Warning: Boys at work

We thought it was about time you saw some of the process that goes into making the layouts. This sequence of photos is Isaac and his brother working out a new layout. It turned out to be one of the most ambitious layouts they have created to date.

What made it particularly interesting was that part of the way through Isaac ran out of some small but essential pieces and had to work out how to free them from where they were in the track so that he could use them else where.

These first three pictures show the initial stages of the layout. First, what will become the centre track is laid. The lift bridge and engine shed are good points of reference for later photos. The second photo shows this track has a Y junction at the other end which leads round to the turntable. In photo three the track is extended right the way back down to cross over the lift bridge.

In this next sequence of photos the track is extended again off the third branch of the turntable and the tunnel added, but the loop is left incomplete. Finally, the forth branch is completed which loops under the bridges that form the central track. Once this was done Isaac returned to the loop with the tunnel on it. To complete this Isaac used the two short double ended pieces.

Isaac then found he needed another double ended piece to complete the main loop. After a little while he figured out he could free both of the pieces by turning the turn table round by 90 degrees. It did mean having to redo the loop which went under the bridges. If you look carefully at the two similar photos to the right you can see the changes that were made. The loop joining the lifting bridge and the other end of the Y junction was completed, including the doubled ended piece.

The final elements was a passing loop that was added to the last straight and a short curving siding. It needs top be noted that Isaac's brother was definitely a co-creator of this layout and the boys cooperated beautifully to create a really pleasing layout.

Tracing my fingers round the track, as I do, I could see it had lots of possibilities in terms of routes and direction and it kept the boys busy for a long tie as they explored the options.

Sidings with a twist

 It's been a while since Isaac created a layout. This is the first one he did after a couple of weeks rest. It appears to be a layout that demonstrates his repertoire of sidings to the world, a little like one of those cabinet maker's apprentice pieces. As is fairly obvious from the photo that Isaac had to work this layout around a fairly busy room and he even incorporated the leg of the coffee table into the layout.

The layout consists of five sidings. Two finish at the repair shed and engine shed respectively. The other three are straight sidings for a single train.

The first of these is the wonderfully twisted one at the bottom of the layout. It does a full 180 degree turn before reaching the buffers. When I first came in and saw the layout it was this one that caught my eye as it was so prominent.

However the final pair of sidings are the ones that I eventually found most pleasing. I love the longer siding with it's double approach to it. It's wonderfully extravagant and a little overboard. What is so fun thought is the small siding that then pierces one of these branches like a thread though the eye of a needle.

If I was after a someone who knew about making sidings I would definitely consider this apprentice.

Invalidated by an invalid

Invalid

1: to remove from or classify as not able to perform active service
2: an infirm or sickly person.

Today's layout is quite straightforward. This might reflect the fact that Isaac was suffering from a stinking cold. He built a loop using the viaduct and then put in the points which split off into two branches, one to the engine shed and the other to the repair shed.

After a few minutes later he removed the repair shed and placed a simple siding in the layout instead. The two lines out of the repair shed seem to indicate there might have been an intention to reincorporate it back into the main track, but this never happened.

It reminded me of what happens with real life railways, where a piece of infrastructure no longer serves a purpose and rather than being erased it is just left to slowly decay in sight of the working railway. I often wonder about this when I view it from a train. Was there an intention of returning to it some day, but  no one ever got round to it?

A break through

I have mentioned in previous posts that some times the levels of cooperation in building railways between Isaac and his brother can be fairly tense. Isaac does tend to dominate his brother when it comes to deciding the layout. This track started out that way and then something changed.

Isaac stated off with a simple loop with a viaduct in it. His brother wanted to help, but Isaac was having none of it and in the end consented to let his brother have a few pieces to build a separate track. 

After a few minutes of solitary building the two brothers suddenly decided to join their loops up. It the top photo Isaac's original loop is on the left and his brothers on the right. 

Once this had been done Isaac suggested the linking track through the viaduct. Finally the turntable and sidings were added. The rest of the afternoon was fairly peaceful with a good deal of cooperation, listening and respect for ideas.

