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AusPete

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Hi, I'm Pete from Australia - 64 years young. I started in model railways at the age of 6 as was an avid fan of British steam. I had quire a collection of 00 scale Hornby & Mainline equipment but in the early 2000s, I got fed up with crappy Ënglish" quality and locos falling apart after a years use.
I made the change to USA HO with some Atlas locos and Athearn freight cars and haven't looked back since.

Looking forward the forum
 
Welcome aboard Pete. Tell us a little bit more like that size of your layout, favorite RR and other stuff. Atlas engines and Athearn freight cars is a good way to start. And like Chris posted, pictures!;)
 
Greetings and Welcome.

As Willie said, we like pictures, even if you're not a master modeler. I'm nowhere near being one yet myself.
 
I'm currently in the process of rebuilding my layout following a decision to downsize a little.
Here's a few photos of the old layout which was a freelanced Union Pacific branch line layout.
The layout design was a point to loop arrangement and measured approximately 20 feet by 11 feet
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I will get some photos for the new layout that I've recently started on and upload them for you very soon
It will still be a Union Pacific branch line and it will be a point to fiddle yard arrangement.
Dimensions of the new layout are approximately 20 feet by 4 feet (at its widest point). It has a fiddle yard on the lower level that runs to a helix then up to the "sceniced" portion of the layout on top.

Many thanks to you all for the warm welcome and look forward to many posts with you all
regards
Pete
 
Here are some quick pics of the new layout so far. I haven't started any scenic works yet - making sure all the trackwork and wiring is ok first
This will be the Flour Mill and Grain Silo complex
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The track off to the right is the mainline from the helix entering the station / yard area. The town area is seen at the back and is going to be separated from the yard area by a river scene - hence the gap in between at the moment

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Here are a couple of pictures showing what will be the small yard and station area with some industries in the background that feed off the yard area

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The next couple show the small loco facility and adjoining fuel depot

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This last photo shows the lower level staging area

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The locomotive fleet now contains products from Atlas, Athearn, Walthers Proto and Kato - all are fitted with Tsunami sound decoders.
The control system is Digitrax. All turnouts have been converted back to manual operation from the previous layout - this to me helps add to the "small town" feel of the layout. The operations side of the layout is via a self-written Visual Basic program which allocates car requirements for the several industries and maintains a regular flow of locomotives through the small loco depot. The VB program provides a display of a "days"activities - each day sees a morning and afternoon commuter train - one freight arrival - one freight departure and the required switching of each arrival and departure. I run trains at as close to correct scale speed as possible and allow pauses between coupling cars up, changing direction etc and as a result - a "days"activities take mean average of around one and a half hours to two hours.

I've just completed re-doing the speed tables for all my locomotives. My Digitrax controllers show speed as a percentage from 0 to 99
I've setup the speed tables so that whatever is displayed on the controller display is exactly twice what the scale speed of the locomotive is.
As a result, all locos now have a speed range from 0 to 49.5 MPH. This makes running at correct speeds in the yard much easier
 
I have been running some final slow speed track tests on the new layout. All seems to be working beautifully.

The locomotive is an Athearn Genesis model with Tsunami decoder. It has always been one of the fussiest locomotives in my collection when it comes to sensitivity to dirty track. It does not have any keep-alive fitted and the turnouts on the layout are all Peco Code100 Insulfrog types.
The track was last cleaned approximately six weeks ago and the layout is housed in a garage which is not the greatest for keeping out unwanted dust. After watching Greg from Fishplate Films videos on cleaning track with a product called INOX, I decided to give it a go. I have never had such smooth running in 40 years of hobby. Train speeds in the video average a scale 4 mph maximum with one early section at a scale 0.5 mph and there is no power drop out at all.


Slow Speed Track Testing
 
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Finally getting around to laying some "ground cover"and ballasting some track in the main yard area
The track directly in front of the concrete driveway and the two sheds is going to be a team track
The track immediately in front of the team track with the two tank cars on it is the yard departure track.
The two tracks at the front are the arrivals track and associated run-around.

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