mick

Well here's a view that hasn't been seen for some time - Shieling Bridge station almost completely devoid of rolling stock and infrastructure! I've done a bit of weatherproofing on the outside of the shed and just had a general tidy round inside so thought I'd grab a photo of the empty station. It shows just how much work I still have to do but at least now it's a much more comfortable environment in which to do it. By the time I'm back up and running there's unlikely to be many opportunities to run anything round the garden but at least if it's cold or wet outside, I should be able to make myself comfy in the shed and get on with finishing the stations. I've not yet got round to altering the far left hand siding which scrapes against the cladding and I've still to repair the damage to my colour light signal, which currently lies on the platform, after it's unfortunate trip up the vacuum cleaner nozzle. But looking at the overall state of play, there was a time when I would have given anything to have been in this position

Well you're certainly proving all the doubters wrong and showing that OO/HO in the garden can be very successful and worthwhile. Just wait until you can show them a fully operational layout next year! I think the forum provides the required inspiration and motivation to make a start in OO/HO outdoors. It shows what is possible and provides advice on things that are best avoided. Each individual member introduces their own ideas and you've added some novel methods yourself which should aid others who dare to follow in our footsteps! I think you win the prize for the most expansive OO/HO garden railway featured here so far and it's been very interesting following along. Looking forward to the recommencement of construction in 2019.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts regarding the finish of my timber cladding. The consensus appears to be leave it as it is and so I'm in agreement with that as it will save me additional work. I haven't totally ruled out painting the roof white in order to reflect some light back down but I'll see how it goes - it does seem bright enough with the two lights. I've fastened the shelf bracket uprights to the rear wall of the shed but as yet I haven't got any suitable timber boards for the shelves. I've slotted brackets in place but I'm not sure exactly where they'll be going just yet. Once again I've run out of cladding, as you've probably noticed, and there's just a few sections needed to complete the lower part on the non-door end wall. Plastic conduit in place to take electrical cables and once the shelves are installed I'll be able to get rid of the trailing wires and cables too so we're getting there. Once the lower shelf is installed it's going to shield a lot of light from the terminus section but I have a 5 metre LED strip that will fit under the shelf so I'll give that a try.

It seems to be taking forever but I've got a bit further with adding cladding over the insulation and the door wall is now almost complete. I've used some of the short off-cuts of timber cladding on the door which is why the top section are vertical as opposed to the rest. There's insulation behind the door cladding too. Timber strip beading has been fixed in place along the roof centre line and down the corner edges of the non-door end which improves the appearance. A short section to the left of the door end has been done too. Now do I paint it, stain it or what? I want to make a decision soon because I have some twin slot wall mounted shelving to install above the terminus section and it would be best to paint or whatever first. It will be great to finally have shelves for storage and not have to store everything on the floor!

Looks a bargain at that price. Was this a planned purchase or an impulse one?

The roof of the shed is now complete except for finishing battens around the edges/joins. There's just the door end wall to do now as well as the door itself. The door needs some timber battens around the edges before I add polystyrene insulation and then the cladding. Another consequence of adding insulation after the layout has been installed and track laid is that one of my sidings to the rear of Shieling Bridge station is now no longer accessible as the timber cladding fits tight up against the sleepers. I knew this was going to be a problem but it shouldn't be too much trouble to rectify. I might be able to simply realign the track but failing that I'll move the point itself further towards the bottom of the above photo. I don't really want to lose the siding because I could really do with some more. Door wall tomorrow maybe.

Apologies in advance for the quality of my diagram Tony but hopefully this will show you how I wire the Peco electrofrog turnout with switched frog feed. The soldered connections to the point directly from my bus wires link the two adjacent rails together indicated by the blue and red dots. The built in wire links marked by the two red 'X' need to be cut/removed to completely isolate the frog section. Power to the frog is then taken from the integral switch on your point motor (SEEP as in the diagram above). The same connection could be made to a 'frog juicer' or 'auto frog' module as I have occasionally used. The blue 'X's to the left show where I insert insulated rail joiners - only on the frog 'V' section. All other rail joiners can be standard metal ones. If you should decide to use something along these lines I would advise first soldering short lengths of wire to the motor (6 inches or so) and then add a terminal connector strip. It makes any subsequent changes much easier and depending on your setup you may need to reverse the red and blue wires providing power to the switch connections on the point motor to obtain correct frog polarity. I might also point out (sorry) that some people (and I believe IanR on this forum does) add an additional fine wire link between the point blades and the outer rail in the area between the tiebar and the 9th sleeper to the left of it as seen in the diagram above. See attached photo below.

