Trevor-1284476

Tonight's photo of the progress made. In this case I have finished cutting the foam that will make up the hillside for the tunnel. It should also be noted that the structures are not for use on this layout and are instead from another planned project and are only standing in to give an idea of where I should put various structures once i finish constructing them.

It is not detachable, that panel line is just because the easily available sheeting that I grabbed were 120cm x 90cm and I needed 120x120 to fit the bare minimum layout with some operational interest (sidings etc) and unfortunately will need to be transported either in a trailer or the back of a ute but given that the average first layout is not intended to be mobile it is not the end of the world. I am also using nothing but simple hand tools like most people would have access to (hammer, hand saws, chisel etc) and am starting to wish that I paid more attention in woodworking class 22 years ago lol. Not only have i got the restrictive budget but to add extra incentive the first event it is to be displayed at is in November so i get the time crunch as well lol. I do not make smart decisions.

Ask yourself a question. How many times has someone bought a Hornby starter set (or any train set for that matter) either for themselves or for their kids and then have wanted to take the next step? How many times have those people gone to a model railway club or, more likely, to a model railway show and become intimidated at only seeing the large, expensive-to-build, manpower-intensive-to-run layouts with complex wiring, controls and the like? How many of those train sets then STAY a train set in a box because these people feel that they don't have the time/skills/tools/space to construct these large layouts? Having talked to a number of people at a few model train shows and model railway groups and after finding that the answer to the first question seems to be 'Many', I have commenced a project build which is designed to be displayed at shows and events as a 'Budget' layout, which is meant to show people that your first layout can be simple, relatively cheap and still give good results as well as be used to help give you confidence in your model and model railway building skills. So, starting with a Hornby 'Network Traveller' OO scale starter set and a budget of $500 AUD I have begun to construct a small (120cmx120cm) 'Trainset Layout' which should be able to give new railway modellers something nice looking to run trains on. The intention is to display this layout at model train shows with two signs on the front, one being the rational behind the build and its inspiration while the second will be a cost breakdown of this project as well as the list of tools used. The Scenery and Structures will be based on a light railway in the UK. I have swapped out the 3rd Radius Curves from the train set for a set of 2nd Radius that I had already but this was done purely for portability of the layout and will be reflected in the final write-up. So far I am $200 AUD into the $500 AUD budget and am now having to find do the structures, scenery and ballasting etc for less than $300 AUD.

There is even less benefit if you live in Australia. Due to some exclusive distribution deal that Hornby signed with a local distributor (who are useless) the Hornby collector club is useless as they can't ship to Australia directly, which also makes all the rewards points totally worthless as well for the same reason.

It was because of people reporting issues with the Stanier coaches are the reason that i decided my layout needed to be minimum of 3rd Radius curves.

It would be a giant missed opportunity if they missed out, yeah.

That is what I was thinking too but given that TT:120 is so new it would mean that Airfix/Hornby would be bringing in more customers. They could start small, with maybe a Goods Shed, Station building, Signal box, Platform canopy and some platform detail parts like seating etc. With the improvement in tooling etc that we have today I am sure that such kits would be popular because not everyone wants to be purchasing the cast resin offerings Hornby have out and the kits would offer a cheaper option IMHO. Current prices i have seen here for the Hornby structures are kinda insane. For reference a standard DC A4 is about $300 AUD. The Hornby footbridge alone is selling at $86 AUD, a station building is about $90 AUD and the goods shed is around $70 AUD. Platforms are $27 for a pair and last price i saw on a signal box was about $60

We down here hope that availability improves too but there seems to be one distributor in this country and they have an exclusive distribution deal. Apparently that is why if you are looking on the Hornby store you will see that the only country in the 'does not ship to' list is Australia. It also means that being part of the collector club and every single one of Hornby's sales and events on their website is totally useless to us. I have been a fan of Hornby for a long time but honestly this state of affairs makes me question if it is worth my continued support. Currently the only option for getting any of the stuff post-A1/A3s being added is to purchase directly from Rails of Sheffield and then pay shipping. It is either that or wait and hope that we see the new stuff sometime before the end of 2025

I was thinking the other day about the TT:120 building kits and the currently limited range and it occurred to me that if Hornby wanted to 'keep it in house' they could look at having Airfix introduce a range of 'Railway Structure' kits like Airfix had made in the past. Station, platform and rollingstock kits could also be worthwhile and it would mean that Hornby would be directing new customers to one of their affiliate companies which would be good for the company's bottom line overall.

