Shoeburyness Model Railway Club

OO Gauge - DC Operated

Description
The concept for what is called " The Wall Layout" was quite simple, to provide facilities for those members who model in OO Gauge and did not want to run on the DCC layout "Turner's Folly", the idea was muted after some discussions down the clubhouse one Monday evening, ideas were discussed and one that came out top was to mount it on the wall test track / shunting plank style, so be it, materials purchased, off we go.

Brackets
The brackets holding the layout to the wall are none other than IKEA Ekby Valter wall brackets, these were fitted to the wall using frame fixings after setting of a plumb line and level, the boards which had been made previously offsite to predetermined dimensions which matched the bracket locations <picture of underside> these were then screwed together, one thing to note is that when the boards were constructed NO glue was used, this was to allow for any expansion or contraction settling of the timber over the winter months.

Boards
Boards were constructed from 44mm x 18mm PAR Timber with 9mm plywood top, all screwed together with no glue being used to allow for thermal expansion or contraction within the clubhouse, on top of this plywood surface the tradition has been to use cork underlay, with the price of cork being so high alternatives were sort, one member suggested flooring underlay, glazed looks of confusion, this closed cell foam is a roll of underlay foam 3mm thick and a metre wide which the member brought down the club for discussion some time previous for the DCC group, the original purpose of the foam is as an underlay for Laminated floors, it is NOT the white stuff, rather the smooth grey stuff, I understand it is now supplied as a folded flat package rather than a roll.
This roll would be more than enough to do the whole layout as planned with plenty left over, in fact the DCC group used the same material, although we understand that they had to use the folded version with no ill effects either, this foam was tested with the ply, using PVA and it did stick, one massive advantage we found is that we could also remove it with no damage to the boards, allowing them to be reused, not that this is planned. So underlay down.

Lighting Canopy
Now some have said that this is a waste of money, another an "ego trip", but those building this layout totally disagree, granted it has caused a number of members to bump there heads, but it is bright blue and lit up, how they cannot see it is beyond us... Specsavers perhaps!
This canopy a first for our club was constructed from 6mm ply, suspended from a number of the same brackets used to hold the layout up, behind this facia are low wattage lights again from that swedish house furniture retailing giant IKEA Lagra, we think that they light up the working area very well.

Trackwork
Trackwork was the next big issue, much discussion was had one member wanted to hand build, others wanted Peco code 100, eventually compromise was reached Peco Code 75 was to be used, all the turnouts to be electrofrog and as big a radius as possible, in fact this had already been planned in. Track ordered from that nice model railway retail emporium in Liverpool, as they simply offered the best price...
Parcel wrapped in brown paper and secured with the famous string arrived two days later, fantastic, promptly the basic layout trackwork wise was laid out temporarily, once satisfied all fitted as planned, a start was made fixing down, now this is where thing got a little interesting, some members thought that the track was being pinned down, then PVA'd and ballasted, Oh No were not! The track was to be laid on a 3mm thick closed cell foam layer, this was glued to the board with PVA, once dried the trackwork joined and laid in place, then once checked and satisfied that the alignments were OK the outline was drawn onto the foam, laytex glue was then painted within the outlines and the track re-laid into the thin coat of glue, once dried the assembled members were astonished to see a resilient track base, the track could move a little, also the deadening effect on the rail noise was quite significant as well, the question of ballasting was raised, this will be dealt with later as the next task is the wiring. The intention is to wire up, test fully and then start on scenic developments.

Wiring
Wiring that layout has started with the point motors, traditionally the club layouts have always been fitted with seep motors, now as were are building what we describe as quality product, we have decided to try something new, the club have invested in some Circuitron Tortoise Slow-Motion Switch Machines, these are great, one member of the team building this layout has had them for years... These have been batch wired to 9pin D plugs that are all wired using the same colour code, (1) to allow quick swap out (2) to make for easier fault finding in the future should the need arise, these have been fitted to the layout using Exactoscale Tortoise bases, <picture of completed motor> these have been tested in isolation once fitted, none have failed, no buzzing of solenoid motors to be heard, just nice prototypical slow motion point blades.

Unfortunately you will not be able to see "Wall Layout" at exhibitions during the year.
The layout is a static fixed layout in the clubhouse.

The layout requirements are

Space required - 24ft x 2ft of space, operated from the front of the layout.
Operators required - The layout requires a minimum of three operators.
Power required - 2 x 13amp sockets.