In-Side
Layout Construction
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Early
Stages
Railway
construction started on the 2nd to last week of December 2006, the
builders finished up the shed in the morning & I had one wall
lined that night & trains were running the next day! I decided
to have the Railway elevated about 8 inches to clear the bottom
plate of the shed when exiting outside, also to hide all the
wiring required. The base board is off cuts from the wall lining,
being only 10mm it needed ribs to surport it, an extra bonus
with the elevation is the sound it creates when the train
enters the shed!!

Above
Left; Looking to the East Tunnel Portal,
Above Middle; looking toward
the West (Hole yet to be cut) on both shots you can see the
baseboard construction very basic but sturdy. Above
Right; Eastern tunnel portal, I decided to use a slide just
behind the portal with a peg & hole method to hold it up when
operating. The Western portal is of the same method, we recently
decided to add another loop on this section mainly as a storage
siding & a 'Put On & Take Off' siding for when visitors
come to run.

Above 4
Pictures; From start to
finish, extra base board being put in place to take the loop,
Getting the exact measurement before the cut was made for the new
turnout, Turnout in & half the loop laid, Loop completed with
the Garrett on the ore train for a try out. I used manual turnouts
as a safety measure in mind, if you change a turnout manually you
remember it longer that you have done so & when we run 2 train
operation we don't want any head ons or nose to tails!!

Scenery
At
long last I am under way with some Scenery, the first job is to
tackle the rock face which measures 12m x 400mm. I must admit that
scenery is not one of my strong points, hopefully the result will
be a quite good looking rock face to break the long flat 12metre
wall! As I wasn't looking for perfection I decided not to go with
the rock moulds & make seperate rock clusters! I needed a
quicker method as I didn't want to do this longer then I had too
so decided on the polystyrene coated with gib plaster option, so
down to the Mitre 10 store I go & got 2 sheets of
50mmx1200mmx2400mm. I then set to & split them into 400mm
strips & glued to the wall with an exterior PVA glue &
wedged in place until dried. After drying I attacked it with a
cooking fork taking chunks out of the flat surface to rough it up
to make the appearance of a rock face. (What a mess this process
was!!)

Above Left;
This shows the Poly that has been roughed up & the first coat
of plaster being applied, this was done with a wet-ish solution of
plaster put on with a paint brush. Above Right; The second
coat is now being applied, this was coloured with oxide pigments.
Now this is the dark coat & will form the shadows of all the
recesses of the rock. (Or thats the plan!) Below Left; The
final coat has been added, now on to the ballasting & some
greenery on the rock face!

Above Right;
This shows the Ballast grading Plant layout!! 1st; was to sift the
crusher dust & take out the coarse stones, what was left in
the sieve throw-out. 2nd; put remains through a finer sieve &
save whats left in the sieve. Doing it this way gives you a nice
uniform size to ballast with, for securing the ballast I used a
50-50 mix of water & PVA glue with a wee bit of dish wash
liquid, a tried & proven method in all scales! Below Left;
The finished result of the ballasting! Below Right; The
rock face & track has now had some bushes added, this could be
an on-going project!! I am happy with the result! But I also know
it could be better, as scenery is not my thing but you just have
to give it your best shot!!
South
Yard & Loco Depot
Construction
is under way of extending the main yard & building a new loco
depot, it was decided that the yard might as well be lengthened to
maximum train length. While that was on the drawing board I
realised that we haven't got a loco depot & there was plenty
of room in the centre of the shed plus it would be great to lift
it out & display it at shows or gatherings etc. With all this
in mind construction begins!!!

Above Left;
Start of the extension to the South Yard, I wanted to keep the
display cabinets as I am running out of display space so decided
to build around them. Above Right; More bracing in place as
you can see by the different timber used it is built from off-cuts
that have been hanging around in the garage for years!!

Above Left;
Top board is in place, I used 9mm 2nd grade MDF saving $20.00 a
sheet. Above Right; East end of the yard with the track in
its final position, the back shunt where the caboose is will be
used as a caboose/guards van siding.

Above Left;
At the West end you can see the turnout branching off to the left
to the loco depot, the loco yard is all 10ft dia so big locos can
use it. The yard is only made up with LGB 8ft turnouts which most
rolling stock will get round. Above Right; The permanent
baseboard of the loco depot being constructed, bottom of the
picture is where 2x2.4m modules will be built as lift outs!!

Above Left;
Here is the underneath frame work for the loco depot module. Above
Right; This is my take on how to conect the modules together,
there is minimal side play so the track when down should remain
lined up!! This is a shot of the 2 modules & Below Left;
is a shot of the permanent base board mounting set up. Below
Right; The 2 modules sitting in place waiting for there
permanent base to be built!

Below Left;
Its amazing what a clean up can produce!!! The sub base was made
from 2x4 with cleats on the outside to keep the modules in place,
we are looking East to West!! Below Right; We are now
looking west to East, this gives some idea of the length &
width of everything.

Below Left;
Close up of the cleat arrangement, note that I have left a gap
between the sub base & module this is to save squashing the
ole fingers & ease of pick -up. Below Right; The
sleepers have been cut to 8mm x 10mm x 88mm & glued to the MDF
base board.

Below Left;
Once the sleepers are dried I coated them with poster paint as I
want them to weather like the real thing. It was cheaper to bring
in the propper track spikes fron the States then to buy pannel
pins from the local hardware store. Below Middle; Next road
was the inspection pits (long ones) & ash pits/blow down area.
All the measuring was done twice just to make sure it was correct
otherwise the spikes would split the side of the pits! Below
Right; The Pit bases are coated with a light grey ready for
weathering at a later date.

Below
Left & Middle; The result of my
first attempt of hand laid track, I was rather pleased with the
result but the hard bit is yet to come, with turnouts to be
made!!! Below Right; The version I choose was featured in
the 'Garden Railways' magazine spread over the issues, June &
August 2009. I cut all the sleepers to the correct length &
glued same as the standarded track.

Below Left;
Half way through the build, in the
magazine they built there with brass frogs but I decided to go
with the insulated version less wiring to worry about!! Below
Right; Finished turnout, 2 more to go!!! For the throw I used
the Peco Large scale version, this turned out to be a good choice
for indoors but for out side I think the Tenmille version would be
far better!!.

Below;
Is the re-vamped yard pannel & the new loco yard switch
box, toward the end is the alocated area for the 70ft
turntable.

The south yard
& loop has received some attention by extentions going in, as
you have seen further up the page there were a couple of display
cabinets built into the layout. It was decided that the room could
be put to better use by extending the yard to house the increasing
items of rolling stock. Below
Left; The track has been
laid with the turnouts being wired together so they both switch at
the same time. Below
Right; Trains are starting to use the sidings.


Above Left;
The finished yard layout looking torward the back of the shed. Above
Right ; And the finished
result the cabinet mounted on the wall at eye height a win win
solution.

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