This week I finally managed to solder up the powerbus for the fiddle yard and give the layout a test run. I have previously sound chipped a number of locomotives and I wanted to see how the layout would sound with 3 sound chipped locomotives running together. The answer was very noisy - probably prototypically so, but a little bit too much for me! There were some definite outcomes from the running session. The first of which the fiddle yard is too small, which necessitates excessive handling of locomotives and stock. This is fine when I am playing around at home, but definitely won't work if I am exhibiting the layout. So the fiddle yard is going to a get a 1ft extension. The second outcome is that two locomotives and two DMUs will be sufficient to happily operate the layout. The stock will very between early 1970s and early 1980s, but say a warship and a class 22 plus a 108 and 121 DMU will keep the movements pretty varied. However, to achieve this the fiddle yard is way to small!
Plenty of noise on the layout!
On the layout detailing side the station platform has been glued down. Two buffer stops have been added at the Ilfracombe side of the station (it is a truncated branch) and the manual point levers have been added. With these in place the ballasting has started - one of the most tedious jobs of railway modelling without doubt! However all progress and it is starting to come together (starting!).
One of the manual point levers installed and ballasting started.
The Ilfracombe end of the layout with buffer stops installed.
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