Preparing for nailing

The track ballast is now down (well its not perfect but i could mess with it for ever to be honest). Now i have relaid the track and am doing final tests before i start nailing anything down. I've never nailed down N gauge track before so that could be fun...

Ballast

Armed with some glue and a bag of "granite ballast" building the scenery of Eskalon has begun. I intend to put down the track bed ballast first then re-lay the track this time permanently. The layout will operate as i gradually build up the scenery layer by layer, i can't really afford to do it all in one go.

Now scenery is where it often went wrong in the past. What can go wrong with glue and a bag of fine grain particles? Are you crazy? Its a catastrophe waiting to happen! So far everything seems fine... more or less...

Egger-Bahn layout (Video)

I found this video on Youtube showing a compact little HOe layout. Mine has a bigger board than this as the coaches i am using need wider radius curves for the loop. Nice layout though, maybe i shall put Eskalon up on Youtube one day...

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.

An extra siding

The layout is pretty much final now but i decided to add one more siding to it in the top left corner, utilising some empty space and also adding a bit more operational flexibility. It also used up some spare track as i only needed to buy another set of points (though those are expensive enough of course!) Next step is to start planning the scenery.

Legacy audit

Many years ago i had a series of OO gauge layouts but in my early 20s i put everything away in boxes ready for when i had my own house so could start again. "Starting again" took me nearly 13 years and in the end i have gone for a Continental HOe gauge layout anyway! My legacy OO stock, track and what-not has been stored away in the loft all of these years. They are thus in reasonable condition though haven't run for probably around 20 years! I am conducting an audit of what i have got, to see what can be reused (to be honest not a great deal though i found a box full of OO/HO scale people!) Its nice to compare the OO gauge to HOe in any case. I may try and sell some of this old stuff...

A building

Its about time Eskalon had some sort of building. Here is some sort of building though its a British platform shelter so not exactly correct for the desired layout. The kit is my first card kit and was the one given away free by Railway Modeller last year. It was good to get some practice in (and i need it) plus i may be able to adapt the building at some stage and use it somewhere. It can help me get the clearances right if nothing else.