Hello All,

I am a "senior" novice, taking up the hobby for the first time. My parents were 10 Pound Poms, bringing me to these shores in 1965. I was 11 years old. After spending 20+ years serving in the Royal Australian Navy and traveling around the world helping to build airports, I am a full blown Aussie these days. However, I often look wistfully back at the trains and railways of my young days back in the UK, trainspotting on Warrington Bank Quay station, sneaking off to Crewe with only a 2 pence platform ticket and finding my way into the Crewe sheds. Wonderful memories.

So I have decided to build a OO gauge model railway. Hopefully it will be on a 3m x 3.5m grid, most likely on three levels, lower level for fiddle/storage, middle level to ease the gradient issue, up to the top level where there will be an large end of line city station, engine sheds and some industry. Sounds rather daunting for a first build, but I can go level by level and sneak up on it, so to speak. Era is Steam to Diesel transition. As a trainspotter in Warrington, the holy grail was a Britannia Class. I already own a model of Anzac - for obvious reasons I guess.

No doubt there will be lots of challenges to meet and overcome and I am hoping that the community here will be able to help. If there is interest, I might share a bit of a pictorial blog of the build as it progresses. I hope to start on the frame work next week.

Finally, we have it petty good here in Aus vis a vis the Covid mess, I hope every one else is coping well.

It is good to be a part of the forum and I am looking forward to interacting on a fairly regular basis.

Welcome, Andrew.  :doublethumb

Yes welcome Andrew

Outside of the many modellers of the UK outline on this fine forum, there are many who live in Queensland & you can contact them via BRMA Home
some may also be members of this forum.

[user=2199]Andrewdonald[/user] wrote:

Hello All,
….
No doubt there will be lots of challenges to meet and overcome and I am hoping that the community here will be able to help. If there is interest, I might share a bit of a pictorial blog of the build as it progresses. I hope to start on the frame work next week………….

Welcome Andrew,

Some obvious issues (but not the solutions /answers I'm afraid!) which spring to mind from my own / others' layout builds include.

• Frame-work design style,
• Operating Height(s) -allowing for access / best viewing / ease of operation
• Inclines which will work effectively to access your three levels
• Insulfrog or electrofrog points/turnouts (+ can you get them)?
• "DC or DCC (that is the question, whether 'tis nobler……")
• Room conditions - temperature / humidity control
  

those are to make a start, others will no doubt add in their views.

FWIW, my decision to go with Insulfrog points proved to have lots of knock-on implications, most if not all of which I've managed to live with or manage for my little GWR 0-6-0s. Less of issue with large wheelbase locos anyway.

Going electrofrog has its own overheads of wiring complexity concerning power switching which are best understood before deciding, rather than after!

If you know all this much good, but otherwise I hope it helps. Good luck with your project .

Colin

Welcome to the club Andrew.

Welcome aboard Andrew, great to have you here. Loads of Help and advice available from the members, some of it even useful !  :thumbs
Looking forward to your Blog, and watching your layout develope from the ground up as it were.

If you click on the Big Blue YMRC logo at the top of the page ( or the home button) it takes you back to the front page/ Main menu. Scroll down until you see the 'Model Railway Layouts ' section. Two places you can start, either start a thread in the ' Members Ideas for Layouts' If your still planning things and want to gather Information, advice, Ideas together in one place, or Dive right in and start a Layout thread in ' Members Personal Layouts'   they are right next to each other. If your not sure of a name for your layout yet,  Just call it Andrews proposed layout or anything else you like and we can change that for you at any time. :)

Once again  :Welcome

Cheers

Matt

Welcome Andrew
Everything is easy to do when you know how. I have found the advice and comment on this forum well worth listening to. Just ask and someone somewhere will be able to help

Barry

Hello Andrew and welcome to the forum from a warm and sunny Loire Valley.
 
There are no problems here, only challenges and there’s plenty of people here only too willing to help you overcome any you encounter, so have a good look round and we look forward to hearing from you further.
 
That 2d platform ticket has certainly brough you a long way and may the journey continue.
 