The track itself works really well with lots of opportunities to reverse the train's direction and vary the route. I always mentally play out the possibilities in my mind and find it quite pleasing when there are lots of choices. Maybe that says something about me.

Noughts and crosses

Isn't always the way? Yesterday I decided to post a layout that I normally wouldn't have shared, just to let everyone know we hadn't fallen off the edge of the world and then today I come home to a new layout!

Isaac is maintaining the simplicity theme. In fact today's track seems to be all about places where rolling stock and engines can be stored rather than any sort of journey they could make. The one circuit is completely inaccessible to any of the trains using the main track.

The forest on the plinth is back and there are three buildings as well. The combination of repair shed, tunnel and level crossing in close proximity is intriguing.

At the other end of the line is a rare example of the turntable being used to access sidings rather than a a replacement for the cross over. 

For such a small layout there was a lot of rolling stock, but only one engine. But whatever it's quirks it's nice to have Isaac building again.

The bottom of the box

 It was going to happen one day and today was that day. Every single piece of track was used. The evolution of this track was a fascinating journey.

Originally Isaac put together a figure of eight around the lifting bridge. There was a shot loop and then a broad one. The broad one had the single arch hump back bridge and the seven arch viaduct in it. There were two sets of points added so the engine shed and repair shed could be in the middle.

In the meantime Isaac's brother was creating a separate layout using a small loop, the cross over and a set of points. This was designated as mummy and daddy's track. But when play started the large layout was the chosen one.

There quickly arose a difference of opinion about which direction the trains should be travelling. At this point I was elbow deep in washing up and wasn't wanting to arbitrate. I tried the wisdom of Solomon tack and said if they couldn't agree the track would go away. But this just resulted in two wailing boys.

Then Isaac had an idea that he would build a second loop so that the trains would not run into each other. This seemed acceptable to all parties so I returned to the kitchen sink. To be honest I thought Isaac was just going to create a short passing loop. I knew something more was going on when a few minutes later Isaac said he didn't have enough straight pieces. I suggested using the red suspension bridge. I came in a little later to find the inner and outer loops that shared just one straight.

I loved it. It was well thought out and executed. I particularly liked the use of the two short Y points as the entrance and exit to the outer loop. I also liked the way that it passed round the table leg.

After a few minutes it was decided to incorporate the small loop. Following a bit of rearranging this became a series of sidings. including some with a curiously twisting route involving crossing over itself. I did think the siding that passed under the slope of the lifting bridge wasn't going to work, but in fact there were a few wagons that fitted under there quite neatly. There was plenty of room on this layout for every train to be used.

Back where you started

Isaac and his brother worked on this a couple of days back. They seem to have gone small with the last couple f creations. One of which was just a circle, which I didn't write about or photograph as I couldn't think what I might write about it.

This layout is unusual as it doesn't have a continuous loop. You start at the engine shed and finish right back there again. The only other option is to come out and go onto a siding. One of which is tiny.

Isaac has put a passing loop in so that he and his brother could share share this compact layout.

I'm not sure who chose it, but one of them was running the battery train. However it's lack of cornering meant it couldn't complete the last twisty section. Also the little black engine 'old puffer pete' was chosen. The choice of these two locomotives leads me to conclude some sort of Chuggington based adventure was being acted out.

Good train and goods yards

Isaac's latest track was a bit of challenge to fit into one photo as it stretches right across the living room. There are two ends joined by an isthmus of track containing a couple of bridges. Interestingly the viaduct didn't make an appearance today.

Looking at the layout one end of it has certainly received more thought than the other. As I have said before Isaac is not keen on loops that once on have no exit except by reversing. But he seems to have been content to allow one to pass here. The building in the loop is a knight's castle and dragon. At the other end is a spectacular tour de force of sidings, Isaac, assisted by mummy, creating a goods yard and this was for one reason.

