Loxley Lane, 6x4, OO layout

[Rammy]

Your loft is very similar to mine

I find it a very useable space and mine could have been much bigger if we hadn't already used the other half for storage.
Good luck with the move 'upstairs'

Dave

[Graymee]

Another little update, very little actually! I've built a house! well two houses if ya wanna be picky. Finished my first ever kit build and really pleased with the finish.

When i've tried airfix models in the past i've made a right mess but this has gone together really well, I really like the Metcalfe kit it is all done for you but you still get the little feeling of satisfaction because you've built it!
Note the car is a Morris Oxford which fits in the period i'm probably going to model plus i got to drive one when i was about 15 in a local parade thru town! Very naughty but very nice

Cork has arrived at LMS so will hopefully pick up tomorrow (providing i get in from work at a reasonable time, unlike today ) I think i'm going to just run a bed of cork under the tracks to give that raised effect to the ballast, wondering if i should do each oval separately or just one wide bed under both lines?? Which is prototypical? I've looked at some photos but it seems to vary.

Thanks again Dave for the loft pic, looking into it further now espaecially after looking at your thread and also Dr Strganoff... very tempting

Anyway that's about it for now. Sorry for the meaningless little updates but i want to try and record as much of this build as possible. Not only is it my first model railway but it's also my first atempt at any kind of diary. I must be getting old!

Cheers

Graeme

[bombadillic]

Good luck with your move to the loft, I find our loft space huge, I'm currently using half the loft for storage and the other half as a boys room/model railway space. And don't have any issues in terms of space or height. Being a gentlemen of 6ft 4 myself, it's nice being able to walk around in a full height loft

The kits you've built are looking very nice too. I want to make one but currently don't have any plans for this as I'm having limited buildings on the layout.

And woohoo, the layout finally has a name. Lodge Valley vs Loxley Lane *cue dramatic music*

Looking forward to more updates.

Tom

[bizzyd6405]

the Metcalfe kit looks good, was it easy to bulid as i'm planiing to get the Metcalfe church for my village scene on my layout?

cheers
Darren

[Graymee]

the Metcalfe kit looks good, was it easy to bulid as i'm planiing to get the Metcalfe church for my village scene on my layout?

cheers
Darren

Yes it was fairly easy, My first attempt and no errors, at least nothing worth worrying about or noticeable. The kit is very well laid out and the quality is excellent which makes for easier joining of parts etc. I think that i have said earlier in the thread that i've tried an Airfix model a few years ago but because it was one of the cheap kits, the parts weren't very well cut so none of the joins looked as good as they should. Just take your time and read the instructions fully before you start...

Started to lay cork today and rapidly gave up! I had planned to cut out just the trackbed so figured that two rolls of Javis cork would do. Simple maths says that 49ft of track laid as a double oval would easily be covered by the amount of cork in two rolls. But it is me that is simple, that doesn't account for the wastage on the curves etc!
So i'm now going to cover the baseboard and cut around the track, only problem being that my LMS is selling cork like red phone boxes in a london gift shop! Got to wait until monday now for some more to arrive!!!

I've been playing with my DCC wiring, I had a link between the two ovals and just relied on points switching to power the sidings, I was planning to run a full bus and droppers when the track was laid. As i had some spare time due to the cork saga i thought i'd have a play with the little connectors that turn insulfrog points to electrofrog. They look like very flimsy staples. It seems to work very well, i've run locos at very slow speeds without any real trouble, but i did get a short on one point but only once... being just a small layout i'm wondering whether it is really necessary to do a full wiring job. Head says no but heart tells me if i'm gonna do a job the do it right!

