Possible new N gauge project

I'm planning a second layout next year, a small N gauge one which will use this pallet as its base. It is still in the very early planning stages but i might be able to squeeze something fun in and give my N gauge rolling stock somewhere to play!

The wall

The track arrangement has now been finalised (and fixed down), now i know exactly where the track is i can build the permanent back scene wall. This is a solid wooden frame and card has been used for the actual wall. Later on some brick and stone block effect panels will be put over the card.

A week of trial and solution

Unfortunately my experimental board top layer of a card-foamboard-card sandwich proved to be a flop. What worked great in a smaller prototype didn't translate to the full size board. It was just too warpy and uneven. Instead i've gone back to wood, nicely flat planed wood. I know from experience with Eskalon than HOe couplings can be quite sensitive to uneven track so i'm saving myself a lot of trouble in the long run!

Now the building can properly begin. Welcome to Mäusestadt!

The new board

My third generation board then, the frame is as before but the top is a sandwich of stiff card and foamboard. This is the first time i have done a layout board like this so it will remain to be seen if it works out, but it should be robust enough. Hopefully! As you can see below the new board literally goes on top of the Knell Lane one. I want to keep that and maybe reuse it in a couple of years time. I simply have no where to safely store it, apart from where it is now. And no the new board is not lying on top of the track, i put some spacers on the frame of the board to avoid that!

Board #2 in place

Board #2 has been finished and is now in place, though it wasn't plain sailing. Although i measured everything up beforehand i forgot to take into account how un-straight all the walls are in my house! The gap between the opposing walls is slightly narrower next to the window than it is a few centimetres away. The board just fits, and indeed is such a tight fit my original plan to put in wall brackets has changed as it doesn't really need them, resting nicely atop too bookcases and wedged in tight!

I've put down some OO track for clearance and testing though i am thinking than plan A which was for HOe is more realistic. I need more track for that though... and a new controller however pretty much everything else i already have. If i did go for OO it would need to be a tiny MPD or engineering siding layout and all of my OO stock (if it still works) would be a bit incongruous. So i think HOe is a more affordable option. The beauty of my new board construction is though that the layout sits atop a foam board layer stapled to the hardboard below. So in theory it would be pretty easy to reuse the board at some stage.

Layout #2

I built the board for the second layout today, it is an end-to-end board which will fit under the window. Construction was similar to Knell Lane, a wood frame but i used hardboard instead of MDF for the top (mostly because i had some available which was the right width). I'm thinking of having a layer of foam board on top of this which will be what the layout will sit on.

Now for the big surprise, i think i might go OO with this new layout. I quite fancy an MPD or engineering yard layout with the back line being behind a screen and being the fiddle yard. I still have some work to do on the board anyway but we might be able to start developing something pretty soon. Here my Class 73 and a NSE coach have been used for size testing. I'm not sure if any of my legacy OO fleet will actually run anymore though i guess we'll just have to see.

A day for destroying things

So the old layout is gone, destroyed forever. Well all the stock, buildings, track, even the trees have survived of course and now the building of New Eskalon/Knell Lane has begun! Its noticeable how much smoother the new layout runs even with the track unfixed, which just shows you what a bad job i made of the board the first time around!

The new layout is shallower but wider as i said though it will again have a loop with various sidings in the middle, maybe planned out a bit better this time. See an early test run below (the station sidings have changed since this was made). I am concentrating on HOe at the moment as that is harder to get the clearances right though the CEP has also had a test run and ran really nicely.

The future begins here

The Eskalon/Knell Lane layout has come to the end, i have decided that its best to start afresh with a new board - hopefully learning from the mistakes i made 3 years ago! The new board is different to the old one, using MDF instead of chipboard. So it should be flatter. The frame is also a lot more extensive than the last one. Well its taking shape anyway, not finished yet!

The new layout will be wider than the old one but also shallower. So begins Project New Eskalon/Knell Lane!

A change of orientation

One major problem with where Eskalon is sited is that the layout was somewhat deeper than i originally intended and thus there wasn't really enough space. Because of the layout of the room the layout is in i couldn't easily operate the layout and also the far side of the layout was only just reachable. So i have now reorganised the room and moved where Eskalon sits, a rather intricate operation as the layout was never designed to be moved but all went well. Now i can actually sit properly at the side of the layout while operating it and i can now reach the far side of the layout easily. In fact a photo like this would have been impossible until today.

The Spitfires come to visit

As well as model railways i also built model aircraft (and the odd ship) and have just completed my latest model a Spitfire F22. As it was the 6th Spitfire i have made i decided to take a photo of them all together, my model railway board was the best space available! These are 1:72 scale aircraft so are out of scale on my HOe layout (1:87 of course) but it was nice for them to visit! Hopefully by the time i build a 7th Spitfire i will have built up sufficient scenery on the Eskalon layout that they won't fit anymore.

Lets build a railway!

My original plan for 2 120x60 boards connected together didn't quite work as it was just far too big in the spare room! So instead i am connecting a 120x35 board (which will form the backscene / fiddleyard area) to one of the 120x60 ones. After much hammering and fastening (and wood wastage) i now have a board! Lets build a railway!

Nothing is nailed down yet (i need some more track anyway) but things are starting to happen at last.

Testing the boards

I still have the fasteners to fix so the two boards can be made into one, and i want to paint the boards with a grey base coat... however its been a while since i've run my train so i thought i'd test the boards out. And they work great!

Building the boards

I am not very good at woodwork but i seem to have managed to built my boards without any mishaps and even without any swearing. I built a simple frame for each board to give it some rigidity and also somewhere for wires to go safely tucked. Next step will be to get some fasteners so the boards can be bolted together. And then start building a layout...

We have boards!

Today i finally bought the boards upon which i am going to build phase 2 of the Eskalon project. The two boards will be combined to form a total area of 1220 x 1212mm. This differed from my earlier plans which were 1500x750 but the boards will be easier to set up this way and require no sawing. Despite my grandfather being a carpenter by trade i am not that good at woodwork...

The different size actually works better, i will have more space for a station complex and sidings inside the loop compared to earlier plans. What i will do now is connect the two sections together with a frame. I have plenty of wood from an old wardrobe to use for this...

Gearing up for phase 2

Phase 1 of Project Eskalon may be coming to an end, i now have evaluated running my train on its test track and have decided on which couplings to use as well as useful information on clearances when i built my final permanent layout.

That will be phase 2 and can start soon, first step will be to build the baseboard of course. I am not blessed with the best carpentry skills but my planned board should be within even my range. It will have a simple frame as well as a retaining wall along 3 sides. This will be for the use of scenic wallpapers later on but will also allow me to lay a cover over the layout to protect it when not in use. Time to get some wood soon...