Well, I have completed another one of my T Gauge 6-foot layouts. This is just a basic watch-the-trains-go-by style of layout, and is designed to be the looks-after-itself member of any pair I take to exhibitions. It is in 1:480 scale and uses my usual linear motor drive for the trains. Everything is 3D printed in ABS on a basic FDM printer, except for the trees and some etched brass odds and ends. Malmsbury is a minor station about 60 miles north of Melbourne, Australia, and has some local fame due to the nearby stone viaduct. The line was built in the 1860s and is the only Australian country line built to British mainline standards. The local politicians had collective heart failure when presented with the final bill, and all later lines were built on the cheap. The model is set around 1960 at the end of steam, but a couple of the trains are from earlier or later.
Wow... that's absolutely, astonishingly beautiful! The amount of detail - at that scale - is amazing. The scenery is perfect, and combined with your backdrop, sometimes one almost sees an aerial view of the real deal. The trains are also fantastic, well-detailed, and on the linear motor system the slow-speed performance is incredibly smooth. This is a seriously well executed layout. I am impressed. Bravo, sir!
Thank you muchly. It is now the 5th linear motor layout I have built (with #4 still only half-done and not counting numerous test tracks), plus there were a number of N and one conventional T before that, so I have had the opportunity to gradually improve and refine my techniques. While the linear motor drive does have drawbacks, it solves so many of conventional T's problems (and larger scales' too) that I have changed over completely and not looking back! Funny you should mention an aerial view... That viaduct is a very popular spot for drone enthusiasts, and there are some nice high-def videos on YouTube. I was able to harvest some of them for the backdrop images, and even used one of them as the primary reference image for building that end of the layout. Alas, none of them bothered to do the same in the station area, so the backscene at that end is a bit more imaginative. One of the other advantages of working in such a small scale is the ability to have a much lower track-to-scenery ratio, which opens up a world of possibilities in and of itself.
I didn't intend to do any more videos of this layout, but when cleaning up found that I had quite a few pictures taken during design and construction, so I cobbled together a little presentation...
Not surprisingly, it took a few iterations to get the designs to that point. I tried to make it all as general-purpose as possible, so up to three relay boards can be daisy-chained off the controller, enough for 4-5 turnouts and associated sidings and stop sections. They are basically just plug boards, so the layout wiring design amounts to what plugs in where. A more recent version takes things a step further, with a more powerful CPU with separate motor control boards for cab control and the ability to drive multiple daisy chains of relay boards. My still-not-finished model of Penzance (UK) is a bit more elaborate:
