What a year

Father Christmas has been most generous this year, bringing me a Trax walkabout (feedback) controller to replace the final remaining H&M one, this will vastly improve the ability to smoothly move locos around the sidings and turntable at a reasonable pace.

He also brought me a camcorder, so no more jamming the iPhone with video footage - look out for some HD videos when the layout is exhibited next year!

Finally I also received a custom-made stand for the switch panel, no more borrowing tables, no more crouching over the controls.

Work to modify the fiddle yard is currently on hold while I await the delivery of some more electrical components. Currently the switch panel work has been completed with the new, back-lit display fitted, the points have all been modified in readiness for the revamp and three of the control PCBs have been built. Some minor modifications need to be made to the front of the layout before the next run but the new switch panel should(I hope) work fine with the existing layout.

We estimate that the modification work will take place in February, there's another exhibition in January, which although 2015 still sounds like an age away, in reality it's less than three weeks until the next outing.

In an attempt to reduce the amount of rolling stock I carry to shows, I've sorted the storage boxes and cut down from three, to two boxes - still more than enough stock for the layout and allows me some stock to run in the loft, should I ever actually get around to sorting it out.

Hopefully 2015 will be a successful year for the layout and with a bit of luck there will be no need for further financial investment. The track, rolling stock and controls are all in good order and minimal maintenance should be needed from now on to keep everything in good order. Whilst it was fun to build from scratch in such a short space of time in 2014, it'll be even more fun to actually get to play with it properly and exhibit at various locations. Strange to think that this time a year ago, the layout didn't exist, it hadn't even been designed! The two public outings so far have been extremely successful, I'm looking forward to doing more and sharing our nerdy passion for old tinplate trains with others!

Final run of 2014

An opportunity arose to give the layout another run as part of Weymouth Model Railway Association's open day, this was an opportunity to test the new feedback controllers and make sure that the recent track tweaks worked ok, which they did.

I've made a short comparison video showing the difference the new controllers have made to the running of the layout, far smoother, no stalling on the shuttle or on corners and I deliberately ran locos that I knew were prone to stalling to see how they would perform with the Trax controllers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0ryVKCtDsE

I kept stock rotation to a minimum as I also wanted to check for any signs of overheating. Mallard must have run for over three hours continuously with no apparent side effects. Another benefit of being able to run at a more sensible speed is that there were fewer instances of derailments and uncouplings. Very pleased with the performance of these new controllers and definitely worth the investment.

Work will now commence to build the electronics to operate the electric points that will be added to the rear fiddle yard, in total and including the upper loop, I have 19 pairs of points to install, which should keep me busy for a few evenings at least.

Work on the control panel is nearing completion, all the LEDs are in place and just require soldering, then the new panel should drop into the existing control box with minimal modification required.

Next scheduled outing is January 17th 2015, the layout is perfectly usable in its current state so the planned modifications can wait if there isn't sufficient time to complete the work.

Again our layout was very well received, some nice comments and even a suggestion that we should be aiming to exhibit at Warley!

Never say never...