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2018 saw more progress than previous years. However a lot of the work throughout the year was with the electronics and wiring, so not so much to see. Lots of steep learning, soldering and testing. Most of the track is now laid and the track plan is final. Exception to this is the loco area i...

DCC is sometimes referred to as two wires to the track and off you go. This is essentially correct and even here the benefits are clear for those who want to run trains independently of each other with a controller, no need for isolated sections and switches. However for me this wasn't enoug...

A video taken from the layout starting off South of Leicester, continuing on the down lines through the station area. You go past the south and north bays and out into the "non-scenic" area into the 13 road storage sidings. All thirteen roads can be accessed from up and down lines at both en...

  Progress today mainly in laying out all the remaining points for the fiddle yard and working out what additional rail I need to order. In the process working out that the ANYRAIL plan, although very accurate, was let down by my inaccurate measuring of the room in the first place. But I ga...

Made some decent progress in late September with the wife away and not so much travel. Rather than getting distracted with lots of experimenting with weathering and fitting sound chips etc I tidied up the railway room and focussed on getting some track down in the station area. ...

Recently i've had the airbrush out and lots of experimenting with weathering. Lots of trial and error, lots of blocked nozzles, but now at least i've got the hang of the right consistencies, my preferred media depending on the job at hand (enamel / acrylic) and have settled on Vallejo & Tami...

It doesn’t look like much has happened throughout 2017, life got in the way. 2018 seems to be much much clearer and progress seems much more likely. But much has been done. In the odd few days when there has been time and when i’ve actually been at home, the paints have been out. There have been a l...

Display cabinets are up on the wall and despite one disaster when the cabinet came off and pulled out the rawplugs from the wall (hadn’t gone into the concrete, only the plaster), everything’s now up, solid and supported from below as well as hanging from nails drilled deep into the concrete walls. ...

Something else i've been meaning to get around to for several years is resin moulds. Finally I had a stab at replicating a peak nose. This Bachmann nose is quite rare so I thought it would be a good first attempt. firstly I did the mould the wrong way around so the air bubble rose to the top...

After quite a break I've laid the down lines through the station and also added two additional lines in the marshalling / storage yards. Since the last update actually quite a lot has happened as i've got the first loop fully wired for the Power Districts (Digitrax PM42) and the occupancy de...

I've been busy researching and testing out some weathering techniques. Love the Gunmetal black for metalic finshes. Also the 21T hoppers are my first experiments with Humbrol Clear and Decalfix for scratching effects over a base coat of rust. This is shown on the Humbrol Youtube channel, but...

I have been absorbed by the signalling at Leicester Central. The plan was always to have working signalling that, as much as my modelling skills would permit, would be as representative of the real thing as possible.  I've now taken delivery of a few more books on the GCR as well as my fi...

A long time ago I experimented with making PECO Code 100 track look better. At the time I ordered lots of it (back in the late 2000's) so i'm sticking with it. Back then I cut the webbing out from between each sleeper and spaced them out. I tried the same thing again today - it takes ages to...

After waiting for the 15m x 1m roll of cork to arrive, running out of my Pattex Classic rubbery glue on a Saturday evening after the shops shut (nothing's open on a Sunday), and getting rather sidetracked building my first modest "shed" out of plasticard and trying out some painting techniqu...

 I'm still waiting for the cork roll to be delivered so this weekend I thought i'd try my first ever effort at scratch building something. I have been scouring my books and the aerial photos to get views of the various small buildings by the turntable and sidings at the southern end of the station. ...

I heard about this method on the RMWeb just after I read the advice about not making a building until you have sourced the windows so you know the size. Sound advice.  However the results here (on my first scratchbuilding and first dry brushing painting effort), although still in need of refinement...

A few weeks since my last update due to work and travel, but finally I have finished off the baseboards at the running level. All the trackwork has been printed off or penciled on just to make sure everything's going to work well. A few adjustments and basically i'm happy with it. The only t...

The worst job so far is done, marking out and cutting plywood baseboards for the raised section, wood chips & dust everywhere. Now they're all in place, at the right height and level. Today is the first day i've really been able to see just how good a tool Anyrail is as I stuck the trackplan...

Just a quick update, being Sunday and Germany we're not allowed to make noise. Well drilling, sawing will get the non PG Tips drinking locals in a fluster, they won't do anything much as they're all nice folk. But when in Germany, do as the locals.This evening I am uploading some of the aerial photo...

Pleased to report that I found some PG Tips in Edeka. So suitably fortified set about finishing the baseboard base right around the room. Joining up the two ends over the staircase I achieved a level join, it was a bit like the Channel tunnel joining in the middle with millimeter precision, except r...

Here in Frankfurt the weather's been hot and humid, not good for two reasons...1) when it's sunny I have to go to the local open air swimming pool and "get out the house while the weather's nice" 2) by the time I get back in the house it's usually to hot and sticky to run around sawing wood, measuri...

A little bit of actual progress to show. But mainly I have taken the track plan and accurately measured everything out. The best thing is that now I can mock up the actual height of the running lines and then measured, I gain space for another 2 x storage sidings.

Since last weekend i've been travelling around Germany. Cologne then Magdeburg then back to Frankfurt. Today i've been upstairs adding more to the baseboards. Putting in the joists to be the foundation for the risers and then baseboards.