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As promised – an update of what I am doing at Burton Crumpnold now it is ‘Open’ again
… First was a simple project I have had the parts for for some time – a home made static grass applicator.

I got the idea for this by a chat with an exibitor at a model railway show and a bit of research on YouTube.
It is a simple device made from a pound shop electric fly zapper, a metal tea strainer and some wire.

… I will show the results of this in use soon.

After a year of very light running .. Time for an update..
Everything has been packed away as we embark on a major set of improvements on the house.

This is quite key to Burton Crumpnold as it should finally free up a room to build a permanent layout.
Good news that comes from this is that it will be larger than originally expected, which will allow for a much larger main station.. More details when the building dust has settled…

… Also to add motivation – I have been more than a little excited about the announcements at Hornby this year (Details HERE), in particular the New LMS Princess. The old (short) Hornby model was in my first trainset… It will be good to have a proper ‘scale length’ model in lovely crimson lake livery.

After an age away I now able to think about Model Railways..
I am starting to plan for a new home for a reborn Burton Crumpnold, using a spare small bedroom in our house – more to follow.

Plus I have finally spent time improving the website, Initially to make it display better (more responsive) on large and small devices (phones etc).
I have also updated the site navigation… There is more to follow.

… I must give credit to my good friend and follow model railway enthusiast ‘Ian White’ who has been constantly bullying me to finally deliver some updates to the website. .. Now to see how long it will take him to notice… 🙂

.. ‘Opening Day’ at Burton Phoenix.. And by random chance – the first loco I found it’s ‘Toby’. So it’s been busy testing that all the the power and point-work is working after a long time dormant

Again .. the year started well.

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.

.. But again ‘Life’ and the challenges on working on a large House that is more of a ‘project’ kept me away from railways…

The year 2014′ started’ well…

27/04/2014

Burton Phoenix was ‘Redeployed’ into our Dining room to allow easy access to the front of the layout. It has also allowed me to take a single photograph of the layout end to end. The Railway room was long long enough to put all sections up.

This is a view of the station end of the layout.

Now I have some space in the ‘Railway Room’ I have started work on the N Gauge ‘Stowey Green’ Layout.

As this is my first ‘N’ gauge project I have started at the ‘hidden’ end. I am in the processes of powering up the lower rear loop and positioning the point motors for it.

… THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED – I CHANGED JOB & MOVED HOUSE and the Trains and Layouts were packed away…

12/05/2013

Burton Phoenix uses the Upper Station and small scenery sections of the original Burton Crumpnold layout.
All that was missing is a track section to run into. To add usability I decoded to make a ‘Fiddle Yard’ comprising a number of sidings to run trains to and from. The following photograph shows the ‘bare’ fiddle yard attached to the scenery board.

30/05/2013
Work has been continuing on the Burton Phoenix where I have finalised the track positions of the fiddle yard and fitted the point motors, rescued from Burton Crumpnold.

Next comes the wiring, which is the major task needed for the is layout, as I have to adapt the wiring loom for the old station board to work with a new plug/socket fitted to the board. In addition I need a simple way to connect the other 2 boards to a new control panel. The current schematic for Burton Phoenix is shown below, showing the power section ‘cab control’ control over the 3 boards.

27/10/2013
I have wired up all the boards for Burton Phoenix. All the track sections and point motors are wired and ready to be connected to the power and control ‘circuits’ using 25way DSub connectors., recycled from the original layout..

Now everything is wired it was time to build the control panel for it.

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The Burton Phoenix control panel is built out of off-cuts of MDF and with a screw on Hardboard panel with a laminated diagram.
The idea with the design of the control box is that my Gaugemaster twin controller sits on top with the ‘cab control’ power selection and and point control switches operate from a ‘Mimic’ diagram on the front. The ‘Mimic’ panel selection are fed to the layout from sockets at the back of the box.

…Now the control box is ‘built’ the next stage is to get the soldering iron back out and wire up the control panel and fit all the switches. Then it will be time to make up the connecting cables between the control box and the layout sections… ….And then maybe we can have a go running some trains…

08/12/2013
Today I managed to test the new Burton Phoenix control panel and layout wiring… BY ACTUALLY MANGING TO RUN AN ENGINE… The first time I have been able to run a ‘OO’ gauge loco for an embarrassing 5 years…

I chose Thomas for this grand adventure – as it was the first tank engine to hand. His mission was to ensure all the ‘Cab Control’ power sections and the point switches all worked. After spending the last few days wiring up the box and making up the connections cables to the layout I was pleased to find only a couple of minor issues to sort out

Here is the completed Control Panel – Painted and ‘Wired up’ – complete with the controller

This is also the first time that the complete ‘End to End’ layout was put together… Now to add the scenery to ‘Hide’ the fiddle yard..

30/12/2013
Just before the year end – and as promised to my friends at AAR Models. Burton Phoenix is Running.
Admittedly there are a number of small scenery jobs to do… but that is mostly tweaking.

Here are a couple of views of the Station..

…The reason Thomas is pulling a couple of Virgin Mk2’s – hardly appropriate for the Logo.. or the layout is to check for clearances in the station and the tunnel mouth to the fiddle yard…

… As you can see I’ve a tiny bit to do to cover up the joins in the hill over the tunnel (which hides the fiddle yard).

Finally a view from the tunnel along the whole scenic area to the station..