Whats New

I have been busy wiring up the N Gauge ‘Stowey Green’ Layout, and starting on the control panel.

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For More details all is explained in ‘Work In Progress‘

Due to the current ‘Interesting times’ (Coronavirus!!), along with its associated lockdown.
…. Since I have so much time on my hands I have been quite busy..
Since I had the time and bits, perhaps I should actually get round to working on ‘Stowey Green’ my ‘N gauge’ layout. Especially as Burton Phoenix is effectively complete..

Stowey Greens board had been stored for years.. so was a bit beaten up..
.. So after plenty of TLC I started work..

I have got as far as laying and wiring the lower loop.
… The upper loop, along with it’s inclines, is being tided up.

I am currently ‘tuning the inclines before gluing them down.

There is a lot more information in ‘Work In Progress‘

I had a play with my Hornby Junior train set,
it was a charity shop bargain buy from last year…

….I had forgotten the simple pleasures of playing with a train set on the carpet….

… with a new engine at Burton Phoenix.. If a bit ‘out of scale’.

Taking a break on the layout I put this rather cute wood engine kit together I got as a Christmas present…
.. I don’t think I could call it fine scale…

Here are photos of the Curve section fitted for the first time with the complete layout.

I had a few wiring issues to resolve and wanted to run some proper testing as I am intending to informally display the layout during the year. ..For More details see ‘Work In Progress‘

29/01/2018
The new house has needed a LOT of work .. so after 4 long years I have been able to properly unpack some Model Railway(s) that have been living in boxes for the past 4 years. I even have a room ‘Just’ for the model railways. In our last house I had to ‘Borrow’ a lot of the dining room.

I had been spending some time keeping the old website at least a bit up to date… But that is not the same as having a Real layout.

During my ‘setting’ up I realised that I had made a further purchase during the ‘fallow years’ – I took advantage of a special offer to pick up a AC Cars Rail bus to join the Park Royal one.
It was not a random choice – The Park Royal Rail-bus ran on Midland Rails and the AC Cars one ran on Western Region. Midland and Western traffic being a common theme of the Burton layouts.
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I fear though that everything will need to be packed up Again for phase ‘2’ of the House redevelopment…

11/02/2019
Burton Crumpnold All Packed away again…
As predicted everything is all packed away and buried behind furniture as we work on other rooms in the house… SO I’m, having to contact myself Playing Train Sim and Train Sim World…. With a bit of luck things will improve in the next few months..

27/05/2019
… After a few delays the house redevelopment is now complete.
A major upside is that I been able to ‘negotiate’ a bigger home for the existing and new Burton Crumpnold layouts.

And Burton Phoenix is now out again and ‘Almost’ Up and Running….
.. I am also in the process of extending the layout by adding a corner section to turn the end-to-end into an ‘L’ shaped layout which is easier to demonstrate.

For more details see ‘Work In Progress‘.

13/07/2019
Work Continues on Burton Phoenix.. The new corner board has been wired up and a ‘Test Train’ has been run to ensure all is well before more scenery work is done.

05/09/2019
The Curve section at Burton Phoenix is coming on well.
.. And I have actually have new acquisitions after a visit to a local Model Railway Show.

.. Including the long awaited Hornby Super Sprinter in the rather fetching RAF 100 livery.

Plus a true bargain from the model railway show – a Scaledale windmill – This is going to be a great scenic feature on the new ‘Corner’ board.

As Shown here.. I now need to make the river more realistic…

09/02/2015
We have just recently moved to North Wales, hence no updates for the last few months…

The room where the layout will be located is currently being used as a ‘storeroom’ whilst the kitchen is being redone – so it will be a while before ‘Proper’ model railway work can resume..

23/09/2015
Great moment in our new home.. Finally dusted off and assembled Burton Phoenix in a room that now has space to run it. I also indulged in my first railway purchase for quite a while – A Heljan ‘Park Royal’ Railbus. I particularly wanted one of these as we used to live near the site in North London.
.. After testing the layout electrics with good ol ‘Smokey Joe’ here is the new Railbus in action.

27/04/2014
For the last few weeks I have had Burton Phoenix up in our Dining Room so I can finish off the ‘Front of the layout’. It has also given me the first opportunity to take an ‘End to End’ photograph.

Work has restarted on Stowey Green, the N Gauge layout. As this is my first real go with ‘N’ and flexible track I decided to start from the ‘unseen’ side (the back).

30/05/2013
.. So three and a half years later where does that put me…

For all sorts of reasons, everything stayed ‘packed’ away – even the N gauge bits…. But is has started to change. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks ‘rediscovering’ where I got to, and even reminding myself what I have.

The priority will be the N Gauge ‘Stowey Green’ layout going initially as far and the lower level. Then I will then tackle the Burton Phoenix end to end ‘OO’ layout. As proof of this I have added a couple of photographs on the Work In Progress page showing the restarted work.

I have also created basic pages to cover the progress and the stock of the ‘Stowey Green’ layout.

27/10/2013
Another change of plan – decided to switch my energies to the Burton Phoenix end to end ‘OO’ layout, this needs much less work to get it going and will help me to ‘relearn’ my soldering and wiring skills. Plus it means I will have a working layout sooner.

08/12/2013
Today I managed to run a loco on Burton Phoenix whilst I was checking out the layout wiring and the new control box.I have added the most recent work and added a few photographs on the Work In Progress page.

30/12/2013
Burton Phoenix is Complete!! (More or Less)..
.. Yes there are still jobs to do in tweaking and improving the scenery… but that is the normal routine of running/maintaining a layout.