For the sharp eyed regular readers you may have noticed a new train. Isaac got a supplies train today in the post and both he and his brother were very excited by this. It's certainly well made and each element has something extra. Two of the trucks can be tipped and unloaded, a third rotates and the engine has a bogie. It had a nice weight to it as well. I can see that this will be coming out quite often.

It's intriguing that today's new arrival has reversed the normal cycle of Isaac's building. Often, he'll spend hours putting together a layout and then only playing in short bursts. It's like the construction is more fun than the play. But here it feels like the layout was rushed so that Isaac would have something to play with his new train on.

If you go down to the woods today

 Isaac and his brother co-created today's layout. It started with a fairly basic loop around the seven arched viaduct (this is definitely the most popular track piece at the moment). I thought we were going to get another simple layout and then at the last piece Isaac put in the points.

Even at this stage I thought it would just be a siding and I suppose looking at it in it's purest form that's just what it is. But, oh what a siding.

The loop back followed by the hump back bridge was the clue something bigger was planned. The next set of points allow it split into two branches. One for the engine shed and one for the repair shed. Interestingly to reach the engine shed you have to cross the points and then double back. Given that there is a lot of Y points available I'm not sure why this configuration was chosen. The turntable was added to give access to rolling-stock stock sidings.

I have to say I zoned out a little on what was going on at this point. I came back into a heated debate about the height of a 'cave'. Isaac was building a small tower near the viaduct. His brother was of the opinion that it shouldn't be that high. Eventually gravity won due to a carpet not being the best foundation for a tower. This borne out by the fact that not one major skyscraper in the last 75 years has been built on a foundation of either loop or shag pile. So Isaac's brother won the argument and the cave was dully built as low rise and occupied by a black bear. I have a feeling the wooden shape was supposed to be a sheep, but it is rather bear like.

Finally with some left over pieces Isaac and his brother constructed a small loop and siding that were completely detached form the rest of the layout. It's the thing that looks like a speech bubble. This is mummy and daddy's track. Presumably to keep us out of harms way in case we want to play trains too.

Conform or innovate

Isaac is still working round the battery train issues and while he's doing this he is building quite simple layouts. This one was a loop with three sidings. One for the repair shed, one for the engine shed and a siding for rolling stock.

He added a further siding to accommodate the battery train as it wouldn't fit the engine shed. I did like the way that the final siding looped under the viaduct. I think Isaac is enjoying the new viaduct for the options it gives him in terms of which arch to use.

This layout survived for a couple of days. But he dismantled it this morning and called for me to see what he'd built in its place. For the first time he had ventured out of the living room with a track. There was a long liner track that went from the living room, through the kitchen and was on it's way to the dining area. He was very pleased with this development. Sadly the practicalities of having a track the follows one of the main walk ways in the house was soon apparent and it became a bit of five minute flash in the pan. Hence why there are no photos.

Looking at the latter layout I wonder if Isaac was trying to work out how to have an innovative layout that had very few curves and sidings.

Simple and ordered, but is that good?

Isaac's  new track is a departure from his normal abandon in joining up pieces until he gets a layout he likes. By his standards it is quiet stayed. It's a classic case of having to adapt his style to accommodate a new element. That element being a battery operated train. There was a false start on this development as Isaac and his brother got one of these trains for Christmas, but it died only a couple of days later. The sounds all worked, but the motor didn't. We thought it was the batteries and tried replacing them, but the problem was still there. This is the second attempt a electrification, which came out of Isaac's brother's birthday.

Being relatively new to the world of wooden railways I thought I'd do a little research and found that opinion is sharply divided over these electric trains. On one hand is the school of thought that goes toys are becoming more hi-tech and to keep children's interest and secure a future of wooden railways it needs to adapt. The other  says  that the purpose of wooden trains is develop manual dexterity in children by pushing the trains around and this doesn't happen when the train is self propelled.

