Well my three enjoyable weeks making this layout is almost over, it is nearly finished! The only work to do is add more people, mainly on the station, add a Gaugemaster track cleaner, add further fencing and a gate to the engineers yard and finally weather  the track and buildings further.

I really hope it shows what can be done with a simple track plan, simple electrics and recycled bits and pieces.

Below are some hastily taken photo’s, using a cheap camera at night, with normal strip lighting. I will take further photo’s soon with stock and using some different era’s and Train Operators.

Thanks to Graham Minshull and Shaun Harvey for their help over the last two years – without them I would have given up Exhibiting.

During adding these photo’s I have noticed a few glitches that need rectifying, so the journey continues. I guess I should have split this post into several subjects but time is precious at present and I have a lot of friends O Gauge work to do before a meeting on Sunday – fingers crossed.

After much thought and the determination to pick a name that would be suitable for multiple era’s and companies in different parts of the country, I came up with ‘Copsey’.

To reinforce the variety of DMU’s  that can be run in various era’s from about 1985 – to date. I have made up some ‘running in’ boards that will clip onto the station in keeping with the unit’s running. I have also made the boards for the engineers yard to reflect the company in charge of the track and most stations.

Firstly the Engineers signs  (these are all that is needed for the period of the layout)

Now we have various ‘running in’ boards to reflect the DMU’s running

These are not exhaustive and others will be added. The Platform signage will all be in white with black lettering to avoid changing everything! This is not the first time I have done this. About 20 years ago I did removable signs for my then Exhibition layout – the sadly missed ‘Melford’.

‘Copsey’ is an old family name that has sadly died out. I picked it because I could find no Town or Village with this name in the UK, although I stand corrected if wrong.

Further work has been done on the DMU layout. It is now 100% electrically complete and hopefully the photo’s show just how simple the layout is. The ‘first’ DMU has run, sorry no pun intended, and all isolating sections were tested and numbered on the controls. I have really gone out of my way to make things as simple as possible – hopefully to encourage others to have a go!

I had originally made the layout to operate in Network Rail Era, 2002 to date. However I hope to design ‘plug in’ signs so that by changing the signs, cars and railway road vehicles I can get back to about 1990.

For the record, Network Rail         – 2002 to date

Railtrack                 – 1994 to 2002

British Rail             – 1990  to 1994 (for my purposes – actually from 1967)

Prior to this it was British Railways!

I have now finished the bridge over the railway and it awaits painting and weathering.

Ballast should be here tomorrow – so hopefully can be done over the weekend!

                                                                            OR

Prototype ‘plug in’

Work on the layout continues, the Car Park is painted, lined and weathered. The Engineers Depot is painted and weathered. The Signal bases have been made and painted together with the associated trunking. Further work has been carried out on the platform including weathering, the Station Building has been selected and detailed.

Being basic electrics, this did not take very long – in fact about an hour. There are three isolating sections on the main scenic board and another three in the fiddle yard. These will give me the flexibility I require. All points operation are manual as they are in the fiddle yard.

The bridge has had further work, the next job being the brick cladding.

With this layout I am trying to show just how simple and basic an Exhibition layout can be. I have ordered a Gaugemaster Combi controller that should be here today.

Next Jobs will be ballasting and them track weathering.

I have carried out some more work on the DMU layout, I have added a cork path around the Industrial Buildings, made the engineers yard by laying more cork and finally yet more cork was employed to make the Car Park. I used 1/8th cork for all applications, on top of the original corked  base board.

I decided that the Industrial Building were just to heavy  to be permanently fixed, so left a trench for them to fit in between the path and the back scene, they will now travel to Exhibitions in a separate box!

I have also painted the platform top and added the white safety line on the edge. I used my own mix of Humbrol paints. I did the same for the Car Park and Industrial units path. Lastly I used Railmatch ‘concrete’ colour to start to form the engineers area. You will note that rather than corking the whole area of the yard, I laid strips of cork to simulate the way real concrete is laid.

The final additions to the layout is that I have formed the shell for the road bridge and added the buffer stops temporarily.

We all spent a very pleasant day at the  Bury St Edmunds 2018 Exhibition on Saturday. This Exhibition is fast becoming one of the best in East Anglia and I believe they had a record attendance as well. The standard of layouts was very high and the trade stands catered for just about everything. Well done to the members of the Club and all that attended. Below are a few photo’s taken by my wife and Shaun.

Well, I have always felt that a modern DMU run layout can be simple to build, wire and scenic, and it does not get much simpler than this! I think the below photos show just that. The two three-way points are Insulfrog,  the track in the fiddle yard is recycled code 100 and the track on the scenic section is new code 75. The points are manual as they are both in the fiddle yard, so the only wiring is the isolating sections and the feeds. The fiddle yard will hold up to six 2 car DMU size units or equivalent trains. The entrance to the scenic area will be under an over road bridge making the three-way point almost invisible. There is just one platform with two faces and a stabling/engineers siding.