My 3 level railway - Japanese N gauge, British OO, and Lego

[drt7uk]

Hi folks, I've spent about 4 months building a 3 level layout for my British OO, Japanese N and Lego and it's finally finished*. Hope you like the video.

 

https://youtu.be/Nr3axLF001Q

 

Feel like I have an encyclopedic knowledge of how to build a layout in a shed now, from insulation to wiring etc to the removeable bridge for the door, so if anyone has any questions happy to advise. Bridge has copper strips underneath to keep the connection, and is lifted up to leave the room, with a section of the scenery swinging open. Need to step over the Japanese one to leave which is a bit tricky but there's a handlebar on the outside to help. None of it is digital - Gaugemaster and Kato controllers respectively but with the Hornby HMDC app to control the two branch lines. Lego is battery powered, remote control. Shed is well insulated, have a heater and a dehumidifier in there. Layout is 6m x 2.5m so plenty of space for nice long platforms!

 

*Lots of little details to add to the British one from signals to passenger bridges to station names etc but the laborious work is finally over, now on to the fun stuff: running trains and adding little details. Going to landscape the temple area with static grass, paths and lakes too.

[cteno4]

Very cool! Love the layers each at the appropriate level. Will enjoy seeing the evolution of the layouts!

 

hope you put a kill switch into the drawbridge! A long time back I was talking to someone at the local nTrak club at a show about club layouts and he related the story about the first club he was in they built a drawbridge for folks to get in and out of the operations pit and they didn’t put a kill switch into the drawbridge with members saying of course they wouldn’t open it with a train coming. Within the first month someone did and good adams family train wreck onto the floor! 
 

Our last club layout had a very big yard off one end for full length shinkansens. It was all Kato power routing controlled thru the points. We sort of thought of doing a dead man’s switch for the yard just in case someone accidentally changed a point and powered up a yard track with a train parked on it and it could run a train off the end, over the bumper and onto the floor or run a train onto the mainline. But nah we wouldn’t be that stupid. Well about 3 years in it happened and like 10 cars onto the floor. It’s bad as once it starts happening folks lock up in panic! Then we just put a recessed push button deadman’s switch you had to push to get power to the yard so anything going wrong easy reaction to just pull your finger off the button! 
 

cheers
 

jeff

[drt7uk]

Good point on the kill switch, will look into it. As it happens I've had one near miss...the diesel hanged over the edge like the end scene of The Italian Job. A lucky escape!

[Das Steinkopf]

 I could have found myself in a similar situation but decided to fully immerse myself back into the Darkside and sold off my extensive LEGO train collection, I had built up a fictitious railway called the Legodtenstein Bundes Bahn (LBB) and was looking at building a permanent layout, after visiting Japan in 2015 I got into Japanese N scale and rekindled my romance with my OO Scale GWR collection, selling my LEGO has provided me with ample funding for my model rail collections. I will say I do like the LEGO 9v era trains as I believe it was the best system LEGO ever brought out, I used 9v motors and track for my former collection as I was not a fan of IR or PF which I had a train set of each to test out the systems, the 4551 and 4563 sets you have are two of the best sets LEGO ever made.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Das Steinkopf

[drt7uk]

Wow that's a great collection! Great custom builds too. Yeah I love my Lego, wish I had a Metroliner too but not willing to spend the money needed to get one in eBay. Have also got a Kazi 8 car model of the CRH Fuxing Golden Phoenix bullet train (in a siding under the N gauge). I prefer 9v but converted to battery remote control because that's what the Fuxing was and it was cheaper track wise. Have kept the motors and controller though.

 

Hoping they'll bring out the Fuxing Golden Phoenix in N gauge sometime...keeping an eye on what Kunter do given their recent releases

[disturbman]

2 hours ago, drt7uk said:

Hoping they'll bring out the Fuxing Golden Phoenix in N gauge sometime...keeping an eye on what Kunter do given their recent releases

Look toward Charming, they are working on it: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.5-c-s.w4002-3296285912.33.34815d83l7HowT&id=654946893698. Release date is unknown at the moment.

[MeTheSwede]

3 hours ago, drt7uk said:

 Yeah I love my Lego, wish I had a Metroliner too but not willing to spend the money needed to get one in eBay.

 

 

Awww... the metroliner! That's nostalgia. I see it's been 21 years since I bought it. Nowadays it spends it's time somewhere among my very many boxes of lego in the cellar.

 

Thanks for showing your triple layout.

 

[drt7uk]

48 minutes ago, disturbman said:

Look toward Charming, they are working on it: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.5-c-s.w4002-3296285912.33.34815d83l7HowT&id=654946893698. Release date is unknown at the moment.

Thanks very much! Do you mind sharing a screenshot please? I can't get this link to work

 

[disturbman]

Nothing has been announced officially, only pages posted on their TaoBao shop. Though iirc we saw a couple of pre-production pictures of CR400 cars. You'll need to register on TB to see the link.

 

 

Edit: the image is a screenshot of Charming's N gauge page. It shows some of their "ongoing" projects.

Edited December 27, 2021 by disturbman

[drt7uk]

Exciting! Thanks for sharing that, will register with that site. Have also got a friend in Chengdu who is going to keep an eye on it for me! Will let you know if I hear anything, and perhaps start a new thread

[drt7uk]

7 hours ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

 

Awww... the metroliner! That's nostalgia. I see it's been 21 years since I bought it. Nowadays it spends it's time somewhere among my very many boxes of lego in the cellar.

 

Thanks for showing your triple layout.

 

You're welcome. You should definitely dig out your Metroliner!

[disturbman]

10 hours ago, drt7uk said:

Will let you know if I hear anything, and perhaps start a new thread

Thanks. Charming mostly communicates via its official WeChat channel and its designers use a dedicated N gauge group chat to leak pre-production pictures. We collect information and post it a thread on the Worldwide Model subforum, https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/13736-people’s-republic-of-china-n-scale-trains/. You can always keep an eye there too.

 

Charming usually announces product releases a few days ahead. Release always happen on Fridays at 8pm Beijing time. This week they are releasing their HO DF7G.