Well it’s the start of another year, so time to do a quick post updating on the latest presents for the railway that I received for Christmas. Before I get onto I thought I’ve had a look back to the same post and time last year, and realised that while there have only been 8 blog post in the last year, the progress on the railway has been enormous.
Track laying started about 13 months ago, so for arguments sake we’ll call that the last year! So in the last year I’ve managed to:
- lay and wire the two main track loops
- lay the majority of the yard area track, including the two double slips
- lay all the major point work for the crossovers and station approaches
- fit around 10 point motors and wire the switching for the live frogs
- run the first trains
- complete the engine shed
- complete structural work for the viaduct and move onto the scenic work
- start work on the scenic retaining wall to run along the upper level
- experiment with DCC control, including use of a Raspberry Pi
If the next 12 (or maybe 13) months can be as productive then it should really step forward again. The summer working from home when there were no trains into Waterloo helped considerably, along with motivation in the form of various small and not so small boys who have been interested in progress.
So to complete the 2017 picture then here are the Christmas additions to the layout:
Christmas Presents 2017
The footbridge and station waiting room go along with the main station building and footbridge that I got last Christmas, so mean that I have all the major buildings for the country station now. The train is one I’ve wondered about for a while, and is a Bachmann Tamper engineering train. It’s certainly one of the most delicate model trains I’ve seen, with at first glance almost no space for a motor, yet it runs very well.
So looking ahead to 2018 then there is still a lot to do. The key priorities are probably going to be:
- Finish fitting and wiring the point motors
- Add a control panel to allow the siding to be powered and used
- Add a control panel to control the point motors and allow trains to be switched between trains
- Complete the scenic work on the viaduct
- Start building the country station (well will all the buildings, footbridge and level crossing then it would be shame not to)
There are probably a host of smaller other bits and pieces I could add, however it’ll be interesting to come back in another 12 months at the start of 2019 and see how much of this list I’ve actually achieved!
What I do need to try and do (and no I’m not going to call it a New Year’s Resolution as I’ll probably fail at it anyway) is to try and do some more updates to the blog as progress is made. That of course assumes I manage to find time to get into the loft and make some progress………