Peate -A portable Inglenook

I have had this idea brewing in my head for some time now, but Gary with his new layout Casula Sidings really inspired me to take the next step and to build it.
I found a bunch of code 100 track left over from my previous build and an unused medium radius right hand set of points. I figured that with the purchase of one more set of points and the building of a baseboard I could make myself an Inglenook shunting puzzle.
Now the purpose of this layout is not to win any prizes in any exhibition as track wise it does not break any new ground, it is as plain as you can get for an inglenook layout. The idea of this layout is for a different audience. A lot of my friends are into table top gaming and have regular games nights with these. These days I seem to have limited capacity for learning new games (probably something to do with a very active 8 year old in the house) and hardly any of these games get played by me more than once, making the whole experience for me one of just learning games, but never to put that learning into practice.
I had to come up with a game that got my interest a bit more, and one that gamers could get into, and maybe somewhere along the lines we might get more into our hobby.
An Inglenook layout can provide plenty of strategic entertainment.
I wanted it to be small enough to carry in the boot of the car. Small enough to set up on the standard church hall folding table, so I didn't have to create and carry a leg system. It had to be quick to set up. I wanted to have a 5-3-3 siding layout. I also wanted to use my good collection of bogie stock, which is still waiting for my main layout to be built. Who knows when I will get to that.
Another catalyst was the purchase at the Forestville exhibition in march of the excellent NSW 70 class shunting loco by IDR models at a special price.
I could have made it for 4 wheeled stock and made the thing much smaller, but that didn't excite me too much, plus I have a lot of bogie stock, of both really nice stuff, and of cheaper, more, shall we say, more durable stuff, best for the games nights.
The layout folds to achieve the length of 2 metres in an overall length of 1.2 metres. Thus allowing it to fit in the boot of the car.

It does have a couple of ungainly looking hinges there, these will attempt to be landscaped in, but there is no escaping them really.
It folds up into this

The thing is 350mm deep. I could have made it 300mm deep, but I figured an extra 50mm might give a bit more interest in the scenery and keep the track a little further from the edge.
Construction is my usual nail gunned and glued 42x19 pine frame, this time with 12mm ply on it, as this is what I had left over from another project. Extra framing has been put in near the hinges.
To seal the timber I used a tin of house paint left over for the top and black for the undersides.
Cutouts have been routered into the base of the long section to make it easier to pick up, and provide access to the point control. Points are electro (live) frog, and switching is done by wire in tube running under the layout.
I made the boards of uneven lengths so as to only have one track on the join, which makes construction easier. Also it allows some permanent buildings to be placed towards the end of the main board. Low landscaping will be done in the fold section.
Control is DC, using a gaugemaster combi, a unit proven in shunting layouts with its intuitive direction switch, good for the novice. All couplings will be Kadee, I intend to put uncoupling magnets on each siding rather than one at the headhunt, although i could be persuaded otherwise. This is why I have kept geometry very simple, to make it work as well as it can. I am going to be dealing with novices here, so it has to be kept simple and reliable.

It has taken me about a week and a half of construction (on and off between family activities and working at home). There is still a lot to do, buffers for the ends, support for the top part when folded, un-couplers and all the scenery.
It has distracted me a bit from my other current project, Hamley Circuit, the U-drive, but that is at a stage that I need the whole garage for a while to set it up and check track then ballast.
The name Peate is another trig station near me.
Cheers
Tony

 

Thanks all for your kind words.
The next most important thing to do is to install buffers. There is a guy fairly locally selling ones like these and they are very nice. Trouble is that they are $20 each once you include postage, I needed 4 of them. I have 3D laser scanned quite a few of these simple ones and they are very easy to make it of styrene. I can also make the verticals longer so that they go down well into the baseboard. This way they are strong enough to actually stop a train. Have to weather them and decide if I want to put on bolt detail. Now I can test without fear of over-running.
Cheers
Tony

 

A wet Saturday morning made me bring the layout up into the house for testing and introducing my son to delayed coupling and uncoupling. Was also a testing time for the couplers and wagon clearances. I decided to keep to the simple kid proof wagons at this stage as they all have genuine kadee full size couplers, so to reduce the number of variables. Also the old Powerline 48 without flywheels gives a more direct response. We made some cards up for each wagon. Easy to do and remember for non train people. They can remember Weetbix much easier than NGGF sugar hopper for instance. My son also has a friend coming around later so might get more testing.
I'm combining more hobbies here, introducing my son to some old tapes, via a newly restored tape deck that is still under test.

