Down the Left Hand side

 The three pieces of the jigsaw puzzle have been moved into the shed to allow assembly. The layout when first assembled in the bedroom was all done in separate baseboards to allow future moving and that is what is now happening.

The previous setup had grades built into it as firstly the boards had to pass around the back of three monitors and then raise up over a server in another corner. It was decided to remove the grades and make it a perfectly flat layout as grades will be provided in the outer shed extension. Also when a Trainorama 32 class was tried it seemed to have trouble hauling a load up a grade in one direction.  So now it should be able to haul a better load.

To achieve a modified track plan and make full use of the room but still retaining the basic plan an additional board was secured to the outside of the existing layout up against the wall. Just one track wide. This will add extra flexibility and eventually be able to run three trains independently. This all had to be done prior to assembling along the wall.

Some new legs had to be made as previously portions of the corner baseboard had shorter legs that were supported on the top of the desk. The initial baseboard had four legs for support and then as other sections were made they were cantilevered off the previous board. This has worked out okay.

The boards were joined together with 1/4" bolts and wingnuts. They have worked out well so far.

The top board that runs across the roller door also has an additional piece of timber added so it can hold to outside track. Also there will be an additional crossover added to give access to the container terminal from the outside track and vice versa.

Fun and games started when I had to start connecting up the baseboards together. The corner section had to be the first section added and the left hand side was to connect around to the station area. The right hand side will eventually connect up with the server baseboard when it is brought down from the house. As can be seen from the photo it was a flimsy setup with one permanent leg in the corner and the two other corners temporarily help up with the use of clamps.

After a bit of a struggle I managed to get the three sections back together. The bolt holes still lined up and once secured the whole structure felt more safe.

The above photo shows the three baseboards finally connected. There is trackage that shows where the extra track will join up to new baseboards to finally go around the rest of the shed. It also shows how the additional track will be joined into the current set up. Today I am happy that this much has been achieved.

The next board to go in will be the 'server board' Next time.

First Steps

 Well finally things are on the move. The first part of the layout has been transferred from the house to the shed to take up its new home. Designed initially as a modular layout, it was easy enough to dismantle and then carried down to the shed.

The layout has inherited the space previously occupied by South Coast Rail, which some of you may have followed over the years. SCR was both a HO and then a Victorian Narrow gauge layout. Both layouts now dismantled and now allowing the space to be occupied by East Coast Rail.

The walls have been freshened up with a new coat of paint when luckily a 3/4 tin was found under the layout. There was a pickle jar saved of leftover paint which will now hopefully be enough to cover the areas that are a bit bare of paint. The floor has been covered with second hand floor tiles that make the floor look more respectable. Many years ago it was just the bare concrete so this is  a vast improvement. The dark grey is a good colour for hiding the dirt.

There are still many 'objects' in the room that need to go somewhere. Hand me down drawers are now filled with such things as scenery items, and other bits and pieces that we all seem to collect over the years. My hope is to eventually get rid of most of the things and then get rid of the drawers. But for the moment we will work around them.

The initial layout was purpose designed to fit in a bedroom and had the usual passenger station, loco depot, turntable and freight yard, enough to make it interesting, but by the decision to move to a larger area, the design will have to modified to make use of the larger space, and why not?

Section 1 arrives

There were three baseboard sections that will join and go down the side of the shed towards the roller door. The second section that contains the turntable has now been joined onto the first section out from the wall to allow easy access to the back so the additional timber and track can be laid. Also additional timber needs to be sourced for more legs. In its previous position the corner section was held up with short legs that rested on top of the desk.

Baseboards 1 & 2 assembled.

The above photo highlights the narrowness of the platform, this was the maximum width I could fit in within the space. It is intended to provide a larger style platform elsewhere on the layout. So for now it will have to do.

More updates later.

Moving along

It has been a while but work has been going on in the background to get the shed ready for the movement of the East Coast Rail layout out of the bedroom. Some readers may had identified that East Coast Rail will be taking over the space previously allocated to the narrow gauge South Coast Rail. Then SCR narrow gauge has been discontinued and in its place South Coast Traction will replace it and occupy a small area of the shed and be surrounded by East Coast Rail. If you can't follow that then I will do some diagrams later on on how the two systems will co-habitate. 

It has been a big job to remove a layout and replace with another one. But there are side benefits in that areas that were previously untouched by a vacuum cleaner have now been done. How often do you pull out all your junk under the layout for spring cleaning? And another great side benefit is that there is so much junk that won't be staying, sometimes garbage night doesn't come around soon enough.

Throughout the shed there are now various piles of similar material that I hope to be able to recycle. The fascia boards, nicely painted in a satin grey were nearly all recovered and are now awaiting to take up their new positions when ready. Then there are other piles of various size timbers also waiting to see where they will end up. It seems like a chess game moving things around down there to their final positions. We kept old bedroom suite and kitchen sets of draws, too good to chuck out and ones no one would want and they are doing a good job sitting under the layout baseboards full of sorted items.

Another task I did was to repaint one end of the shed, with a luckily found leftover tin of blue paint. The big worry was that it wasn't a full tin so I had to select the top sections of the wall (as the baseboards would hide the bottom sections) and then go around again and finish painting the bottom section. I thought I was clever and finished painting with a small amount of paint left over that I put into a small glass jar. Only trouble was the next day when it had all dried the spots I missed were clearly visible. A good suggestion from my son was to declare these spots as clouds. So that's what will happen if I don't get back to it.

I have had a pile of used carpet tiles I purchased a few years ago. It is now time to get them down on the floor and I will start up one end and gradually fill the room with them. I also purchased a long brush with soft bristles. It fits up against the roller door and is supposed to prevent dust from entering. This is yet to be proven. Also I replaced the rubber across the bottom of the door to prevent the dust entering there. Only trouble is either the door is not level or the floor as there is still a gap below, another issue to check out.

During clean up today I came across four Athearn Budd cars that I was going to convert into the 'South Coast Daylight Express'. This never happened but may in the future. So what I have done is to place the cars on the Thomson River bridge for a few pictures. Although the bridge was built in O scale some of the photos are believable even though the HO models will cross it. The bridge has been retained and will be incorporated into the new HO layout.

Here are a few bridge photos and meanwhile I will get on with the cleaning up and sorting out of the shed.

Works for HO???

Times are a changing

 This post will soon re-awake from hibernation and spring back to life, watch this space.