they keep coming back to haunt me. i dont have a huge amount of track on my 10x4 layout but lack of space seems to be a constant problem. other little problems with the layout are niggling me too like laying the track to close on the bends causing trains to "rub" as they pass on one section and bumpy track after countless times ive chopped bits of track out and moved it around to make it look better or work... it was just too rushed and ill thought out to start with and knowing more about it know i think i could do a better job so am starting again... but i dont mind, building is half the fun aint it
i have managed to pull up ballasted down track and clean it before with this layout and will endevour to save the points and as much as i can but most of the straighter sections are flexi track and difficult to lift without seperating rail from sleepers on the ends, should be able to use them for sidings as you say... wish i hadnt soldered "ALL" the track joints though.. going to be busy with the dremmel!
should be able to "tack" it to the wall. i think the other half envisioned me drilling 100's of deep holes all around our spare room.
just an idea, i thought of building towers tacked to walls and with suporting legs in the rooms corners and then bridging the gaps with ridgid sections up to eight feet long on the longest part with maybe a suporting leg in the middle, the bridging sections will only be about 12 inchs wide, the part with most of the buildings and all of the pointwork will be against one 11'6" wall and a little wider at maybe two feet.

cheers mark

[Infrontcat]

Nice to know I helped you make such a wise choice

Tell you what mate, get yerself a wee plan knocked up and posted on here and then we can all have a go at 'yaying and naying' to help you end up with something fairly strong yet simple and, of course, relatively simple to disassemble

Don't forget too that you can disguise any tight bends in the corners with bridges or high-relief buldings or even cover them up with a wee tunnel, which should help enhance the nappearance of the layout even more

Cheers fella, hope to (continue) to help!

Tim

[Jack Middleton]

this layout is amazing! do you have a cad drawing of the layout? i would love to see one.

thanks...Jack

[mark22c]

cheers Tim
im messing around with a program called anyrail at the mo off the web that lets you plan out your track in any gauge, its just the free trail so doesnt have all the features. also have made a bit of money selling off some of my less used astronomy and bird watching gear to put towards some new track and the timber and maybe some new stock , just nead to find somewere that delivers timber as we dont have a car at the moment... bummer

cheers mark

[Graymee]

Hi Mark,

I used Anyrail and found it to be the simplest of all of the trackplanning progs available, the main restriction is that you can only use 50 track sections in the demo. The final plan can be exported as a JPEG for uploading to photobucket and i'm sure that it would be easy to make up two plans of 50 sections and butt them together in photoshop??

I found that posting the plan on here helped a lot, simple little bits of advcie/criticism help, not only to right wrongs but also to stimulate your own vision of what you want to acheive, worked for me anyway. Have a look thru my trackplan thread if you've got time and see how it morphed into the final one.

Hope that helps fella.

Your buildings still have me in awe!
Cheers

Graeme

[mark22c]

heres my attempt at a track plan for the new round the room layout it just shows th main part with station engine shed and goods shed crudely painted in as im useless drawing with a mouse. obviously the track continues around in a double loop.
im not sure yet wether to have a double track running around the layout or just a "cheaper" single line.