January 2020 Update
Here are a few pictures to record progress thus far on my model railway of Dawlish in OO with the January 2020 Update.
Work began in April 2019 with the building of the baseboards which go around the walls of my Green Retreat (sized 8.5m x 3.5m). As the Dawlish boards are in front of the main fiddleyard, I really needed to start with the fiddleyard to avoid reaching over the Dawlish boards to lay track. That meant lots of work before being able to run any trains!
Entrance to Goodrington Sidings fiddleyard on the higher level Overall view of the room – Newton Abbot will be on the right Dawlish board at the font; main fiddleyard behind Line to Goodrington / Kingswear rises at the back of the main fiddleyard; Dawlish board to the right of the fiddleyard separated by a backscene (see pic above)
The good news is that I have now connected my new Z21 controller. I found only one short (cables attached to wrong rails) in all that track! Ok so there were also a couple of dead sections and a live join between two power districts to resolve. Once the corner board is finished I can put the Dawlish boards in place, lay that track and create a complete circuit! That is the target for spring when I’ll do the next major update.
Anyway, my son Thomas can now run his new green GWR HST up and down the length of the room. Incidentally, the hornby r1230 set seems one heck of a bargain – although it is the older tooling, it is less than half the price of the power cars for the slightly more detailed model and you get an extra coach.
I’m also experimenting with a Hornby eLink for controlling the points on the fiddleyards. Hopefully this will be connected over the next day or two. I like the idea of the track plan being displayed on the TV screen I have in the room. This will include the status of the points – with strategically placed tablets for setting routes etc around the railway. Trains will be controlled separately using the Z21 via Multimaus, tablets and phones. Tthis seems to be working ok as I have managed to get one of each device running a loco simultaneously! More on this another time.