Cheers
Tony

 

Yesterday I found myself with a bit of time for myself while my son was at a drop and run birthday party and Michelle was off sorting wool for the machine knitters.
I had envisaged either continuing my building of the station for here or landscaping my other layout that is under construction - Hamley Circuit.
But, as usual got distracted. As this layout is to be portable and quick in nature to use, it needs a method of carrying rolling stock that protects it and is convenient. I could have bought an Auscision cardboard box, but was concerned about how that would travel long term with lots of handling, it would structurally hold up fine, but look like rubbish.
I was going to build a box from scratch to hold between 8 and 10 wagons, 8 is needed for normal operation, any more are spares to cover eventualities. Hunting around under the house I found these that I'd rescued a few years ago from work.

They are nicely made wooden storage boxes for old microfilmed plans. They were just the right size for the 40 foot wagons I intend to use.

I had some felt i put over the bottom, hot glued to the base. Then intermediate pieces of wood had self-adhesive weatherstrip stuck on each side (just the right size) and skew nailed into the box at the correct spacing for the wagons.

I will make small piece of foam to place in at the end of each wagon to stop them moving around, and another sheet of foam for the top.

The loco will travel in their original boxes, I would only take 1 or 2 for a games night.
Cheers
Tony

 

Been building what could be the only building on the layout. I have decided to go with the light blue colour scheme. Trying to decide if I want to put some lighting in it before I attach the roof.

Cheers
Tony

 

Decided yes to the lighting. Put a beam across under the ridge and drilled two small holes to take the leads of a small led, not using surface mount this time, wanted the ambiance from a single point source. Made a bit of a shade from the top of a plastic jam lid. Soldered up two wires through the floor and up a hidden corner inside the building.
Will need to dim this. It is being fed 3V from my bench power supply. I could just use rechargeable AA batteries attached to the board, 2.4V might be better, and will keep the wiring simpler, as this is a quick set-up layout.

Now for the roof.
Cheers
Tony

 

Decided to scratch build a goods loading ramp. I decided I liked the look of the 2 height ones. It is visually loosely based on the ramp at Cowra that I had a good look at earlier this year. The heights have been chosen on the basis of aesthetic feel and utility with some of the freight wagons used. The lower deck is for loading on the level to either flat wagons or through doors of vans or open wagons. The higher level for dumping stuff over the high sides of open wagons. Not necessarily prototypically correct, but chosen to make sense to my intended audience.
The uprights are evergreen I beams, and the concrete panels are flat evergreen sheet that slots into the I beams. Across the top is some right angle section. This kept everything in alignment too. The body of the ramp is made from high density foam, cut to shape.

Cheers
Tony

 

Before I get into putting all the scenery down I still need to do some more testing. At this stage with the low detail stock that most of the non-train people will be using. It's easier for non-train folk to remember where to put the Weet Bix or the Twisties rather than an NOBX or a NLGX. The powerline 48 class without flywheels makes the control very direct, especially when stopping, no delay. The cylindrical rare earth magnets actually seem to work more reliably than the genuine kadee between the track uncoupler magnets.

Cheers
Tony

 

Had a little time this afternoon to play with some natural light.
Need to detail the rail area now
Cheers
Tony

 

Finished weathering the rails and sleepers. Decided to turn my attention to building a small retaining wall to attempt to disguise the blocks for the hinges. This was done out of 2.5mm balsa, with planks scribed in by an old dried up fine ball point pen. Uprights were then glued on. Humbrol black wash was then applied with a brush to get rid of the very pale colour of the balsa. Once that was dry I went over it lightly, dry brushing light grey over the top.

The next step is either continue on with scenery, or testing all the game scenarios that I have come up with to make sure the "game" will work and always have a solution.
Cheers
Tony

 

And now for some topographical relief, in order to avoid a completely flat surface I need to put some sort of undulation in. There is not much height available due to the folding design of the layout, just 20mm essentially. I had some scrap polystyrene, so I cut it down with my hot wire cutter then glued it to the board with tacky PVA glue. To dress the top of this I tried toilet paper (new) while this worked reasonably well enough, it did ruck up a bit too regularly for my liking. I then decided that the tea bags that I had prepared earlier for tarps might work. This seems to work, hiding the regularity of either the flat surface or the rucked up toilet paper. I have used plaster and bandages/chux before, but I wanted to try something different.

Will see how it has dried in the morning.
Cheers
Tony

 

I ended up using the toilet paper and glue mix over the top of the polystyrene. The tea bags seemed to discolour a bit like mould in parts, which I didn't want to chance, even though the finish was better.
The next layer was my usual sifted under the house dirt. Now that this has been applied I have to choose one of the 3 colours of ballast that I have. I think I will go for the one on the left, the Marulan one. When I had the ballast just sitting there i couldn't decide which one. But when I had it all in a photo, it became obvious which one was the one to use.
I also have been deciding on grass colour too.

I'm not too worried about the discolouration in the soil layer, it will get mostly covered up by the grass, at least what will still be seen won't be continuous over a large area.
Cheers
Tony