Model Railway Forum

Standard 5 looks good and as for the ‘mood lighting’ - inspiring.

I have just fitted an HM7000 sound decoder, speaker and stay alive into a Hornby 2-BIL. A fairly easy installation, although the speaker and stay alive are currently occupying a passenger compartment. The decoder went into the toilet compartment, so cannot be seen.

IMG_0599 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

Fabulous 3 railer. A decoder in the water closet. Could be electrifying.

You may recall I am changing my point operation to push-button. The problem I am having is fitting all of the "kit" into the control box/mimic panel. I did explore getting a professionally drawn layout plan, which would then be etched onto a perspex top, with all the button holes pre-drilled, but the designer could not get all of the push-buttons onto the 400x250 mimic panel top. The picture shows the "first attempt" diagram, but it is not full sized. So I am having to think again

IMG_1835 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

Shocking!

Could they not 'stretch' the plan top to bottom to give a bit more leeway?

The problem is that the layout plan I have shown is not full size - if it were printed 1:1 it would be bigger than 400x250. I think I might cut a sheet of 3mm ply 400x250 and start drilling holes and see if I can get all of the push buttons in place - there are two per point, and three on a cross over. Also I might see if I can re-draw the layout plan, so that does not incorporate the full layout - for example, the cross over at the top of the layout, only requires a small section on the layout plan with three buttons, that then leaves me with the right-hand side and left-hand side which could be just show a "shrunk" track plan with the push-buttons on. The guy at DCC Concepts that offers this service was very helpful and thought it would fit on a 500x250 top, but that then leaves me with very little work space. I need to do some experimenting.

https://mailchi.mp/dccconcepts/2801825?e=71a1ce4555

You could mock it up on a sheet of foamboard from Hobbycraft rather than ply. Nice and easy to sketch on.

Steve M wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 9:49 pm You could mock it up on a sheet of foamboard from Hobbycraft rather than ply. Nice and easy to sketch on.

I like that idea - I hadn't thought of that.

They do larger A3 sheets as well.
I presume the switches have some bulky 'gubbins' behind the panel. Could you make some paper templates of the switches and move them around on the panel to get a fit (think Peco point templates).
I would even go as far as making a template for a set of three switches for each crossover. Once you have one set up you can use it to space each of the other switches.
Rather than draw the track plan first, work out how to fit the switches then draw in the tracks afterwards.