A lot of work has taken place on my main European layout in the last few months, but much has not been particularly worthy of photography, such as wiring and fitting point motors and point decoders. The main work has been in what will become the station, with the through lines and two bays now laid, and the pointwork for the station throat largely complete.Further time was spent reworking the baseboards, hopefully for the last time, particularly in the station approach area, allowing more space for the 'frontscene' (as opposed to a backscene) as I am keen to see the trains running through a town-scape on the approach to the station, rather than all the railway infrastructure in the foreground. I've also widened the station itself to allow a few carriage sidings to be laid in front of the column that will by necessity have to act as a scenic break roughly two-thirds of the way along the station. As a consequence of this compromise which results from the structural challenges of building a large layout in a cellar, I will only be modelling part of the station, the through platforms will allow a loco and up to 5-6 coaches to appear from off scene, into the station, while the rest is still in the fiddle yard. The front bay platform end in a blind tunnel to allow five coaches and a loco to be accommodated.
All pointwork on the visible part of the layout is the latest Tillig Elite code 83, which in my opinion is the finest ready to run track available, and once ballasted and weathered is close to handlaid in both look and performance. It also has the advantage of being quite flexible so can be laid with some curves to avoid the jointed look that ready-made points can suffer from.
The main lines are laid with Roco Code 83 concrete sleepered flexi-track, which has a finer sleeper profile than most other proprietary HO track, whilst the sidings are to be Tillig elite, which matches the turnouts.
The point motors are generally DCC Concepts Cobalt, which seem to be better put together these days. I had quite a lot of issues with some of the early batches I used on Widnes Road, and they were replaced by the more robust but far chunkier Tortoise motors for exhibition use, after two cobalts failed at an exhibition.
The motors are wired from the outset for full DCC operation, this being accomplished with NCE 'Switch-8's' which are a very cost-effective solution to turnout conversion.
I've also made the most of the fine weather to start on detailing and renumbering stock, the first completed is a pair of 111's in Bavarian advertising livery. These are the recent Roco models, with full buffer beam detailing fitted and painted, and they are now awaiting some light weathering.
