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N Gauge Model Railway

Fiddleyard

The plan for my layout doesn’t include a fiddleyard, but they’re handy to have to store trains and rolling stock off-scene. Since I don’t intend to run a whole lot simultaneously, I figured I put in a small hidden fiddleyard. Normally you’d have to accessible to swap out rolling stock, but again, I don’t intend to run a whole lot of variety on this layout, so a hidden inaccessible one should be fine for my needs.

So I did the only proper thing I could do; take up these 3 points, replace the faulty point… and take out the S-bend by using a left-hand point instead of a right-hand point to go into the far-track of the fiddleyard.

So there is still work to be done on the fiddleyard. There is more track to be put down, put terminal blocks in to wire these tracks up to my controller and ofcourse, run more trains!

Categories
N Gauge Model Railway

Loopback

So a problem I’ve had is that I put my station platform in the middle of my table. While that is a nice focal point, trying to fit any sort of loopback in proved to be very difficult.. maybe impossible? The only realistic solution was to move the station platform over to the right. The benefits of this change were just too many to ignore; I can fit a loopback on the lefthand side, I can remove the loopback from sight with the backscene which coincidentally reduces the amount of resin I need for the water as well as making it easier to put in the illusion that the cliffs don’t protect the pier too much from the ocean.

The 2mm thick cork trackbed was glued down using copydex; smells dreadful but surprisingly good for the job as it is a rubberised glue. The cork was roughly fitted to fit the curve of the track (9″ radius fleischmann set-track that I already had) with the idea that it will be trimmed around the track later on.
Categories
N Gauge Model Railway

Benchwork

So the third and final woodworking project is… something that I’ve wanted to do for probably 10 or so years now. Benchwork for my trains! I’ve decided to go for the L-Girder technique, as I like the idea of having full control and having access to everything from the bottom. That, and it’s easy enough to construct.

As you can see, the drop trap I built to start of the woodworking projects is in the background. And despite the look of it, it’s really sturdy! Just one slight problem, even though it fits through the door, turns out that the doors upstairs are 1″ slimmer… and it just barely doesn’t fit through them. So… lets break out the saw and try again…

Decided to make it 20cm slimmer, and to be honest, I’m happier that the top cross-bars are lower so I can more easily connect wires to another bench in the future.

Top bars were shortened slightly (by 10cm) so it’ll still fit through the (slightly slimmer!) upstairs doors, for when I eventually move.

Aaand that’s half of the bench already covered. Plus I’ll need to turn it a bit to be able to make the track of the station be able to loop back. But I reckon that’ll be fine and add a bit more interest to the whole thing. The track in the foreground is a slightly altered version of Glenderg’s design from the IrishRailwayModeller.com forums. I moved the engine shed and added a goods shed to add a bit more scenic interest to the design, with the doors facing the front instead of hiding it in the back of the building facing the station.

Oh, and the storage space underneath? Yeah, funny how quickly that fills up with all sorts of stuff.

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Uncategorized

Cat Drop Trap

Not quite a model railway thing, but recently I was asked if I could build a Drop Trap by my partner. Now this is mostly a simple piece of woodworking.. problem is, I didn’t have any wood.

And I suppose that is where the tie in with the model railway comes in; I didn’t have any wood for a model railway table either!… or.. for the hydroponics, which I have wanted to build a mobile trolley for for a while now. And I imagine you can see where this is going; it was the perfect excuse to borrow a van to purchase some wood from the local builders supply for my building endeavors!

So a little bit poorer but richer in building materials, I banged together this trap. It’s stone age technology really, but apparently the most successful design for catching kitchens. Neatly fits in my partners boot with the seats down, nice and light so it isn’t a hassle to carry even for a single person but heavy enough to not have to worry about kitties escaping. What you’d call, simple but effective.

Just attach a string to the little ringlet on the brace and pull if you want the trap to come down. And no sooner than when I finished it, it was whisked away for duty.