Model Railway Forum

Yes, it will be nice to see it finished, but the interim period needs some careful thought Brian. The assembly is relatively straightforward, but its getting everything into a small (ish) space - 400x250mm box.

Decorating not a problem Steve - someone else is doing it. It's just the general upheaval that is frustrating. The plastering went well - the guy did a good job. The plaster needs to dry out before the paint goes on - that's due to start on May 12th - then we are having new carpets laid in the lounge, dining room, hall,stairs and landing. So at the moment all lounge furniture is in the garage until the carpet is laid, then the dining room furniture needs to find a home when the carpet goes down in there - hopefully we should be straight by the end of June (2025 ).

Well the panel has arrived and looks so much better than the sheet of plasticard with the car pinstriping representing the track layout. Now to carefully attach all the push-buttons and technical stuff inside the box

IMG_1882 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

Very impressive indeed, I’m tempted.

It looks very good Carl - well finished. It's expensive, about the same as a Hornby Dublo loco. I have shown the link to the DCC Concepts site - https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/con ... eid=UNIQID

The panel top (mimic panel), is the cheapest option. I bought a control box from Flexxgenix Ltd on ebay - it came with a 3mm ply top. Just after it arrived, I received the email from DCC Concepts showing this new service they were providing. I wanted something that looked professional and not home made. Obviously you could place toggle switches on the panel, mine will be push-button, so over the period of about six months, I bought the DCC Concepts Alpha System together with a 5amp Power Booster - this option certainly wasn't cheap - hence buying over a period of six months.
Hopefully, when installed, I will only have two wires going from Hornby Elite to my bus wires, and they will operate all loco's and twenty six Cobalts iP point motors. This was one of the reasons (probably over-kill) for going with the 5amp power booster - power to loco's and all point motors will all go through the track - and I got rid of miles of wire.

Hi Barry, that's an impressive bit of kit. I wondered, do you have the programming track permanently connected to the Elite? I find it such a faff having to change the wires at the back of the Elite each time for programming purposes.

Hi Howard - Yes I do. On my old control desk I actually ballasted and buffered both ends of the track - a bit over the top, but it finished it off On this new "desk" the programming track is almost the dividing line between controls and modelling section. Since installing a number of the HM7000 decoders and using my iPhone, the programming track has become somewhat redundant. Barry

To good a deal to turn down c/o Rails of Sheffield.
IMG_1883 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

Looking very nice indeed.

Those coaches look nice. Are they older models? (I have not kept up with SR coaches). They do look nice. Always liked SR livery.

Mountain Goat wrote: ↑Fri May 09, 2025 11:28 am Those coaches look nice. Are they older models? (I have not kept up with SR coaches). They do look nice. Always liked SR livery.

They were built between 1906 and 1910 by the London South Western Railway (LSWR) and lasted until 1956/7 when the last one's were withdrawn.