Having watched Isaac adapting to the electric train I have some thoughts. Isaac had to simplify his layout because the train dis not work well on tight or twisting curves. Often it became jammed and sometimes fell off the track. Points were a real issue and had to be set against the run of the trains as it would randomly choose its direction. Often the the locomotive would choose a different direction to the carriage at points. The train is also heavy because of the batteries and motor and it struggled up slid down inclines. And talking of batteries a complete change will set us back £11.27 (a major brand from a well known supermarket).

I have to say I'm coming down on the side of the traditionalists on this one. Any advance that forces out the creativity of a child is probably not an advance at all. I sound very ungrateful here to the enormous generosity of the gift giver and that's not my intention, if I had to be cross with anyone it would be the manufacturers for selling out on the great core proposition that wooden railways are. If you have any thoughts on this I'd love to hear them in the comments.

Having had my say I'll get back to the track.  I's a pretty straight forward circuit with three branches. A siding for rolling stock, the engine shed and repair shed. The repair shed was an after thought, mainly because the new train won't fit in the engine shed, and Isaac neatly added it into the track with a deft shoulder in the loop. The figures lined up in two neat rows are school children waiting to board the trains with their teacher at the front. Isaac clearly has little experience with ordering school children going on a excursion! Though close inspection of the pupils does reveal some who are already holding down employment and others who are of a pensionable age.

Giving it all we've got (almost)

It's nice to be right once and a while. The New Heights track did remain up overnight and Isaac busied himself extending it in the morning.

He started by putting in the lifting bridge and this set the direction of the build. The suspension bridge was added to make it over the other side of the loop. To start the the new loop Isaac extended out the siding that had the repair shed on it. I was expecting that he'd aim to join the other side of the loop back on somewhere near the tunnel. making a layout of twin loops with a share track on one side.

But Isaac had other ideas and put the siding in on the loop that went under the new viaduct. At the same time he put the turntable back in and added a couple of sidings for rolling stock to be kept. This is one of those rare occasions where the turntable is used in more conventional way. The sidings and position of the new points led to a lack of straights to complete the layout. Rather than compromising the plan Isaac turned to me for help. I suggested using his hump back bridge and level crossing on one of the original loops to free up some of the straights.

Once all this had been done there were very few pieces left in the track boxes. I suppose with some more planning even they could have been integrated.

I have to say the layout is a really pleasing one if you're looking for a long journey on a train before getting back to where you started from. It is possible to do a route that involves a circuit of all three circuits before you get back to square one.

As an aside, Isaac and I worked out a solution to one of those problems that had been vexing him for a sometime. Namely the issue that the red suspension bridge did not have enough clearance for his Thomas trains. The solution was two piece of Lego under the towers raising it by just enough so Thomas could pass by smoothly.

New heights

Isaac's brother had a birthday and got a present of a viaduct and some points from his great aunt and uncle. Apparently the idea for what to get him partly came through viewing this blog and seeing some of the layouts.

Whilst his brother was distracted with cake and other presents Isaac set to work creating this layout. The centre piece was definitely the viaduct with the points added at either end. The engine shed and repair shed were added as destinations for one side of each of the points and then the others were joined in a simple loop.

About half an hour later Isaac felt that the viaduct was serving little purpose so he added a second loop that went under the arches. It took a couple of attempts to get this right as the placement of the points and the subsequent curves within the tight confines of the first loop were difficult to negotiate. One of the arches formed a tight squeeze for the engine and its carriage. As it passed through it reminded me of the clearance on the tunnel on the old Crab and Winkle line in Whitstable.

By the end of the afternoon's play it was clear that each of the arches had a dedicated purpose. The other one being for people, the tall middle on of buses and lorries, while the remaining two (other than those for rail traffic) were for cars.

The layout is still up as I write and I'm expecting some development of it for tomorrow. I'm secretly hoping all the bridges might come out because I think that could lead to a visually stunning layout.

Criss cross and car parks

I came in from work to be presented with this thrilling layout. Why run parallel lines when you can have a weaving layout. I wouldn't like to be the signal operator in charge of this route or on either the up train or the down train when they had to pass.

