Hellier Train Care

No, don't read too much into that title, it just means track laying is complete though ballasting is still needed on the yard tracks. It actually links to the fact that I am now starting to slowly add buildings, the first being a scratchbuilt building to cover up some point motors. The 'Rats Nest' to cover up. So I have made a template building out of plasticard ( .30 thou from work  though any will probably do). This so far is roofless and has a slot in the wall facing the tract to allow the point rodding to go through. The basic plasticard template Now as I said, this is just a temporary mock up, the final will be made either from slaters, south eastern finecast or wills stone sheeting, now as can be seen already, even without a roof it looks much better, so imagine what the final result may look like, and then tell me as I still haven't fully decided what the building will be, though a water tower is likely at this point in time. But now I have s...

So for some time I've been trying to come up with a simple way of indicating what direction a point is set too without too much trouble, fortunately I cam across  this post  on rmweb regarding using bi-color leds with electrofrog points. Now the idea stayed floating in my head for some time, given that I had tried it with individual leds first but it wasn't quite something I was happy with. Though as mentioned as I came across the post I decided to give it a go so I got all the items I needed from maplins. Those being a breadboard, leds (bi-color type) resistors, tripad board, the diodes I already had from another project. How the circuit appears on a breadboard Then The process begins of putting it on a tripad board (like stripboard but each each track is separated into 3 holes) Copper Track Side of circuit board Component Side of circuit board. Now you may have noticed there's no led on the finished board...

So this is how it looks for now, of course nothing is actually fixed in place as most of it will be risen up (thought I'm not sure how some of my locos will manage the inclines so I guess I'll have to see when it comes to it. Now on the left side I'll be using some wood to rise up the track to the required hight, but of course to have motors under the track I'll need to leave gaps in the wood as well as putting a thin sheet over the top to conceal the gap. Despite this I have been temped to use some of the woodland scenics inclines and risers to do the same thing, my only issue with the wood at the moment is that they are not wide enough to fully conceal the under board motors though I can remedy this when it comes to adding the scenery. Initially I was going to make the passing loop removable in one section, though I now believe that that will make things more difficult for me and perhaps my better option would be to forgo that idea. Instead I'm tempted to...