unnamed 00 shelf layout - work begins!

[YardMaster]

Hi all, (first post BTW!)

After lurking on this forum for some time, and drawing a lot of track plans on the back of envelopes etc, I've finally both made a start on a 00 layout and decided to post my progress here. My layout is (will be?) a 7' 6" by 18" shelf shunting layout, featuring two small shunting yards, a run round loop and small station platform. locos will be small to medium sized tank engines, diesel shunters, and DMUs (all drawn from my existing collection from 7+ years ago... until I start making more purchases, that is )

Here are two photos of the baseboard as it is at present (the wooden walls around the back and ends of the board will be converted into retaining walls with the help of some brick paper when scenic work starts.



(you might need to turn your monitor on its end for this one!)



and another, the right way up!

a trackplan, etc coming soon!

[Sprintex]

Welcome YM

Nice start already!!


BTW, if you remove the spaces between the [img] tags and the link the pics 'should' show in the thread without clicking on them




Paul

[Class 60]

Welcome to the forums YM

Good Start, looks nice and solid baseboard you got - will look forward to that trackplan

Cheers

Adam

[cold-ash]

Welcome along YM. Very neat wood-work there, looking good.

Excellent opening post by the way, it all made sense first time.

[eggbert17]

Welcome mate, hope your layout comes on a treat, cant wait to see the pics

[mark_brody]

Good stuff, it took me >12 months to get the baseboards down!

Look forward to the progress.

[tinsleytmd]

Look tidy boards they do very nice work

welcome to the forums

[British Rail]

How's it going YM, looking excellent there, can't wait for this one to progress


All the best mate and good luck!

Rhys

[Infrontcat]

Hello there, and welcome to the forums!

You certainly have made a (literally) solid start and I look forward to seeing your track-plan

Cheers

Tim

[Rector]

Good solid baseboard, Yardmaster. Did you make it yourself?

[YardMaster]

hi again,

Thanks for all the very complimentary replies so far!

The baseboard is not all my own work i'm afraid, I did a lot of the work on it but my Dad helped me on parts of it - I haven't done a lot of woodwork before now, so its several times better than if I'd tried to do it all myself!

as promised here is a (very rough) trackplan. Not accurate at all, due to its being done on paint in half an hour, but I have worked out on paper that it should fit...

http://images5.fotopic.net/?iid=ynvwy5& ... quality=70

The track that is marked as leading to british railways will exit to the right through a fake tunnel mouth - 'departing' trains will simply be lifted off the visible section and 'arriving' trains palced on it - I know its not as accurate as a fiddleyard, but the layout is for personal use only - and in 7 1/2 foot there isn't a lot of room for a fiddleyard!

cheers,

YardMaster

EDIT: still can't get darn image tags to work! sorry!

[Raider]

The IMG Tags need a URL that ends in an image format like .jpg - yours end in a size

Not sure if you can get a direct link to the photo from your host - if not, try Photobucket

[YardMaster]

The IMG Tags need a URL that ends in an image format like .jpg - yours end in a size

ahh... ok. I'll try that next time. Thanks!

[YardMaster]

well, with the baseboard finished and track purchased, everything should be ready to start laying track - but of course I have instead come up with an alternate track plan instead!

The alternate trackplan can be found here:

http://images4.fotopic.net/?iid=ynww4r& ... quality=70

(the red track is the main shunting yard and headshunt)

compared to

http://images5.fotopic.net/?iid=ynvwy5& ... quality=70

Basically the new plan gives me fewer sidings, but each of them are longer, with more capacity overall than the previous plan. It also gives me a longer station platform and keeps the loco spur in the previous plan, but in a different location (next to the headshunt in the station).

It uses exactly the same baseboard and the same points - but will need a bit more flexitrack to make it happen!

so im not sure about either plan - which would my fellow forumers recommend?

[Infrontcat]

I think I'd be inclined to go for the revised version to be honest mate. I can't quite explain why (I'm guessing it's 'cos it's so early on a Sunday ) but it just appears to be more flexible, plus you don't have to block the path to the station todo all your shunting movements.

Cheers

Tim