Micro Layout - Pottington Quay....

Well more time has passed since my last update - lots of work travel have taken its toll on modelling activities. However, in between trips Pottington Quay was retrieved from storage, point motors and wire were purchased and quite a few evenings have been spent burning my fingers and cursing! However, I finally have a working trackplan, ready for DCC operation. All the points are wired up for DCC operation and use the SEEP PM1 to change the frog polarity on electrofrog points - something that has improved running no end (I previously used insulfrogs). I also used the Express Models powerbus kit and found this to be excellent and pretty simple to use. 

Birds eye view of the completed micro layout track plan.

Running a few trains during track testing.

I have wired a very simple control panel together using toggle switches and everything works! The seep motors were slightly awkward to position - not in terms of the throw - but if the throw is not sufficient in one direction then half of the point will be dead. This is just one of those things you have to learn the hard way!

The layout design has four working points. It was originally designed to be a through running station, but now it has been downgraded to a single line terminus on a truncated branchline (the Ilfracombe branchline of course). The layout has two lines running into it from a fiddle yard - which will hopefully give some flexibility. The layout imagines the line had been retained west of Barnstaple to Pottington but closed further west to Ilfracombe. Hence a very simple station terminus will be built and will mainly be served by DMUs, with a small goods yard and engine shed converted into a small wagon repair workshop - all extremely conjectural!

Looking towards Barnstaple - showing the two tracks to the fiddle yard.

I have collected far too much stock over the years, so this layout is designed to be simple.  I am going to run a handful of locos (nine to be precise) that would have run in the area in the 1970s.  This includes a representative from classes 22, 25, 33, 42, 45, 50 and 52, and of course a couple of DMUs for good measure.  I am going to run it off a Bachmann E-Z command unit, which I really like for its simplicity and speed dial.  I hope to sound chip and detail all of the locomotives in due course.  The next steps are to  spend some time in the evenings working out where to place various buildings. I am going to attempt some scratchbuilding for specific structures - nothing too fancy (or complicated), but just some buildings to hopefully give the layout some individuality.  The quay wall and the station are the two structures I will be starting with and if I feel brave maybe a warehouse.....    

Class 25 pulling a passenger service into where the terminus station will be placed.  The exit to the fiddle yard on this side will be blocked off.

Although the trackplan is live and usable I am now going to take sometime to play trains and check that I am happy with the configuration and everything is reliable.  There is a fair amount of work to do tidying up the wiring and there are lots of lights to be added.  I also I plan to place a camera into one of the buildings to link to a lap-top, to give a live perspective to the layout from the non-viewing side.  Other immediate tasks are to finish the fiddle yard (3 road) and then start some real modelling - (including building some wagons!)  The video is not the most exciting in the world - but too me it is pretty good to see the layout finally working.