It was a pleasure to have Martin and his lady here in Tasmania to help realising my little dream. Thank you so much, Martin, for accepting the challenge. Now l can concentrate on firstly strengthening the helixes, as discussed, there are various methods to achieve this. Once completed, it will be interesting to find out the actual length of trains able to traverse these helixes. I'm cautiously optimistic 🤔. Martin will receive future updates It has been a wonderful experience to have a true professional solving and overcoming various problems with grades etc. If Martin should find the 2024 Scandinavian winter a little too severe, there's a place here in sunny Tasmania.
Its too bad there is no longer any operational passenger lines is Tazzie...hope he got a chance to visit the Strahan - queenstown heritage line during his breaks@@helmuthhaass3631
This is a good reminder for us all to be building and making now and not waiting for the future. You never know if or when circumstances will change. Making little layouts and dioramas build skills and experience and help you plan and achieve that bucket list layout if you want it. And, if your circumstances change, you've had the benefit of enjoying the hobby all along. Your kindness and good humor are an example to us all. Good show, Martin!
That's what I do each week. Build small layouts with potential to connect and expand. I use free materials, foam, sand, pebbles, cardboard for basics. Then I buy paint, glue, plywood, other materials for roads and grass and vegetation areas
Your suntan indicates that you were in the southern hemisphere summer. What a wonderful opportunity for you to show off your skills and help someone else to acheive his dream.
You are truly one talented man. Your patience and hard work is nothing short of engineering grade work most usually associated with funded, federal dollar programs on interstate highways and airports. Also, “while sitting there philosophizing” in the thrown room…absolutely love it!
Wow, such an astounding and heartwarming lovely project helping to transform a dream into a reality, combined with so much hospitality ❤ Most exceptional, and the entire scale is quite something. Just wow. Hopefully the helices will hold to some degree but they do look very flimsy indeed. We've often seen them in British affiliated builds but more than once would soon become a real source of trouble due to flexing, causing constant derailments. Therefore, perhaps best avoid them all together. However, if they really are required, I don't know if some other form of construction could be devised; an absolute solid one that is. However, an amazing project overall 💓
Great work Martin! That's fantastic that you're able to travel all the way to Tasmania to help this guy out. This situation is a very good reminder to; Yes, start working on our dream layouts before we're unable to. I've been collecting HO scale traction, since the 1970s. Now that I'm in my 70s, I'm finally starting work on my dream layout, but a lot of cleaning out and clearing needs to be done. Unexpected Health and age conditions, can ruin our lifelong dream layout plans. (I have been fortunate, as I've previously built two outdoor, large scale layouts, but not My HO scale dream layout yet). Thanks again for pointing out the helix, curve radius, and grade level potential problems as well. Great work Martin! Thanks for sharing!
Your tutor tutorial on the helix radius mathematics I’ve had to watch several times but it’s very educational. Thank you and you prevented future problems for me. Thank you again.❤
Martin, this is not only great but fantastic coincidence I am just first time visiting Australia (limited to Sydney and Brisbane). Your support and help to this Tasmania based gentleman shows our hobby is limitless and everywhere there are people who love such high end game. While being in Vietnam (HCM City), I found too model train enthusiasts with few access to all needed accessories. I wish the Tasmania gentleman is wonderful time in continuing building his dream train (maybe another video with his advancements can be showed in future) and also more from your highly educated tutorials. Kind regards
Wow, Martin. That was a very interesting job. The client certainly has an ambitious plan, especially considering his age. It was great that you could help him take a major step forward. I now have a new perspective on my 1x6 foot micro-latout. Cheers from Wisconsin!
As someone who does this to fund my own modelling endeavors. It is interesting seeing someone else run the gauntlet of taking over to help and get trains running. Down to being stuck using materials you'd never personally use and having to make it work and having to slow down for a bit to run a bunch of one on one little seminars to get the client in the right direction in my absence.
Even though there were a few things to contend with, I imagine it was a good time for all of you as well. Glad you shared your journey with us. Thank you. 🥰
Wow! What an amazing project ! The layout is insane! I wish we could have another video sooner with all the rolling stock. It is also not really clear to me how such a big layout can work analogic only. Thank you for sharing as always!
Great video, looks like my dream layout. At the moment I have an 8 m x 5 m see it on British OO Never Ending on youtube. It has 2 Mainlines that are continues running plus many other train tracks.. Hope to see more videos of the development of this layout. Very interesting & enjoyable I LIVE IN Perth WEST Australia
The layout looks like it runs over the whole house, even the loo. Well, if its your house, why not! You are a true gentleman helping this guy out to achieve his dream layout. I knew someone years ago who waited until retirement to build his dream layout. About a year into retirement he was diagnosed with asbestosis and sadly never achieved his dream. It goes to show that you never know whats around the corner so build why you can.
It's easy to ease the grade on a fixed radius helix, just add parallel straight sections making it more an oval than circle. The 6mm MDF can be strengthened with side stiffeners - more MDF glued vertically along the side of the roadbed.
Thanks this was a real interesting video, I have been planning a marklin layout but much smaller than the one featured here, but with digital control, I am not too far from Tasmania in western Victoria. One question I have is ... should the bus wire attach to the wires coming from the Central station controller, with dropper wires going to the track from bus wire?
Ha ha . Who wold have thought I would hear that you came and visited my home state. He sounds like me. I too have a ton of track, buildings, stock. Having started my working life working in hobby / toy stores that had sold model railway I have managed to collect a lot of stuff as well. I too just need to to get around to building something!
Not been here for a while but this is a really nicely made report. Good storytelling and footage. Well done. Heading forward to check out ykur 3d stuff!
Uhm..Not really like that. I worked ahead the entire Christmas and New Years weekend to be able to maintain normal video publication schedule during January. Last release January 19th. This release February 9th. Exactly according to the regular schedule. Same with all the video production for my publishing partners. So.. This effort helping this man has not had any impact on published material. Only tons of extra work for me.
Bus mans holiday of a life time , that is one big layout, I like the train going through the loo 🙂. but the helix's are as you say the wrong material and will warp and give a lot of problems later on.
If I were building a dream layout the one thing I'd do is make staging the priority with no helix. Getting in and out of staging would be a well separated double track, double ended with the broadest possible radii and a grade no more than half a percent on tangent track reducing to .25% on curves with generous easements between tangent and curve. The staging yard would be very large. After that's sorted then the visible layout design would come. Thing is, after all the vids I watch (as an armchair 'expert') I observe so much trouble with all aspects of staging. I couldn't think of anything worse than trains derailing when going in and out of staging and just as bad having limited clearance and access to staging itself, as well as departure and approach track in a location that's impossible to easily see. To my mind if you got staging really well sorted then you can create some subterfuge of realistic operation. For example, it would be really cool to have commuter trains running by computer control and able to respond to point changes automatically. One could plan freight operations around fixed commuter timeslots on shared trackage and crossing commuter trackage for example trying to minimize commuter delays. So recreating the pressures of real railroading. It depends on what you like I suppose. I read Track Planning for Realistic Operation about 20x LOL but alas I have no space at all.
Ahh! Yes, we never met last day. Thank you for the hospitality and fun birthdday party. Take care and keep up the nice painting until we meet again! 👍😊