Isaac's brother was having a car day and it was nice to see that they had decided to cooperate with their games. Isaac had built his brother access to a car park. Where presumably passengers could catch a train from the nearby station (the green building blocks).

I'm not sure the destination of the engine shed might be what the passengers had in mind, but following any journey on this line you will end up there.

The layout stayed up overnight and Isaac modified it the next morning, but sadly it didn't stay up long enough to be photographed. In essence Isaac wanted to extend the layout and go under the bridge, but he'd run out of points. So he removed the points at the head of the small siding inside the end circuit and added them into the layout near the Y points by the bridge. This then looped all the way back, under the bridge, to the points near the level crossing. The remaining points, by the car park, then became the siding. As well as extending the track it gave the trains a route that didn't always end at the shed. A bonus in my books.

A little experimentation

I'm spectacularly behind on my posts at the moment. I have about four to get up and each day a new layout appears. I wondered if I would even put up this one as it wasn't really a full layout. I think Isaac was experimenting with some of his new track and buildings and just trying some ideas. It's interesting seeing some of things he did in this track come to fruition in some of the layouts that I'll post in the coming days.

The reason I think of this as experimental is that Isaac didn't complete the layout, which is really unusual for him. Normally to leave bridge with no down ramp would cause him some concern and he wouldn't play with the track until it was complete. Also it is quite a simple layout with no loops in it at all. It's really about getting trains on a liner track from A to B, then B to C, C to D etc...

Loops and bridges

I always said to myself that this blog would only be written when Isaac created. For a few days Isaac has been content to play with other toys and leave his track packed away. But my patience was rewarded by this fabulous creation.

Isaac started off with the turntable and the repair shed. He then built the loop that ran straight out from the repair shed looped back on itself through the tunnel and over the two bridges ending in the engine shed. Even Isaac commented this was a long way for a sleep. He then realised the other axis of the turntable had no track an built a straight line out of either side. The need to join these up resulted in the rather wonderful and compact lines at the centre of this layout.

This is the first time the lifting bridge has been used for a while. That is mainly because it has been in for repairs for the umpteenth time. It relies on two small pieces of hardboard to support the slopped tracks where the connect with the bridge. The hardboard seems to break off rather easily necessitating a dab of glue. The bridge had just come back, however close inspection will show a block being used to support one slope because yet again the hardboard broke. Some times Bigjigs quality is let down by little material weaknesses such as this or the crossing gates that sheer off with use.

I digress, back to the layout. Meanwhile Isaac's brother had been playing with a few pieces making sidings. There was a little collaboration and this became a completely separate loop. Finally it was decided to join the two tracks. Though the two tracks don't allow trains to move between them I think the intricacy of the way they weave in and put of each other quite brilliant. The remaining track was then used for a couple of sidings.

There is something very satisfying about this layout that I can't quite pin down.

Together everyone achieves more

The experimentation with the new pieces to the layout continues. Today Isaac and his brother cooperated very well and came up with a different way of using the track. They started by building a small layout that incorporated the engine shed, turntable, tunnel and repair shed. It was noticeable that the distance between these elements started to widen. Also there are no sidings. As I mentioned in the last post the engine shed is seen as a superior siding and the repair shed seems to occupy the same category. The turntable is still a track switching device though.

Once this was done Isaac's younger brother then busied himself with a second layout. It wasn't for himself, but for mummy. After trying for several minutes he called on mummy to help to complete the curves. It takes the form of a simple figure of eight which ingeniously uses the two small points as the crossover rather than the crossover piece or a bridge. I'm starting to wonder whether I will need to rename the blog at the rate Isaac's brother is catching up.

To complete the work there's third layout, consisting of just a small straight which is stand alone. This is daddy's track. And despite the fact that I have the shortest track I am afforded the longest train. I have seen small side layouts before, but this was the first time that there have been three. 

I am beginning to think we need more track and points in particular. Isaac's layouts, with the help of his brother, are starting to reach a level of complexity where there are not enough ways to join  up the loops and branches. 

Any ideas where I can lay my hands on cheap track, preferably free?