Anyway enough waffle

Cheers

Graeme

[leopard]

if you do take over the loft...

a word of warning, nothing too serious but anyway

plan a small layout area, oh by all means have boards all the way round but limit them to plain running, at first, otherwise you end up with what I did and overwhelm yourself.

mines 23'x13', 2' boards all round with inserts on the corner.

whats used? one end and about half of one side, the rest is a single track loop.

keep in mind the cost of the track, plain track is cheap, also any points you can't reach may as well not be there if you don't motorise them.

but its very easy to plan a large complex layout that can be assembled in stages e.g. start out with a twin track loop, or single track loop to which a second could be added. maybe with a goods yard added, don't cram it with track, make the roads long I run 8 coach trains as standard, since I had the space for 10' platforms. the same applies to goods roads, make them at least able to handle 10-15 wagons and a locomotive, even if you never fill them they will look amazing.

in that space you could do a small twin track branch line station, but do it fully to scale, nice gentle curves at the ends, then sit back and what decent length trains just running

[Graymee]

You know what Leopard, when i started seriously thinking about doing this a couple of months ago, I never imagined that I would read thru your last post and start dreaming! I have never had any real interest in trains or railways, other than a mild enthusiasm for steam propogated by many hours of Fred Dibnah et al.

Even up until a few days ago I would have never got enthusiastic about watching trains go round a model railway.!!! Does that sound daft? What I mean is that I started this thing to have a bash at some modelling and to finally get a "train set" after never having one as a kid. I bought my DCC set because it had Jintys so i could do lots of shunting but I'm starting to get more drawn to the whole "train" thing now.

I run 8 coach trains as standard, since I had the space for 10' platforms. the same applies to goods roads, make them at least able to handle 10-15 wagons and a locomotive, even if you never fill them they will look amazing.

That sounds fantastic, I think i'm starting to get this hobby! Mainly due to the inspiration I've had from posts like yours. That might sound like i'm blowing smoke up somewhere i shouldn't but my whole outlook is changing thanks to you guys. Maybe i'll hate you all when i start shelling out for yet more track and my son asks "mummy, who is that man coming down from the ceiling?" and when my skin is pasty white from never seeing sunlight other than thru the cracks under the eves!

Seriously though, the loft move is gonna be a little while off so i'm gonna carry on building my little 6x4 for now and hopefully learn a lot more in readiness for it.

Cheers

Graeme

[bizzyd6405]

cool, well hopefully my church kit will arrive soon and i can make a start on it

keep up the good work
Darren

[DrStroganoff]

Hi mate, the metcalfe kit looks great. I highly recommend all of the metcalfe range, even the mrs enjoys building them !!

Looking forward to seeing your layout progress. Good thinking sticking with the smaller layout for now, I'm sure in a couple of months you'll be having BIG PLANS for your loft !!

All the best

[bombadillic]

The kits are looking good Graymee, I would certainly invest in these if I required more houses for Lodge Valley. I'm glad you're sticking to the 6x4 for now, I first started with an 11x5 layout which I found a tad overwhelming for a first ever attempt so when we moved it was scrapped and am much happier with my starter 6x4

I've been experimenting with track weathering this weekend, so can wait to see you reach a similar stage too. Your layout is progressing really nicely

BomBaDillic

[Graymee]

DON'T GO TO MODEL RAILWAY EXHIBITIONS!
Everything has ground to a halt on Loxley Lane, reason, after taking a trip to Mansfield and then Nottingham exhibitions i'm really torn between carrying on with the 6x4 or holding off for a while until i can get the loft sorted out.

I laid out sheets of Javis cork and marked out my trackplan ready to cut out the bed, then thought, i'd better make sure that there is nothing that i want to change so that cork isn't wasted. So i first thought that i would bring the spare siding that was at the top of the layout down to the bottom. It can form a third platform for my station or just be a storage siding, at least i have the choice. Then decided to modify the headshunt as it wasn't really long enough. I have a length of semi-flexi track but found i could do something similar with some odd bits of setrack. But then making the headshunt longer now stops me putting a road bridge where i wanted and i don't think anywhere else will look right. Then i thought, can i get away with a very short headshunt? Answer hit me like Tyson, YES i probably can because realistically it's a 6x4 and anything more than a few wagons is gonna be too much!

