Wolpertinger Hauptbahnhof - Era VI Spur N 'Bavaria in Minature'

A short photo update showing the layout as it stands in December 2014. Many smaller details have been added recently, including populating the station and town with around 80 more passengers and pedestrians, lots more vehicles including a rather nice Rietze single-decker coach, plus numerous additional trees, planters and details such as litter bins  and bus stops etc.

Bahnland Bayern - Hidden sidings

The track plan for my Bavarian HO layout was largely frozen in the middle of 2013 and subsequently all the track laid, point motors and decoders fitted and tested. This has given the chance to get to grips with the 'finished' operation of the layout, and start to see what does and doesn't work. The one outcome of the testing was the lack of a real yard for the shunting and forming of freight trains. As there was no space within the built layout or in fact the room it's in, there was only one way to go; outwards. Next door to the room the Bavarian railway is in is an outbuilding that largely contained parts of layout and offcuts of wood. A few trips to the 'municipal recycling center' (tip) and a lick of paint and some extra space was available. There was the small matter of the available space being on the other side of a wall and/or window, but this was not insurmountable. The center pane of the window was replaced with a thick sheet of wood with a suitable slot cut to allow access between the two rooms. A sliding hatch was fitted to prevent drafts in the winter. Track has now been laid, and with a pair of DCC Telex remote coupling fitted locos, three addditional sidings have been added to the yard situated on the station approach, bringing the total to five sidings and a headshunt; enough for plenty of operational flexibility. The hidden sidings will be accessed between some low relief industrial buildings on the layout side. I am also giving some though to a remote camera so the sidings can be viewed from the control area, although having walkabout handheld controller should mean this is a nice to have rather than a necessity.

Bahnland Bayern - December Update

Some more progress to update on the Bavarian HO layout; the overhead catenary (by Viessmann) has been installed over the rive bridge and towards the eastern end on the first large scenic board. The campsite at the 'country' end of the layout is largely complete, just some hedging to fit between the caravan pitches. I've now begun the main Bavarian riverside tavern, on the eastern bank of the river. I'm also planning a small loco fuelling point to the rear of where the two electric locos are stabled to the rear of the second photo.

Bahnland Bayern in HO

Some more progress shots, apologies for the poor lighting, these were just taken with my iPhone once modelling had finished for the day to record the days activities. The basic elements for the Bavarian scene are all pretty much there; the Schloss, complete with beer garden, the Black forest imbiss & bier chalet, and the mountains.

I've also begun to install the overhead catenary, this time I'm going for Veissmann, rather than Sommerfeldt as the masts are more accurate for the region and era I'm modelling. Many more to be fitted before I'm done.

Compare the second photo with one taken from roughly the same angle just over a year ago and the progress is quite dramatic.

Making tracks...

A concerted push this autumn has resulted in some great progress on my German HO scale layout. All the trackwork is laid, point motors fitted and decoders added and it has all been tested. With this major hurdle cleared the basic structure of the scenery can be formed. Apologies for the slightly rough and ready nature of the landscape, these photos basically show an equivalent to a first draft or sketch, so that changes can be made. Buildings and structures are just roughly placed before being properly bedded in once a satisfactory position is achieved.

These photos show the far left end, roughly a quarter of the scenic element of the layout, where the mainline enters from an alpine valley before crossing a river valley. The first tress have been placed to gain an idea of scale and perspective, many hundreds more to be added.

Brief European layout update

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.

European Specialist Material - Part 1

Hi there, long time no blog. What with rebuilding the superstructure of the BR layout Widnes Road with the gratefully received assistance of Andy (peg-leg) and Wayne, and the a third and final re-think of the baseboards of the 'great European project' I've not found much time to get out into the real world and do much photography, nor has the progress on my three layouts been interesting enough to photograph being mainly confined to extensive gnawing of large piles of wood into lots of sawdust and smaller pieces of wood.

Having now finished the new legs and baseboard connections and tried the new arrangement out at the recent Watford show, I have been able to do other things. The first of these was a long weekend, Friday to Monday night in the Bremen and Hamburg area with some reprobates from the UK, including Peter, Tom and Colin, and joining up out there with Andy (Ginge).

Monsoon at Bremen Hbf 17th May 2013

Despite the best efforts of a monsoon on arrival to dampen the enthusiasm, a great three and a half days was had, and many updates are to follow as I work my way through the 1,350 photos that were fired off.

There was also time for a quick visit to Roland-modellbahnstudio (which was rather longer than anticipated due to the shop having moved about two miles nearer town). Note to self, check address before heading off into rain to find railway shop, don't rely on Tom having been there five years ago...sorry Tom ;) So there are some new Hobbytrain Doppelstockwagens and a digital Roco 101 to give test run to when I get home.

DBAG BR 218 339-0 on a top-and-tailed DB Regio service at Hamburg Hbf

A few sneak previews of some of what was seen and bashed follows, much more to follow on here and on my Flickr page.

SBB Cargo 421 389-8 @ Bremen Hbf 18/5/13

RBH 102 (143 069-3) & RBH 102 143 150-4 @ Bremen Hbf 18/5/13

Wiener Lokalbahnen Cargo Siemens Taurus 1216 953 @ Bremen Hbf 18/5/13

Metronom ME 146-08 @ Bremen Hbf on a Hamburg Hbf turn 18th May 2013

Dispolok Siemens ER 20-001 at Niebull Bf 19/5/13 on a NOB service to Hamburg Altona from Westerland

A quartet of new Voith Gravita 10 BB Diesels at Itzehoe Stabling point inc. 261 099-6, 261 037-6 and 261 077-2

DB Rabbits with 218 366-3 leading passing NOB Siemens Mak DE 2700-10 at Niebull Bhf

European Layout - Update

I had originally planned to spend this weekend adding DCC turnout decoders to Widnes Road, which would have meant dragging it all upstairs from the dungeon and setting up in the dining room in order to wire the boards up to test the installation.  

I tested the first decoder before committing to rewiring the whole layout, and lo and behold, a DCC 'funny' occurred. It worked OK on my old ZTC system, but the much newer ECoS would not recognise the decoder (an NCE Switch-it). 

Much head-scratching and consultation the internet later and I was not much further forward, so abandoned that idea while I waited on the font of much of this black art, Kevin from Coastal DCC to get back to me. So instead, I roped Alice, my better half, into helping (well, more accurately, do-ing) the emerging scenery on my permanent HO European layout.

It turned out that the decoder issue is a clash with Railcom on an earlier firmware installed on the ECoS, and it all works fine now, but by then it was too late to put Widnes Road up and it can wait until another weekend. As it is, really good progress has been made with the base layer of scenery; namely the river bed, and hills which form a scenic break between the layout and fiddle yard.

The grey area next to the river wall is where the large pub will go, with beer garden on both sides of the railway line. On the other side of the river will be a camp site, running up the hillside.