I do find it annoying that models are getting discontinued already when those of us in Australia are still waiting for literally anything else to come out down here. The current offerings seen in stores here are the A1/A3/A4, some of the 08s (that it seems noone wants because they are not HM7000 fitted and are modern liveries), a handful of goods stock and some coaches. With DCC Mallard being discontinued and the BR brake van possibly as well (and the blue 08 gone) that restricts our already restricted offerings even further. General predictions among model shop owners I have talked to is that we likely won't see the Class 50 or Class 66 before Christmas and the stuff that was just released will likely be 15+ months out.

I know the feeling. Despite having built a OO layout for my nephew years ago I have been working out what to do for myself and having got the Easterner it inspired me to make something for myself. The attached plan is what i have come up with and am collecting the parts for at the moment.

I found a similar phenomenon in video gaming, with 'experts' deriding certain games before they come out, claiming that there will be X issues and telling people not to 'waste their time' with the product. When the product, the game in this case, actually became popular those same people, trying to maintain their 'legitimacy' as 'experts' continued to make the same claims despite all evidence to the contrary. It is the same here, with those store 'experts' getting it wrong, likely because they did not want to stock yet another product line, and I'd bet that those same stores are still telling people that the scale is going to die and be abandoned and not to buy it, likely while trying to steer them to some other, in store overpriced item as an 'alternative'

I am thinking about that, yeah. The issue is that I am rather constrained by space but I think i can re-do it just enough to put one in

As mentioned in my previous trackplan I will be cutting an old model railway baseboard down from 121cm x 181.5cm to a more manageable 90cmx180cm but that leftover piece got me thinking. It would be, with minor trimming, 30cm x 180cm and could be easily split into a 30cm x80 and 30cm x 100cm pair of boards that, with the construction of a 100cm staging board, could be used as a small, easy to transport point-to-point layout and could be done a LOT sooner than the more complex layout could be and could be designed to act as a module off the existing layout plan if needed. So having spent half the day pouring through model railway magazines (British Railway Modeller, Hornby Magazine etc) and have come up with this plan which I hope to start soon. Introducing Foxton Halt, a fictitious station on my fictitious 'Foxworth Vale' heritage railway somewhere in the UK. This is one end of the railway and contains a 2-track engine shed, coal and watering facilities, a signal cabin as well as restored Goods shed and office alongside the restored station building. My headcannon is that Foxton Rest sits on what was once a branch off of the main Foxworth Valley branchline to serve the coal mines and their surrounding communities and was closed, like the main Foxworth Branch, as a result of the Beeching report as well as the NCB closing down the last remaining colliery on the line. Foxton Rest was once a small through station back when the line was in use but after closure the line beyond this point has been lost to development, landslips and flooding and thus when the volunteers of the 'Foxton Railway Preservation Society' took possession of the site very little remained of the original railway, with just the station and platforms remaining in a rather derelict condition. Everything else had to be brought in from elsewhere or had to be reconstructed to original plans and also had to fit within the original, constrained property boundary, hence the rather minimal facilities and their more crowded nature. With the restoration of a section of the Foxworth Valley line, specifically around 'Foxworth Vale' by the Foxworth Vale Historical Society, the Foxton Railway Preservation Society merged with the Foxworth Vale Historical Society to form the 'Foxworth Valley Heritage Railway Society'.

So my planned model railway has suffered from 'feature creep' as the space allotted to it has increased. Initially it was to be a simple loop with sidings, station, headshunt and goods shed but, due to remembering that I had an old model railway table/baseboard in my garage that I had been given to strip down and re-use years ago, the space available has jumped from 120cm x 87cm all the way up to 181.5cm x 121cm (although i plan to cut that back to 181.5 x 95 to make it more portable/useable. Now all i need to do is manage to source all the parts needed to make this work due to low stock here in Australia. I likely will end up using Peco flexi track for the longer sidings and Hornby track for the rest. The idea behind this layout is that of a UK based heritage railway who, like many others, took over an old, disused branchline after the Beeching cuts and slowly built it up again to include all the engine facilities and sidings that they needed for operations as well as re-furbishing the one main station remaining on the line at the time of purchase. It will include such things as a 2-track engine shed, coal and watering facilities, carriage sidings, two stations (one twin platform with footbridge, one a single track station (added by the volunteers near their yard during reconstruction), a goods shed, signal box, water tank, road bridge and tunnel. Motive power will, inevitably, be an ex-LNER/ex-BR A3 and A4 Pacifics until something more suitable for this layout comes along. Structures will likely be a mix of Hornby, Metcalfe N-scale structures (since they are rather overscale for 1:148 and seem fairly close to 1:120) and print-yourself card kits from Scalescenes as well as scratch built or kitbashed detail parts such as water colums etc This layout is designed to be DCC/Sound equipped via HM7000 from the outset and will also feature things like working lighting on the structures where possible.