The last days of the SFRSD

The end of an Era.

Last night I visited Rod Warrens SFRSD for the last session on his layout before it is to be pulled apart and then moved to a good friends house..

It has been a great pleasure to work on and operate the SFRSD since 2003 when I first got involved.

Rod and the layout have been a great inspiration to me over the time.

Here are a few shots of a last night with some D&H power on the point..

A great night was had by all and thanks for the memories of the SFRSD in Bayswater.. Looking forward to seeing it in its new home in the future..

Minor updates to the plan

Just massaging the plans a bit

Over the last few days I have sought feedback from various people both locally and also from "The RailWire"forum.

I have made some minor mods to enable more isle space.

Here are the updates.

Here is lower staging

Here is the main deck.
Note that the loco facility is off tot he right and a fair way from the main yard.
Whitehall is actually like this so is prototypical..

Here is the upper deck.

Any feedback is welcome..

I can hear some saying.. All good.. Just get on and build it..
Yep thats the plan, however, as we are in a new house with literally tons of gardening to do.. I need to manage Michelle's job list also..

A new house and a new home for the D&H

A new beginning for the D&H

A fair bit of water has gone under the bridge since my last update in June 2015.
We have moved out of the old house (July 2015) travelled around Australia for 10 weeks (21,000km) and built a new home.

We moved into the new home at the end of Jan 2016 and now I'm busy planning the next incarnation of the D&H Champlain division.

The new layout space will be significantly smaller than the last version. This time it will be in half of the 6m x 6m garage with a dividing wall. So the layout will be 2 levels in a 2.60m x 5.90m room within the garage.

The room will have its own ceiling so I can use the ceiling as storage space within the garage.

The concept of the layout is similar to before in that it will be the Champlain / Saratoga divisions of the D&H or the North End. The town names in the area will be used but there will be modellers licence in terms of the locations of the industries and the complexity of the towns.

The main deck will be 1300mm to 1400mm from the floor with 4 towns or distinct switching locations and then the main line will climb a helix and then run around the parimiter of the room at 1600mm to 1700mm from the floor.

The top deck will be a narrow shelf of no more than 200mm wide. (the main deck is 300mm wide).
As the main deck is busy with towns and industry, I wanted to ensure that I captured the feeling and the scenery of the area around Lake Champlain as it is quite spectacular and would be a shame to not model this area.

The layout will effectively be staging to staging with return loops at each end of the 2 staging locations with single main line between the two staging areas with passing sidings along the way.

The train lengths will be similar to the old layout in that 2 locos + 18 to 20 x 50Ft box cars + caboose.

Here are the plans as they stand.

Main deck plus lower staging.

The main deck showing the main deck and the helix.

The upper deck showing the upper staging

The layout, as per last time will be managed by Digtrax DCC with JMRI and full CTC or ABS signalling.

Any feedback is welcome.

Shed Clean Up

No more walls and ceiling.

Well, after the move of the layout a few weeks ago I have been busy pulling down the MDF on the calls and the 9mm ply from the ceiling.

Today marks the day that all the walls and ceiling is now done and the steel to hold the ceiling in place is also now down and ready to move.

Now I need to just clean up and move the MDF, ply and steel plus a number of piles of R6 insulation that came out of the ceiling.

I will take some pictures and update shortly.

Then, I will have to start planning the next layout. I will more than likely start a whole new blog for the new layout so I will post a link to the new blog once it is up. and running.

In the mean time, we move of the house in 4 weeks time and then off on our holiday with the kids for 10 weeks as we drive around Australia....

Stay tuned..!

The End for D&H Version 3

Good bye old friend. It has been fun!

Well, today marks the last day of the D&H Champlain division.

It took Chris and I around 12 hours today to complete the disassemble of the layout and move it around to his shed.

I had already done a heap of prep work in readiness for the day but there was a heap to do today.

Here are a few of the progress pictures.

The last part of moving the walls was the most challenging. In the end we cut them in half and moves 2.5 meter sections.

The layout now fills Chris's shed and it will be a huge game of chess to get it all back in the right place.

I have really enjoyed building this layout and I have learnt a heap of thing to do on the next one and the things not to do.

I will probably start a whole new blog for the next layout and keep this one for them old one so we can compare the old and the new.

Thanks to all those that came and run on the layout and enjoyed it as much as I have.

Now onto planning for the next one.

Till then.. Have fun....

Decomission Continues

More destruction - gently.

Time is marching on and the layout needs to be out of the shed by the end of June.

I have removed the fascia, valance, electronics and now Willsboro is free of the wall and on the floor.
Also the Pt Anne section is also down..

Once these sections were out, I removed the section of the staging approach that was under the Pt Douglas to Willsboro towns. This has enabled the wall cladding to be removed in readiness for the studs to be removed so the layout can actually come out of the shed.

See below for a few pictures of the mess..

More pictures to follow.

Chris and I have a big day planned for next Monday where we hope to move a number of sections to his place. Stay tuned..

Decommissioning has started

Get the gas axe out. Time to decommission.

A few weeks ago I started to decommission the layout..
The first task was to remove all the rolling stock... All 500+ pieces of it.. Boy that was a big job..

Then I removed the fascia and started on the electronics as Chris is going to use a different system so the electronics will stay with me..

Here are a few progress pictures.

Nex the valance from the roof needs to come down.. Then by that time Chris will have his shed ready for the move..