And thats it I want to run longer trains and have a bit more flexibility in what and where i want to model. Looking at some of the layouts at the exhibitions and reading some of the threads on here from the likes of Dr Stroganoff etc i'm very jealous...

I still think that it might be a good idea to continue with the little one to practice a bit, but then if i make any cock-ups i'm gonna put them right. So may as well make them on a layout that is gonna stay put and not be dismantled/sold/stuck in the back of the garage in a few months time... the original plan was to move out to the garage, which would have allowed me to keep the 6x4 and just extend/add to it in whatever way suited. now that the garage has been kicked into touch due to cold/damp/(scary monsters! ) it doesn't work because a 6x4 board will not, at least i don't think it will, fit thru a 2x1 loft hatch!

So I'm in limbo, gonna order a loft ladder and work out budgets for flooring and insulation etc and see where we end up. Meanwhile i'm just gonna play trains and maybe build another few metcalfe buildings.

I should have 10 points motors arriving at my LMS tomorrow (birthday pressie from the missus) and i went and bought all components to build a CDU the other day along with switches, cable for the BUS, a soldering iron, a dremmel type thingy etc etc so i have all the kit to finally get this layout started for real but just can't make up my mind what to do??? It'll probably be 2-3 months before i can get the loft sorted out and ready to start which is gonna be really frustrating...aaaaagggghhhhh

That has to be the most boring and depressing post in history? What would you guys do?

Cheers

Graeme

[Black-Marlin]

Persevere!

A 6' x 4' layout can be extremely satisfying, because it can be finished relatively (!) quickly: if it helps, think of it as a test-bed diorama constucted in preparation for the main endeavour. My first layout was 8' x 4'; the next was 10' x 5'; the current one, Starlingford, is 10' x 16' (and I'm debating extending it round the attic -another 20' x 15'!). My point is that my layouts have grown in size as my abilities as a modeller have advanced (although the current potential for expansion is governed not so much by modelling ability as the need to store an ever-increasing amount of rolling stock !) and so I have been able to make increasingly good use of the space I've been given.

Stick with Loxley Lane, if for no other reason than the changes you're talking about are several months in the future and a modelling famine until then is unlikely to be fun!

Cheers,
Gavin

[Tosh]

Stick with the 6x4 for now Graeme until you can afford to go in the loft and do it properly,i mean no shortcuts etc:wink:
I started off with a 6x3 board that just had two ovals and a siding when i was a kid,then i went to 8x4 in the bedroom which folded up against the wall when not in use and i started to experiment with electrics on this one,then when i got married and set up again the layout was a 12x8 with an operating well in the middle,next was up into the loft in the same house and that was about 16x10 and this one carried on and i came to install point motors/isolated sections etc,then now im up in the loft with a 21x10 which has took some planning and quite a bit of money to get where i am.

[Rammy]

Graeme
I must admit I can see both sides to the arguement, although I would be tempted to go for the loft layout.
I was lucky enough for my new loft to be already boarded, although I then took up the boards to have more insulation added before relaying them. My loft roof is not insulated yet, but I have found that to be ok (even during the winter). I just wear a jumper and once I start working on the layout it soon gets warm anyway. I do need to do something with the roof before getting too far with the scenics as you do get a few gritty bits dropping of the roofing felt. My approach to a large(ish) loft layout is that I have laid the main track down (roughly not ballasted) around the layout so I could test trains around the loops, but I will now concentrate on finishing small sections off, similar to having a 6 x 2 layout. This way I can start to see some results without spreading the work too thin around the whole loft.
Apologies if this just adds to your indecision, but I can see where you are coming from.
Good luck with whichever option you choose.
Dave

[sishades]

Go for the loft, build a massive layout, spend huge amounts of cash and watch the years go by attempting to finish it. Thats what I do!!