I've run out of timber cladding so there'll be a short break whilst I get some more. I still have 5 full lengths remaining but that's not enough to completely clad behind the remaining striplight and I'm not taking the light down unless I can put it straight back up again. I've made a start on the roof and this is where I've had to leave it for now: I'll be needing some timber strips to cover the edges once it's all done but it's not going to take much to have it looking okay. It feels cleaner as well as warmer so I'm looking forward to getting things up and running again.

Anyone who's already seen enough of the interior of my shed should press the fast forward button now. Apologies but I don't have anything other than this to report. It seems never ending but looking back at recent photos it's clear that progress has been made and hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some stock back on track. Today I've fitted the few missing pieces from yesterday and done most of the far end wall of the shed. There's still bits to do beneath the baseboard level which are very fiddly with restricted access and few places where the cladding can be secured. There's also the matter of the electrical cables which, now that the cladding is in place, can be neatly secured within plastic trunking. There's still the door end of the shed to tackle but I'll probably make a start on the roof first and get that out of the way. I'll do it just as soon as I can find my spare electrofrog point Tony. I was going to take a photo and then show where I make the connections but it's somewhere among all the mess removed from the shed (or perhaps somewhere still in the shed) and I've had a look but haven't come across it yet.

I know how you feel Iain. I just need to pluck up some courage before letting loose on them. I've also got all the OO gauge ones to weather!!

It's all change again down in Worsley Dale. As nice as it looked, I've decided to conceal the polystyrene insulation behind some thin timber cladding which will hopefully prevent it getting damaged and loosening more of those tiny globules. I had a few lengths of cladding stored in the attic which were surplus from a previous job but I needed to purchase more for the shed and even now I'm not sure I will have enough to line the shed completely. I've made a start on the two sides and relocated the electric power points higher up the walls out of the way. The right hand side which contains the boards for Cattle Leys terminus station has been timber clad and the backscene placed back in position. There will be some shelves installed above. The left side, home to Shieling Bridge station, is almost complete, requiring the electric sockets removing so I can finish off behind before replacing them. Hopefully I will finish this tomorrow and then move on to the far end wall. I've not decided on a colour scheme yet. The window also needs some secondary glazing. It's going to provide a much better environment during colder days but it does feel like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back and I'm so conscious of the fact that it's so easy to damage things with all the mess. Fortunately apart from the previously mentioned 2-aspect signal nothing else has succumbed to date. The added insulation and cladding means I'm going to have to rethink my plans for the access holes into and out of the shed. I still intend using the tunnel portals but the headshunt at Cattle Leys terminus may have to revert to a simple trap point as I don't think there'll be enough space to stand a loco clear of the siding entrance road. I just wish it was all finished so that I could put things back together.

Brilliant stuff. Track cleaning is going to be fun I imagine. What do you plan on using as it looks like it might be difficult to access between the girder bridge sections? I have a long handled (Woodland Scenics?) track cleaner with a head that swivels which I use to clean beneath my girder bridges but I have much better access between mine than it appears you have with yours. Is it easy enough to access the rear overhead lines for similar purposes?

Here's hoping the weather stays fine a bit longer so you can keep making progress. It's a shame we have to retreat indoors over winter. The Metroliner looks great in the above photos - the colours all seem to compliment each other.

I dealt with thousands of these wagons Griff when I worked on the railway transporting coal from colliery to power stations. That's the sole reason I'm so attached to them and why I have over 100 of them in OO gauge. The larger version is so much more impressive though.

I wouldn't have thought it would be too expensive to go DCC - you'd probably recoup most of it with the saving in wire! But seriously, I do understand and it's all getting more and more expensive by the day. I know very little about wiring Tony, the choc block connectors are about as sophisticated as I go. Would you have to connect all those spade connectors individually each time you connect the boards? Wouldn't you be better with one of the D-sub connectors similar to these https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/d-sub-connector-kits/7873814/ ? I don't know much about them but it seems that's what most people use for interconnects between boards.