Tonstadt Lagerplatz

Hello everyone, to keep me motivated I feel inclined to document my latest model railway project. This is going to be an O gauge German Era III shunting layout with the classic inglenook track plan. If you look at the photo below you may think it doesn't look very 'classic inglenook' and the more observant among you may notice the OO track with a very British SR carriage on it but hear me out.

I am building this new layout on a section of baseboard that used to be part of my existing OO British 1940s layout. This section sort of stagnated for various reasons, and I could never really decide what it was going to be. So, I have taken up all the track, buildings and landscaping and starting again with the O gauge. The OO track on the right is newly laid and when finished will be sort of a fiddle yard and hidden behind the O gauge buildings. The plan is to have train detection sensors and auto-uncoupling, so that locos can be run around without having to see them. I use Lenz digital controllers for the point motors on the main part of the OO layout, but for this section I am tempted to keep it simple with wire in tube control. Otherwise, I will have to use some sort of digital point position device.

Going back to the O gauge track, at the moment it is a double track because I am experimenting (playing) with the new loco. Eventually it will be a single track with two turnouts, but I won't be able to do anything with that until I get all the OO gauge track down. I had hoped to finish that today, but the last cutting disk on my 'Dremel' broke so I have nothing to cut the flexitrack with. Time to finally buy a Xuron I think!

 

The postman has just been and delivered my eBay purchases. Can you believe I have gone through life without a pin vice and Xuron cutters? Less surprising I think are the track screws. There seems to be a difference of opinion on these, and I have never used them before. I have noticed that a common method with German O gauge modellers is to use screws with large washers between sleepers to hold track down prior to ballasting. The benefit of this seems to be that you don't drill holes in the sleepers, but I am assuming that the holes will be easily disguised later.

 

I have used a similar technique with OO track, but I used map pins. One reason for going for the screws is to keep the points in place while a fiddle about with the flexitrack, I will probably only use about 4-5 screws in total. I am still not 100% sure of the track position yet, so using the screws makes it easier to reposition it.

 

As I have paid a fiver for a bag of screws, I decided to at least give them a go. They are rubbish! So back to the map pins for me. I had hoped to get all the track laid this afternoon, but wiring up the points took longer than expected. This is the first time I have used electrofrogs, and at £60+ for a set of points I didn't want to begger it up. Plus today was the first warm sunny day of the year and it was a waste to spend it indoors apparently.

I was planning to use manual point control, but my love of gadgets has taken over so I am going to use Cobalt iP digital point motors. The built in frog switching swung it for me.

 

Finally decided on my track plan and started to make proper progress. Part of the delay was waiting for the warehouse kit to arrive. I wanted that to get a perspective on what was going to go where. The track isn't fixed down yet as I haven't got the Cobalt iP point motors yet, I need to wait for 'pay day' before I can get those.

 

Easter Sunday was a beer & ballasting day!

 

Well, for various reasons I have not done a lot of modelling over the past few months. I got all my track down and started to ballast some of it, but held back on doing the points as I didn't have my point motors. I couldn't justify spending the money on the Cobalt motors before we went on holiday. We had about ten days in Germany and while there I visited a model shop in Koblenz. It had a lot of very nice stuff in it, but disappointingly little O gauge stuff. However, it did have a German O gauge goods shed which was a lot bigger in real life than I expected. When I returned to the layout after the holiday I started the ballasting in earnest. I decided I should double check the wiring before applying the glue which proved a wise move as I discovered I had a short! After taking up most of the track I discovered the cause was a small off-cut of wire under one of the points.

All of this gave me plenty of time to ponder and I decided my plan of having a very small O gauge layout was not going to satisfy me. So having taken up the tracks I decide to move over totally to O gauge and tear up my existing OO layout. The bank holiday weekend gave me time to do this and this is where I am now.


I was tempted to included a small local passenger halt, but the plan at the moment is for it to be purely industrial sidings with a small shed for the Köf in the back corner.

I have been really toing and froing bout the point control. At one point(!) I had decided to save money by using manual control rods. Then it seemed sensible to use some of the old PECO point motors from the OO layout. Then the plan was to use the Cobalt analogue motors, but control them from a now redundant Lenz LS150. However, it seems the LS150 does not like Cobalt motors. So I have finally gone back to plan A and ordered three Cobalt iP Digital point motors. However, finding a supplier of these proved more difficult than expected. There are plenty online shops that have packs of one, six or twelve, but strangely when you want to order more than one but less than six it is a lot more difficult. Anyway, The Model Centre was the shop that got my business and hopefully they will arrive this week. Once they do I can finally get the track down and pick up the pace.

 

The point motors have arrived, so theoretically that is my weekend plans sorted. However, it does depend on what senior management has in mind. I ordered the installation kit as experience has taught me it is always better to have the correct tools for the job. The weathering powders were ordered to take the purchase price above the free postage threshold, thus saving £5. The powders cost £25, but drink had been taken and it seemed a good idea at the time.

 

Did you have much trouble scraping off the old ballast? It is amazing to me how strong ballast and PVA is.

 

Yes, on my old OO layout I have thirteen sets of points. Only three on this one, but at £60 a set I cannot afford any more!

 

I actually use Code 143FB track, mainly because that is what came with the Lenz O gauge starter box I bought. I did look at building my own points, but a points kit from C&L Finescale would have been double the price of buying the PECO ones. I think there are cheaper options available, but personally I don't think they look very good. Though if I had a track plan that needed a lot of points I would probably be prepared to compromise.