FINISHING UP, BAKED BEANS AND THE MOMENT OF TRUTH, WILL TRAINS RUN?

So we’re steaming (get it!) towards the completion of SHIREBROOKE YARD.

Now we’re adding the final details and in many ways this is the most important part of the construction of your layout. In the end you are trying to recreate the real thing weather its based on a real place or not. So many layouts I see at exhibitions don’t weather their layout for example. The real world is a dirty mucky place so why wouldn’t your layout reflect this? This layout is an engine shed which is a dirty place with bits of rubbish, old rusty rails and wheels, old oil drums…and so on. Don’t forget as well their are always figures, engine crews, station staff, lineside workers and passengers etc. Look at the coal staithe, just putting that there (with real crushed coal) with a worker shoveling coal gives you a focal point and realism. An old goods shed door and some rusty bogies behind the shed again adds realism. Put some weathering powder on the door and sprinkle some Flock over the bogies to give the impression of weeds growing over the long since disregarded wheels. For me you can’t do too much detailing because a model railway layout is more than just some trains going round and round.

So to the fiddle yard, this is whare trains disappear into the “rest of the world”. From an operating point of view this allows in the case of SHIREBROOKE YARD to bring other engines into the yard area which allows plenty of operating opportunitys. As this is a layout exclusively for engines to operate in a simple two track fiddle yard is all thats required. Once in the fiddle yard. This is where the baked beans come in! (weigh down track until glue is dry).

So it seems we are ready to power up and see if it all works. Obviously this is the moment of truth.

Firstly connect the power bus from the layout to the fiddle yard and then connect your power bus to your controller. Then turn on the power, the first thing you want is no short circuits or wires connected up wrong as this will cut out your controller. Hopefully this is not the case you have a green light.

Luckily for me my wiring was sound and my tank engine ran first time…. Phew!!!

Only problem I came across was one of the points didn’t have an electrical connection so trains stopped running when going over that point. This can be very frustrating as there are many reasons for this. It could be paint from when I weathered the track or a grain of ballast stopping the points making an electrical connection. Hopefully it’s not a dodgy point as this would mean a replacement.

In my case it was just a matter of cleaning the paint and removing some ballast and it was fine.

Now I would be lying if I said there weren’t some issues over the course of the build and next time I’ll come clean and tell you what they were.

For now, good modelling.