My Model Railway Layout: Track Plan - Episode 2 

Thanks for the mention Will 😃 And yes as you mentioned it's not vital to paint each individual tie, just having them painted a natural brown and weathered with the dirt powder will give a nice effect. Have you thought about resin 3D printing? I designed a catenary pole based on one near Eltham, the biggest challenge is 3D printing them and not having them warp! But they do look the part 😉 I'm looking forward to following along with your build... lol and as someone else mentioned you should add some 80s music to your montage 😎

Keep up the good work... 👍

Nice video today.

Hey Will, All of my points are Insulfrog and I have not had any problems and they have the added benefit of isolation so that the sound loco's of which we have over 100 are not powered in case of shorts on other parts of the track. You are welcome to come over and I can give you other tips as well. Cheers.

Hi Will, you mention Peco Code 83 is the closest to Australian rail; I've done a comparison of the codes, which represent imperial decimal measurements; Code 100 is 0.1 inches, code 70 0.07 inches etc. and for 60kg/m rail (most mainline rail in Aus) Code 75 is the best match; code 83 better represents the 68kg/m heavy rail lines of the Hunter Valley/Pilbara. Code 70 is good for lighter branch lines/yards and code 55 is for older light branch lines and yards. Of course the difference is tiny (about 0.1mm) and the range of Code 83 is much bigger than 75, plus the turnouts have continuous blades and look better overall. Good luck with the project, looking forward to seeing progress, and the next news!

I’ve got the Digitrax wifi set up. It’s great. I keep my old phones for throttles. I use my tethered throttles for yard work. Keep up the good work. The videos are great.

I know this is a little late as you have settled on a layout design, however, I think you could do electrical overhead from the storage area/fiddle yard to the platform, and only have the platform road electrified. This is what happened at places like Hurstbridge in the 1960's and at Thomastown. Hurstbridge had a yard like the one you describe and only the platform road was wired. Taits and then Harris sets simply rolled into the station, the driver changed ends and departed back to Eltham/Flinders St. This also happened at Thomastown, where there was a single siding/run around with a small goods siding, which was un-wired. Railcars from Whittlesea stopped at one end of the platform and four car electric services arrived at the other end of the station. You could use the manufactured catenary for the portal stanchions and end stanchions, but you could make your own simple wooden poles and standoffs using brass wire. These were common until just recently from Greensborough through to Hurstbridge.

Will! Wow! you've drawn in Luke Towan! Grats! I don't know if you have enough real estate to fit everything you are thinking of on your layout Will but let's see huh Do yourself a huge favour, ditch the digitrax. It's 2021. Best thing i did was go ESU. I have a heap of digitrax you can have Will! DT602, DS64, PR4 and i think it's a DB210 power supply. Best thing i did for my sanity. getting rid of it.

Nice to hear you’ll be adding over heads, it’ll look great with the taits and Ls!

Awesome plan so far mate, that great thing about modelling a smaller space is you can pay a lot more attention to detail, this is gonna look awesome as it comes together.

Nice update. Looks like a great little plan.

Nice video Will good to see you have sorted out your track plan and you have already started laying track thats fantastic! Look forward to episode 3.- Nicholas.

Your excitement at your plans is obvious, and you have a good size layout to work with. I have tweaked my layout plans so many times, usually an idea just hits me and I wonder why I didn't think of it before. I keep saying that this is the final version but I know that's not true! 😊 Adding a turntable is a great idea, it will multiply the possibilities. There should be much fun to be had in the shunting and train composition operations, it's like a puzzle game. Good luck with it all. 👍

Looking good mate. Everyone has the problem of wanting to fit a lot in a small space so don't worry about the cement plant. Turntables a good idea. Personally I'd add a head shunt siding off the platform for a small wagon or your w class. When I was a little boy Camperdown had this I used to watch them shunt tankers often from our house. Either way cool ideas. I look forward to the wireless addition too. Enjoy

Looking good Will. One thing you might want to consider is putting uncouplers of some sort on your electrified track so that you don’t inadvertently nudge the overhead catenary when shunting or running around the train. For your next layout update, would it be possible to get an overall view or bird’s eye view of the track plan? I figure that there’s a lot of people in a similar situation (spare room layout) and it’s just interesting g to see all the different designs people come up with to fit this mould. Looking forward to your model railway news and the next layout update 👍🏻

Don't be afraid of Peco insulfrog. After several decades of the huge Atlas frogs, I was 100% electro-frog until I got a Peco insulfrog. The frogs are so short, even small 4 axle diesels run flawlessly (if you add the small jumper wires just in case.) Insulfrog is a little easier to wire, but your comment about the look is a good one. Note: I use DCC by NCE and love it.

Good luck with the layout. I really enjoy your videos.

Love the R mate! This small layout is going to be amazing! Maybe for the business that you can’t decide, you could go for an abandoned yard or even a scrapyard. Cant wait for the next update!!

