Brian’s been in touch with his HO tracks progress:

“Hi Alastair, I have finally completed all the track work on my layout, the last bit was the final leg on the bottom level of the “U” shape.

All the track, points and switch machines are working perfectly.

A very good friend (a British, an ‘O’ scale modeller who is also retired and lives in the same complex) got me motivated again and helped with me a great deal in all of the above.

Below, the track laid out making sure that the clearances worked out before fixing it in place.

Track leading to the yards and the engine facilities.

Making sure that the buildings fitted in the space allowed at the Pelican Bay dockside.

Another view showing the Pelican Bay area and buildings.

Closeup view of some of the soon to be built kits. Background buildings not complete.

The yards and engine terminal at the end of the bottom level.

The track work here did not go according to plan. Only after the track was fixed in place and I put the car repair shop in place, I discovered that there was not enough space next to it for a locomotive to pass it on the way to the turntable. “OOPS”

So after some serious thought on how to correct this, I had some spare pieces of track and laid it out as shown below. This will work I thought. Rip out the old piece and replace it with a new length of flex track. Problem solved.

Now to continue filling all the gaps under the track with sleepers.

While working on the track work in this area, we snapped some of the hand held controller mounting brackets as shown below. They were very flimsy at best.

A very good friend who happened to have a 3D printer said no problem, he will print a few new ones for me.
One of the 3D printed ones below.

Here it is shown mounted on the facia with one of my controllers.

One of the other controllers shown here.

The first scene below is an overall view of the new section with the track work. All HOn3.

The second scene is of a K27 2-8-2 narrow gauge locomotive running on the new section.

That’s all for now and need to get building and get the ground cover done.

Once again, Alastair keep up the excellent job you are doing for all us modellers around the world.

Brian – the HOn3 guy in Knysna RSA”

A big thanks to Brian for sharing his HO tracks progress.

You can see more of brian in the Hall of Fame.

That’s all for this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the big day when you spring into action, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.