Model Railway Forum

A reboot from the old Henley layout. One of my favorite videos. (Given the present European tragedy, I will hasten to add that Russian culture has a unique charm, as many cultures: not reflective of present circumstances.

https://youtu.be/uo5QExcpc34

That was fun. Think the fly has put on weight?

Hi Chops,
Your talents are wasted in El Paso, you should head west to Hollywood!

Often, I think that if we were to stick a spade in any spot in the UK, history or prehistory would be unearthed. Thus, while mere mortals only model modern history, the clock has been rolled back to 1204, when Henley was founded. Everything is pure fiction, but I enjoyed a year living abroad in 1964, whence the model railroad bug, particularly the British range, was a bit HARD. I am a computer illiterate, so it was quite a task to get this posted finally, and Wondershare (wonder how it works) Filmora chopped off the opening captions, which relate that Sir Wormwood's first task was to drive out the Loch Ness Monster to make the place habitable. Enjoy from your American cousin and anglophyle, Chops.

https://youtu.be/_Kw984-DC4s

Well, whatever you consider your skills to be they are perfectly adequate at producing a fine video. Very nice layout. Well done. R-

https://youtu.be/rFUlRp7c3C0

One of the advantages of a preformed roadbed is that one can revise it with a minimum of trouble. Those layouts—and I admire them—with glued-in ballast are literally set in stone. It took about two hours to remove a 4 x 8 section so that I could park the car in the garage and have it all up and running again. That particular section was developed to allow an unfettered run through the countryside, but now that it's gone, I don't miss it other than I liked how the hills turned out.

Another thing I learned: never put a diamond crossing, much less a turnout, over a seam because even the preformed roadbed cannot completely reduce that unevenness that develops over time with humidity, expansion, and contraction.

What happens when the model train muse steps out one's door? Having furiously assaulted model trains with renewed vigor
for the last two decades, suddenly the muse just up and left me. I did have the sense to pull a couple of tarps over the layouts
to protect them from the venal dust that plagues El Paso, but I can't bring myself to even peek under the covers. Just feels like
the battery got pulled out of me. Am I getting old?

Well, I'm here, so that's a step in the right direction, seeing what other enthusiasts are cooking up. Cooler weather is heading
our way as the Earth tilts on its equatorial axis, this place is not unlike the Australian Outback- so I've been told by visiting
Aussies, and maybe that will encourage me to fiddle some more.

My last project was to lop off a rather extravagant 4x8 extension to make room for the car, and it hasn't hurt the overall operating
scheme very much, as it really doesn't require more than 30 seconds to a minute for a train to navigate that portion of the extension,
and encourages me to build up and refine the remaining 74 square feet.

Welcome back - your mojo will come back with more entertaining videos of Nessie and the adventures experienced at Henley!