Future planning
Rolling stock
On the rolling stock front i would like to get some more locos for the layout and will concentrate mainly on the popular freight workhorses from around the period of 1997/8 onwards.
The Majority of the locos will be DCC ready or fitted, thus enabling me to use under DCC control in the future.
here's a small list, i will update it in the future but for now, this outlines what sort of locos im looking out for.
Class 08 - Hornby and Bachmann
Class 37 - Bachmann and Vitrains
Class 47 - Heljan and Bachmann
Class 56 - Hornby new and old
Class 60 - Hornby
Class 66 - Bachmann
Infrastructure
Most if not all of the Buildings will be Kit Built from the Pikestuff range including the 2 road depot and 1 road depot. The outer Building will be attempted by bodging some kits but if that fails, i will try my hand at Scratch Building again!
DCC Control
I'm currently looking into setting up DCC control on the layout to enable better running and to mainly get the most out of the layouts potential! The System proposed is either the Bachmann Dynamis or the basic Lenz compact set although i will wire up the layout ready for DCC conversion. I've chosen these over the Hornby's offering due to reliability and reviews from friends, although being a novice, i'm always on the lookout for a basic dcc set. More will be decided later......
Projects
Currently im working on resurrecting the old shed in the garden which is still being used but if i can get it then maybe there might be some planning into converting it into a suitable place for another model railway or an ideal space to set up the module boards.
Here's another project im working at the moment, its a triang/hornby 37 which is sadly not working due to lack of parts ( i know i could get it repaired but its Hornby and its not the best looking model out there!) However i still wanted to use it and there's no other place for it apart from the storage/scrap lines. Below shows an old photo of it, shortly after it got primered using a Car Primer Spray Can, you can get these from your local model shop or nearest Halfords Garage. Next job was to mask off and spray it into its new colour. went for a Mushroom livery as seen applied to 37402 however it didn't go according to plan but a bit of weathering will sort that out! I still wasn't happy with it so i lowered the bodyshell, getting rid of that huge gap by altering the bogies and cutting off the horrible coupling on the front! A bit of detailing parts will hopefully hide that. Pictures to follow, once i upload them....
And here's the current state of play....