Best,
 
Bill

Welcome Andrew from what is today, finally a warm and sunny Spain.

I have found the members on here to be a friendly and knowledgeable bunch.

Research is the key before you start your build and as Colin said earlier, there are many different options regarding track and control. If your current Anzac model is DC, it can be converted to DCC which will give you more flexibility when it comes to running more than one train on a length of track.

I look forward to seeing and reading about your progress.

:hi Andrew


Welcome to the club.


Ed

Welcome aboard Andrew.
Lots of help here. 

I’m going to give my usual beginners advice.

Start with a “plank”. 3 or 4 feet long and a foot wide. Practice a small bit of everything on it.

Base it on a prototypical bit of line that you have seen in a photo somewhere that you like.

A single line track with one set of points, wire it up for the control method of your choice, same with the points, wire in tube or solenoid motor or SEEP or tortoise or servo. Tiny control panel with point and signal levers, one signal. One short platform, one small building, card, kit, scratch built, plast icard, ready to plonk,. Some scenery, a little hill an cutting, a road or rail bridge, little water course or pond, grass, tree, shrubs, car, person. Backscene, just painted blue or a full on printed backscene….

Then in 6 months time you can sit back with something fully finished and say “I built that!” It looks great and I now have a better handle on the skills needed to make a bigger layout.

My Pentrecourt Halt topic is an example and there are many others.

http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=1661&forum_id=52&highlight=Pentrecourt+#p17718

Col.Stephen’s has done a few too I think.

Terry… or Matt, can you post a link to that plank … something Lane I think it was called?

Oh… and feel free to ignore me and do it your own way Andrew…. it doesn’t matter how you go about it as long as you are having fun.

Welcome to YMRC Andrew.Don't be backward in coming forward when it comes to posting your progress,similarly if you have any questions, just fire away, there's no such thing as a stupid question,(unless it's one of mine!)so anything you need, just holler!
Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

Hi Andrew
Welcome to the Club from Canada. (Originally Merseyside)

Lots of good advice…….particularly from Marty about learning your trade on a simple plank.

Colin poses a number of sigbificant questions some of which are best researched and answered before starting………..DC or DCC and type of turnout being perhaps the most important.

Have fun

John

Hello Andrew and a warm welcome.  As everyone has said, loads of help here and no question too simple.  
I picked up the hobby just a few years ago, and started with a couple of simple planks, just to try to learn, as I knew nothing - so Marty's advice is probably the best for starting out.  My first plank was just to get used to laying track and wiring it and then running a train.  It certainly taught me a lot about some of the things others have mentioned like types of points and DC or DCC as I worked out what I wanted to be able to do.  I suppose I could have added scenery, but I had also learned the importance of leaving some space for it!  Second board was a shunting puzzle of a type called "Inglenook", to which I could add scenery and buildings from kits - all card based.  They didn't take long to make and showed me that I could manage the challenge of a layout. 

Even so, taking on a larger layout is yet another steep learning curve (and mine is not particularly large) and I have learned an awful lot in the two years I have been going at it, such that I could start again and avoid some of the mistakes I have made along the way.  However, it has all been great fun (even with the frustrations and errors) and I am sure that you will find it incredibly rewarding.

Michael

Hi Andrew, welcome from Bribie island.

You've joined the best forum with lots of good advice and great examples of what can be done.

Cheers
Evan

Thanks Colin,

I have thought a lot about your items and some others, thanks for crating the list.

I will establish a design and build log for the layout, and your list will be the start of the design considerations, or as we used to call it in the systems engineering world, the functional requirements list, followed by the technical requirements list.

Thanks again Colin, I am feeling the support and encouragement here on the forum already  :) :new

Cheers Marty,

Some good advice. I must be thinking along the right lines though . I have started with a length of flex track on a board that is a pseudo programming track. Soldered droppers etc., so all good on that front. Next step to build the test track, but more on all of this, when I start my blog.

Thanks and best regards,

Andrew

Thanks Claus

Cheers Ron,

Will definitely take a look at bmra down here.

Thanks Alan