Some of the ideas sound great, good luck mate

Great video and channel! Hopefully it inspires others to have a go at building their own model railway dioramas or layouts. Only suggestion…. Next time you do a montage have some epic action 80’s music in the background 😂

One consideration with OHW is what movements you'll be doing and possible shunt moves especially if your planning on using L classes

Cannot speak to catenary but for track bed, I go to the nearest flooring place (carpets, vinyl etc.) and try to collect an old sample book for THICK vinyl flooring...cut that into strips (two layers if you want major mainline - highball - height), lay it bottom side up, to suit under the track, glue it down then glue the track (temporarily pin while glue dries) with simple PVA. Takes a while to set but didn't move in thirty + years... Ballast with your choice of materials. For industrial sidings and second tier passing loops, I lay track either on a single layer of flooring or direct on baseboard to make it a little lower. I then tend to use ash ballast more than stone and often have some neglect showing with weeds and trash etc. I ran DC because my industrial layout used no more than one shunter t a time and a single continuous run GP30 which looks after itself IF I just wanted to show the layout to friends. I also build my own points/crossovers - for cost savings more than anything else. Isolating track sections was done with a Dremel cut off disc with the gap filled with bread clip plastic and Araldite. This is best done in Summer as the expansion will be complete and when Winter makes it move it leaves a VERY small gap. All this is past tense as I lost everything in 2009 (bushfires) and am still not yet able to rebuild...collecting though.

I think Dapol in the UK have recently made some reasonably priced catenary, there is Viessmann too

Don't forget to consult the AMRA minimum radius standard for your layout minimum Radius.

Hi Will my advice if you are looking for a Good Shed from Ian Lindsay get on to asap has he is retired and has limited stock avaliable. Other alternative try Blue and Gold Models believe he may do a Goods Shed. As always great video.

Will you’ll have to search for the Ian Lindsay goods shed kit as he’s retired ! Also the Peco turntable is available as a package deal with the motor for a pretty good price if you were thinking of powering it. Being OO it scales out to almost 90 feet in HO. Looking forward to watching your progress 👍

Hi, ideas sound great but for the smaller Industry I would go with the smaller factory stile as it would have more freight opportunities than the cement plant.

Since you’ve ordered an LNWI, I’d definitely recommend checking out either the TCS UWT-100 or UWT-50 universal Wi-Fi throttles. In my opinion, best throttles hands down available on the market 🙂. I’ve reviewed the UWT-100 on my channel, will review the UWT-50 when I receive my pre-order in the next month or so!

For digitrax if you want mobile phone control you can buy an LNWI module which just plugs straight into your system and lets you use enginedriver or withrottle on your phone. Edit: I should have finished the video

I'm looking to make my own VR overhead when I get back to Victoria. I saw this done at the former HBMRC to great effect. Perhaps we can get together on the subject, not withstanding evil lockdowns

Tri-ang made some good cantenery if you wanted to go that route

Ahh points mate O Gauge $ 125.00 each, better off with HO/OO Best Regards Andrew

GOOD LUCK FURTHER BILD LAYOUT CHECK OUT USE BRAKE LAMP WITH WIRE UP LAYOUT AND PUT INTO SECTION FOR FRIEND FIX UP WIRE PROBLEMS LATE

I started my DCC layout with an ESU Cab Control system, it has a powersupply and the wireless throttle with an android phone on it. It's really good! I can control track power from it, manage signals with the ESU signal pilot. I will highly recommend it :) I've got Peco insulfrogs and only my Powerline T class has issues going over them at a slow speed. Not sure whether to get electro-frogs or not. Does your powerline t have any issues over the electrofrogs? Maybe a keepalive will be the easy solution.

Yeah don't get sold on the idea you have to motorize every single switcher If you wanna throw them manually (but without reaching over the layout), you could try bending a piece of wire up through the switch and out through the side of the base board. Then you can just push and pull on it to throw the switch. Saw it once at a model railway show

You've picked on one of my favourite metro stretches as reference; the Upfield Line between Brunswick and Moreland stations. Traces of sidings leading to long-gone industries, the ancient silos and coffee at the old Lux works; used to ride the bike path every day. Re a cement works... I know there are lots of them associated with suburban lines, but they're so cliché on layouts and not so different in overall form to a silo cluster. Are you interested in the look of repurposed old bluestone industrial structures and are these available in kit form? Cheers.

Did youget around to putting a stay alive decoder in your F class I've got an Walker that I wondered if a stay alive would fit.

I recommend ditching the dated Digitrax or NCE hardware for Roco’s Z21 system. It’s a available cheaply in the white for by buying a starter set, or out of a starter set. Phone or tablet based, far better control and so much easier than either of the old fashioned US systems.

Luke towan has produced VR overhead catenary stuff, you should get in touch with him as he might be able to offer what you want.

Great video Will, looking forward to the next one! quick question do you know why my Eureka 40 Class QSI decoder shuts off when i apply steps to the throttle? I saw the eureka R class and i think that has the same decoder system? Also for the Cement factory you could make it a relief and have it cut in half? Ive seen that done on a lot of layouts to fit in large industries that normally wouldnt.

just wondering what wood dimension/ type did Andy tell you to go for?

Just a pointless comment, I see the Star Wars frames ☺️ more respect 😂

Hi Will - if you need the HO Scale Peco Turntable I have one for sale $80 + postage - Regards