Novemebr 19th 2011
The track bed has just about been completed. Plastazote has been applied to all track areas bar the siding off the southbound platform. The track bed has begun to be manufactured for the siding and will be completed this week.
Track continues to be laid in various parts of the layout.
Some track lengths have had droppers soldered to them in the middle of the length under the rails. These have been done by John P and Paul and they good strong joints. One piece of track has been laid like this and the effect is very good, no visible solder jolints. We have taken the decision to solder every separate piece of track which might be over engineering the wiring but we feel that its very much a belt and braces approach.

Point motors
We have debated the issue of how to power the points. We have decided that we are going to experiement using the Merg quad board and servos. We think rteliability will be very good with these, and the price is comparable to seep motors and cheaper than peco. All for the future.

Scenery
Will probably be formed using foam board since we will probably have a cheap (free) supply of this.

We began track laying today. We've put in the cross over junction at the north end low level, ready for the low vel lines later. The connecting fiddle yard line will be soon attached but Dave has been putting in the lines on the ramps on either side of board ten. We will hopefully join these up the the cross over junction and then we will finish off the rest of the track bed on the upper/main line section, hopefully next week.
Paul has been working on the track bed at the south end of the layout creating the ramps at the south end. Most of the track bed is just about complete and should hopefully be finished in the next couple of weeks.
We will start soldering droppers to the tracks on Tuesday. This will be done by soldering to the bottom of the rails on each section of track so that if we do get dry joints between fish plates then each piece will be fed anyway. droppers will be soldered before the track is laid, that way we hope to hide all feeds. Dave has been experiemneting just using code 55 sleepers as the actual track joiners.

A couple more photos to show progress on the track bed.
Hopefully a couple more later.

Some extra photos added 25th Oct. Also phot close up of plastazote. This material is 2mm thick and is being used as an alternative to cork for the track bed. Purchased online from Thames Valley Supplies, for about half the price of cork.

Nov 5th
Up to date, the following people working on Northallerton: Dave R, James, Michael, Roy, Paul, John P, Dave S, and me. Work continues on the construction of the track bed as can be seen in the photos. After experimentations it seems that the platazote goes down most successfully with copydex.paul managed to get hold of a gallon of the stuff, which will help for when the track goes down.

At last the boards are completed along with the legs. The total length is 7500mm x 1400 mm. Im pleased with the results. It is in the process of being painted with a stain/varnish in order to preserve and protect the timber. A belt amnd braces approach really since it is unlikely that the ply will take on moisture. Also the club room is quite dry.

Ive been up to the club today.
In total there are now six out of ten boards constructed. Ive managed to bolt three of them together. They can be seen in my album.

Im actually surprised at how big it is, the photos show only 3 tenths of the total layout

Ive also been playing with scharfenberg couplings and have converted my Northern 158. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. Took much less time than anticpated thanks to video on youtube.

These photos show the short cross members and the two long sections are the sides. There are photos of the jig made in order to make boards which are supposed to be the same every time.

Construction is of 6mm ply cut into 100mm strips by the supplier. And the 100 x 20mm softwood used as a spacer in order to make the girder like section. The jig is use the hold and place the pieces in the same place every time. They are glued using titebond and pinned with 10mm pins using a gun for speed. They are dry in about an hour if minimal glue is used.

All the pieces when complete ( 2 longs and 5 shorts) are then simply butt jointed and screwed using 50mm dry wall screws. I use a little template to locate the screws in the same place each time.

The layout itself has ten boards labelled B1 to B10 on the track plan. They are each 1500 x 70 mm They will be connected to each other using brass dowels and M8 bolts and wing nuts.

Here are some pictures of the boards being constructed.
Details to follow.

Northallerton

This is new layout project, being constructed by myself and other members of the Cleveland Model Railway Club. Some photos of the real Northallerton can be seen in my gallery folder 'new layout pics'.

The ratioanle for the layout is set out below.

As different as possible from existing club layouts/projects

N gauge; 2mm/ft

Post privatisation Modern image era (although some earlier diesels could also be run)

DCC

Prototypical length trains

'Watching the trains go by' layout

Approx 25ft x 5ft (7500mm x 1400mm, 10 boards at 1500mm x 700mm)

Oval track plan, dual fiddle yard

Min radius: 330 mm (in non viewing areas)

multi-layered open construction

Prototypical layout; based on Northallerton junction/station as it is now.