Hi,
As I'm going through a mid-life crisis, I've decided to have a crack at setting up a track layout. Last time I had a train set, I was still in single figures of age. i'm not new to models though, as I have a recent interest in Scalextric, and plastic model kits.
Anyway, my enthusiasm has been fired up by a recent interest in the real stuff, and I have very mischievous idle hands.
I had a look for a bargain startup set, and settled for the current offerings for the Hornby Caledonian set. Comes with the starter oval, as well as track packs A, B and C, and some buildings too. I basically chose this as it gave a lot of track for the money.
I plan to mount this on a permanent layout in a second shed I have, giving enough room for the Track Mat that came with it. I'm initially going to start off working to the Track Mat layout, concentrating on modelling detail, rather than worrying about the layout problems. Any tips for the Track Mat - I'm a bit wary of their advice to use PVa glue.
I've also found Pack D on eBay, so almost have the full layout to work with, as well as a couple of extra carriages, and an old Princess Elizabeth 4-6-2 loco. I also got a few odd bits of trackside odds and ends too.
So, I have a reasonable start kit. I have yet to build the board - shouldn't take long, I expect to have that done over the next week. As I'm building it, I'm also thinking of points controls. Now I'm quite happy to keep things 'looking' more realistic, and I like the appearance of the manual points switches, that emulate the original levers. Any pointers (sorry) for those?
The old Princess loco I have coming is likely to be a bit tatty looking, and if it is a Princess Elizabeth, it appears to be the wrong colour too (it's green). It looks like it should be LMS Crimson, so I plan to strip this down and repaint it. The painting I'm OK with and I have a load of Tamyia acrylics already, if I can find a near match, are these Ok to use?
Lastly, I'd like to redo the livery on the loco too, but I'd need to get decals, I'm not quite up to signwriting at that scale :-). Any idea where I can get these, if at all possible.
Cheers.