Hi Chris,

Thanks for posting the updates.

I should say that all the solenoids fill up quite a bit of room, and they do not really make the picture very pretty.
Maybe they should get a lighter colo(u)r. What do you think?

Another thing is the naming of all the elements. Is that something you would like a special function for? The way you did it now would cause a lot of work when moving stuff around with the free text.

I like your design and wish you a lot of fun with the soldering iron. Can you turn the board on one side or do you have to sit underneath it?

David.

I'll try to see what it looks like with a less dark color (sorry, my spelling checker does not allow colour!).

However, colors are in the part's definition, so if we would change that you'll have to redo all parts with solenoids once again

About the wiring: I know, Märklin uses blue for both directions of a turnout. It's a pain.

David.

Hi all.

Just an interim report. I will be putting up photos on my website in the near future.

Apart from suffering from sickness, I had a great weekend. So, negatives first.
o Evening before I had a complete dead length (three electrical sections) of track but was unable to find why. (Next morning it all
worked!)
o  One loco motive went short circuit shortly before the end of the exhibition.
o I hit a deer about a mile before I got home which resulted in my front bumper disintegrating (could have been worse; last time I hit a sheep half the front of the car had to be rebuilt).

Now the good news.
o Apart from the dead loco everything ran to perfection except for some wagons that kept coming off the track - candidates for the lead treatment - before the exhibition opened. Mind you, I did have finger trouble occasionally, usually when engaged in conversation, which lead to a few collisions.
o The really good news was that I am the proud holder of the "Best Operating Model Railway Layout" cup. However, I think that was more by default that to my credit. Mind you (again!), I did keep trains running throughout the entire exhibition whenever there was someone present.
o I should add that my idea of having the control panel swing up over the layout using parliament hinges was so successful that I think I will go down that route permanently unless the scenery prevents it.
o I learned from one visitor that the BR61 (in 1935) had ABS to cope with the change in weight as its water was used up,

I'm far from being up to the Modelrail Scotland standard but hope to be able to attend other exhibitions in Scotland next year.

So, the next stage is to make a longer control pansel so that I can add the extra switches and buttons required to put in route selection and uncoupling as well as sorting out a few minor glitches. Also there is the dream of adding a second board.

Lessons learned:
o Take your own lighting.
o Avoid second hand curved points.
o Test out trains more thoroughly before use.
o Take something to allow the layout to be raised above normal table height and a step for kids to see.
o Take less stock.
o Put images on the front of storage boxes with picture of a) item that goes in that box or b) how contents were backed.

Probably other lessons as well, but I forget them.

All the best everyone,
Chris.

PS. I am copying this to other forums, sorry.

Chris,

Your being in the UK makes it rather difficult to suggest a specific product, but I would look for a set of cable plugs/sockets. Something along the line of the old DB-25 sets. Two of those will accomodate 50 wires and have been proved durable by millions of computer users. Of course you can try to find a single 50-wire plug set, but it would probably cost a lot more without offering any significant improvement, outside of being one plug as opposed to two.

Yes, I was going to suggest going to DCC, but caught myself just in time It's just that Z-scalers are a bit of a rare breed and the rest of us aren't automatically tuned to thinking that small. I suppose it will happen some day, but the scale will have to get a lot more popular before then.

Anyway, the other thing is re: a post a few up the list-

"Yes it is fairly time consuming getting it going but I use copy and paste and edit a lot so once the basic types are set up and coloured it is all fairly easy."

What I did was set up several 'non-layout' layout files. One is being filled with buildings, bridges, tunnel portals, trestles, etc. drawn via the line/surface tool in the program. Another is being filled with scenic elements- rivers, streams, perhaps hills and such, drawn the same way.

Not only does this save an immense amount of time, what with using copy&paste to populate layouts, but should allow sharing said drawings with the community. That will have to suffice until David has time and inclination to release some items with a little more real art in them.