Midsomer

[madharry]

Midsomer is my new module layout. The name may not be the same when it hits the British exhibition circuit so this more of a working title.

My Petite Properties blog has so far seen 17 structures completed. They currently live on a shelf in the dining room.

One evening after my lovely wife had enjoyed a couple glasses of fine Australian red wine I posed the question. "What do we do with all these lovely buildings"?

Before you knew it two boards totally 8 ft by 2 ft were erected in the lounge for the "new" layout. The boards are laser cut kits by Grainge & Hodder and go together very easily with panel pins and wood glue. They are very light being made of 6mm hardwood. The trestles in the picture are those used on "Red Hook Bay".

Mike

[madharry]

The boards have been aligned together with brass cabinet makers dowels and then joined with  bolts and wing nuts. Normal practice for exhibition purposes as this gives perfect alignment every time.

Next having traced out the trackplan I glued Woodland Scenics 1/8 inch modeling sheet c1175 using PVA to the boards. This will be my track bed. Model Rail magazine's Chris Nevard used this recently on his small micro layout. I then used some Peco track plan turnout templates downloaded from their website to plan the turnout placing

The buildings in the picture are models of the signal box and station at Midsomer Norton on the old Somerset & Dorset Railway.

Mike

[madharry]

I am using just 5 Peco small radius turnouts on this layout. This will create a run around, head shunt, siding to the goods shed and a two track fiddle yard.

Here is an electrofrog turnout that needs to be modified for power routing on a DCC layout

First off the middle connections 4 sleepers to the right from the left hand wires are snipped. Then wires are soldered to the outer and inner rails using in my case blue and red wires. These wires will be attached to the spring terminals 1 and 2 of my switch motor - DCC Concepts Cobalt digital IP. The green wire (right in the picture) from the frog (frogs are green) is connected to terminal 3 on the switch motor. The wires are just stripped and then inserted into the spring terminals. It is suggested they are not tinned.

In the second picture please note the rail connectors - the two inner ones on the V are plastic. - Peco SL-111.

Mike

[madharry]

Here is the diagram of the wiring set up. These turnout motors are similar to a Tortoise. However you do not need to solder anything and the terminals for wires and switches are clearly shown. This turnout is also digital meaning it has a decoder built in enabling you to set an address between 1 and 2049. Apart from a lifetime warranty you can add panel LED's and trigger interlocking. Simples..............

Mike

[madharry]

Here are the five Peco electrofrog code 75 small radius turnouts suitably wired up for DCC.

Three were being reused so I soldered the correct colour wires (red,blue,green) on the correct rails on each turnout depending where it was positioned on the trackplan. Some I had to swap over as they now faced in a different direction to when previously used. 

Mike

[deemery]

Are you going to include a murder, and the appropriate CID inspectors from the TV program?


dave

[madharry]

Yes I think there needs to be a murder or three...........

Mike 

[deemery]

Yes I think there needs to be a murder or three...........

Mike 

Yeah, that show can get kinda bloody (but in a terribly proper and reserved English way) at times...  I read some stats somewhere about the number of people killed over the years that's been running, it was in the hundreds.


dave

[Powersteamguy1790]

Looking good Mike.

Stay cool and run steam......

[madharry]

Thanks Bob I appreciate it.
Mike 

[GPdemayo]

Nice work Mike.....I'll be watching. 

[postalkarl]

Hi Mike:

Looks good I'll be following along.

Karl

[madharry]

Thanks Greg and Karl for following. Now the "castle" is completed I will stop procrastinating and get on with building the layout.

I have decided to use some C&L finescale track depicting the scale British track spacing and ties of a scale size with five Peco small radius code 75 turnouts. This is a bit of a trade off. C&L do not offer a built up turnout. They only offer kits. I bought one but for now that is step too far.........The cost is about three times more than a Peco turnout.

Mike

[madharry]

Here you can see the difference between C&L Finescale track and the Peco code 75 on the right. The different tie spacing and size is obvious.

I am going to drill the baseboards to fit three magnets - I use the Bachmann ones which work perfectly with Kadee 17,18 or 19's on Britsh stock.

I have kitted out the 5 turnout motors I will be fitting to the layout. These will be DCC controlled and come with their own decoder pre-fitted.

Mike

[madharry]

Continuing........

The position of the magnets has been worked out and the baseboard has been cut to accept the magnets which will be directly under ballasted track.

Mike