[Novalance]

Alot of my spare time this year (and income) from about February has been devoted to building a model railway in my spare room, I've not posted anything about it to facebook or here before but I felt like I wanted to share my progress, see what you guys think, bare in mind I have never done anything like this before and im learning as I go, which is half the fun. I had some older set track and controllers, with 2 trains, then my father in law donated his old collection from about 1970!

This is what I started with mid February with help from my father in law we built a table

Then I added a foam underlay using insulation foam from a hardware store then layed out some track and ran trains until I figured out what I wanted to do next.

It gets better trust me!
So I built a Farm, a proper train station, tunnel entrances and a church (which will have a wedding scene) and started to work on scenery, so burnt umber for the mud/soil and some ground scatter for my first attempt at grass, which will be improved upon when I get a static grass applicator. the River is Resin but I totally messed it up and its gonna need another go to get right.

Then I fell into a bit of luck, I had a successful PPI Claim and got back some money, most was used for a flight to the US to visit my family and the rest was put in savings, I set aside about £300 to go towards updating my hardware to digital and get 2 digital trains and a digital controller (decided to do a double loop, one DC (analogue) the other DCC (digital)

So today (23/09/19) I started work on the hillside and tunnels, first time using plastercloth, its very messy but quite satisfying

There we have it, I just wanted to share this and I will update as I go!

[Sul-Matuul]

Awesome work Nova!

I remember years ago my dad built a track on a massive wooden table and kept it hidden for Christmas for me and my brother. I still to this day have no idea how he kept it hidden in our house or garage!
It was good fun playing about with it, we had various buildings and tunnels etc. and a good mix of trains. My dad made a huge tunnel through a hill in two parts out of wood and plaster with trees and all sorts on it.

Got it out of storage this year when we visited them and it still worked despite being unused for 15 odd years! Sadly the underlay for the track had disintegrated and needs replacing but it worked pretty well still.

[Solace]

Looking really cool Nova! I've always loved model train sets and I can remember seeing some truly amazing ones in my time. I've thought about putting something together like this myself but never followed through, this is clearly a passion project of yours and I look forward to seeing the updates!

P.S. Are you using Hornby trains for maximum authenticity?

[Novalance]

there is only 1 non-Hornby train, a saddletank something I have no idea of, from mainline (better known as Bachmann) everything else is Hornby as the track and almost all rolling stock was Hornby too

[aceman67]

Get some Warhammer and play some games on it

[Novalance]

Started working on the hillside scenics, ground scatter is down and i'll be working on the tree's and bushes today

[Bridger]

Awesome work!

[Solace]

Coming along nicely Nova! Have you thought about taking a model railway you've built to a convention or showcase them somewhere? This is really impressive work!

[Novalance]

as this is my first one I didn't even think of making it portable, perhaps when I start working on my 2nd one in a few years

[Chris Wilkinson]

That looks amazing however it's missing a classic piece of British Rail history, a class 43

[Novalance]

hah, I'm not entirely sure a HST will fit in, but if I find a cheap one I'm willing to try it. train-wise my collection is small, on the DCC line I have a Class 66 and a Class 08 (with sound!) and on the DC line I have a few steamers who's classes I'm not familiar with. ideally I want a DMU like a class 155 (from my childhood) or one of the newer Class 158's with the GWR Livery! and finally on the wishlist is a class 37 and some decent rolling stock to go with it

[Novalance]

So here's my progress report before I disappear for a week

My class 66 speeding out of the tunnel with some freight wagons


The top of the hill is mostly mapped out, I need to sort out how I'm going to do the road, war memorial roundabout and paving

[Stormy]

Awesome photos! I have always wanted to get into that hobby but just do not have the space.

[Keenan]

Very nice work so far Nova! I do not have the space either for such a project, though my boss is a huge railway enthusiast.
As an excuse to his wife, he buys a lot of the components and sells them in the stores.

[Novalance]

not done a lot recently but I attended an Exhibition yesterday and I bagged myself this beautiful bargain! Its been a must have for me since I started up this hobby again.