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Whinny Hill


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Well, made it at last. After many months trying to work out what to do and how to do it, I'm one step further forward in that I have my base built in the back garden awaiting delivery of the tracks.

My model railway will be called whinny hill after the area I live. It is totally fictitious but based on several things I have seen. Originally it was going to be based on the east coast main line that runs from the forth bridge through the field about 500 yards from where I live, but unfortunately space and finances meant that a compromise had to be reached.

At present my layout is not going to be based on any particular era but will be a mix from the sixties to present day. The station section when built, will be based on Stirling railway station as they still use the old type semaphore signals so I'll be able to run trains from different eras.

Although I've still much to learn and a long way to go, I don't believe I could have done it without the help of the forum members and no doubt I'll be pestering you all a bit more in the future as I progress. So many thanks to everyone for all the help and advice.

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That sounds like the ideal basis for a really enjoyable layout Bill.

There can't be many prototype locations remaining where semaphore signals are still in use so Stirling sounds like a great choice for a station and I agree with Griff that it's good to be able to run a wide selection of your favourite trains spanning a number of eras. Speaking of which, what are your favourite trains and what can we expect to see?

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Hi Bill I'm Roy. I've seen the Forth Bridge and it's bloody huge makes the trains look like OO gauge on a gauge 1 structure. As you may have seen I have a large outdoor railway and it is quite a bit higher than yours also it's protected from our extremes in climate.

I hope your soldering is coming along well and there really is no short cuts on a garden railway. You DO need to bond each rail joint as you will quickly get fed up with jerky trains. Bus wires despite what a lot of expert say depends on how many trains you really intend to run at once. 6 trains at once and yes you need bus wires. 2 trains on your railway then bus wires are not really needed. It all depends on how MANY locos are running NOT standing. A loco standing in a station or goods loop draws no current. So if you have 4 locos on trains on your railway but only two are running then only those two running are drawing current.

You may or may not know that I have NCE procab 5amp radio and when I was looking for a DCC system I read another manufactures manual and was frightened by all the 'techno speak' in it. I just wanted something to control my trains with ease and with sound. I didn't want to have to get a scholars degree in electronics. Others forums on the net go on endlessly about what you have to do to get near trouble free running and it seems to me that they prefer the wiring side of the hobby to actually running trains which seems of secondary importance.

Roy.

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mick said:

That sounds like the ideal basis for a really enjoyable layout Bill.

There can't be many prototype locations remaining where semaphore signals are still in use so Stirling sounds like a great choice for a station and I agree with Griff that it's good to be able to run a wide selection of your favourite trains spanning a number of eras. Speaking of which, what are your favourite trains and what can we expect to see?

Hi Mick, at the moment I only have 4 locos the original one that started me off in this hobby: a merchant navy clan line pullman, a class 25 diesel with sound that I purchased new, a class 55 deltic that I bought from e-bay and a jinty steam shunter. With finances being limited and at the moment being directed to getting the outdoor layout up and running I've not been able to purchase as many locos as I would have liked to, but hey this is going to be a long term hobby, so plenty of time to increase the fleet. :)

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cleanerg6e said:

Hi Bill I'm Roy. I've seen the Forth Bridge and it's bloody huge makes the trains look like OO gauge on a gauge 1 structure. As you may have seen I have a large outdoor railway and it is quite a bit higher than yours also it's protected from our extremes in climate.

I hope your soldering is coming along well and there really is no short cuts on a garden railway. You DO need to bond each rail joint as you will quickly get fed up with jerky trains. Bus wires despite what a lot of expert say depends on how many trains you really intend to run at once. 6 trains at once and yes you need bus wires. 2 trains on your railway then bus wires are not really needed. It all depends on how MANY locos are running NOT standing. A loco standing in a station or goods loop draws no current. So if you have 4 locos on trains on your railway but only two are running then only those two running are drawing current.

You may or may not know that I have NCE procab 5amp radio and when I was looking for a DCC system I read another manufactures manual and was frightened by all the 'techno speak' in it. I just wanted something to control my trains with ease and with sound. I didn't want to have to get a scholars degree in electronics. Others forums on the net go on endlessly about what you have to do to get near trouble free running and it seems to me that they prefer the wiring side of the hobby to actually running trains which seems of secondary importance.

Hi Roy, totally agree with you, my priority is just to get up and running and have my trains going round the garden. ;)

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Looking very smart Bill.

It's always tempting to acquire new locos and as someone who has far too many loco's of his own it's hardly appropriate for me to give any advice but I have to agree with Griff that it would be much better to have a small collection of loco's that mean something to you or that have a distinct purpose as part of your layout rather than simply hoarding them like I've been doing. I've got loco's that I doubt I will ever use on any layout but which were mainly purchased because they were going cheap at the time or were newly released and I didn't like to miss out on a bargain or miss out on a model altogether. It's taken some of the fun out of it.

My idea for a preserved type railway is an attempt to build a collection of models (mainly from within my current collection) that actually have a role to play. If I was starting again from scratch I would certainly go down the 'preserved' layout route and take my time building a collection of stock for that specific purpose.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not much happening here at the moment. Have received delivery of my straight track sections but there is a hold up with my 4th radius curves from hornby, seemingly they have sent their whole stock over to India to fulfil a large order and left nothing for their UK customers, so waiting on my local stockist to get back to me on that one. Apart from that I'm ready to go have the soldering gun and solder ready so will probably start joining some track sections together while I wait for an improvement in the weather up here. It seems when I'm working the sun comes out and then when I'm off it decides to rain or blow a gale, such is life, role on the summer lol. :(

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That's one of the drawbacks with a garden railway Bill and the one that probably deters many people from venturing outside It's absolutely no fun when it rains and sometimes for a number of days afterwards too depending on where your railway's actually located. However, get that first train running and you'll have forgotten all about the nasty weather!

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Started soldering link wires between some of my track sections today and have actually laid the first track pieces outside.

This soldering takes a bit of getting used to, but seem to be getting better at it the more I do. This is after a small burn to the tip of one of my fingers and some melted sleepers and a few choice words but think I'm on the right track now (pardon the pun).

I have looked at the post on soldering link wires to points but intend to use hornby points. Where is the best place to put the link wires and would one set do like the DCC clips on the top end? All advice appreciated ;)

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When I first started to lay the track on my railway I'd never soldered in my life but in order to have trouble free running I just had to learn and practiced on some track until I got the hang of it. Burnt fingers and melted sleepers resulted at first. Perhaps I should upload photos of how I laid my track. I've photos on my thread showing track laying in progress but not how I actually did it. The other day I counted just how many bonded joints I have and remember I haven't finished yet and the total so far comes to 430 bonded joints. You will find that bonds drop off some, BUT NOT ALL joints in time. It has something to do with the movement of the atoms in the solder. I myself re-soldered 25 joints the other day and an easy way to test is when you clean your track just take a small flat bladed screwdriver with you to insert between the outside rail and the bond and move the screwdriver away from the rail. If a bond is loose it will come away. If both soldered points are loose you'll find the bond laying beside the track. It's best to keep on top of this sort of maintenance to stop little problems from becoming big ones.

Roy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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