A simple interlude

It's been a but quiet on he railway front for quite a number of days. I have been expecting normal service to resume shortly, but as yet nothing.

This layout was done a few days ago and was so simple I half decided not to post it. But given the length of time since my last post I decided I would add it.

I had wondered what would happen if Isaac didn't build a railway for a while. There is never any coercion in making him get the tracks out and create a layout. I always said what ever happens that he had to be spontaneous in his building.

I suppose that's always the dilemma in writing about something that is not really in your control. I do anticipate coming home to a layout each night and when I don't I have to accept that's the way it is. My disappointment is not too great as Isaac and his brother have usually used their creative skills in some other venture. Recent achievements have included building a castle form boxes and toilet rolls, learning to colour within the lines and building a fantastic house form building blocks.

So, back to the layout: This is a really simple track which just allows a train to leave the repair shed, go through the tunnel over the bridge loop round and return. There's not much more to it than that. There is the separate circle, which I believe was mummy's track.

Until next time keep watching this space! Thanks.

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.

Please could you elaborate

After yesterday's issues with non cooperation Isaac and his brother seem to have patched up their artistic differences. Isaac started by building a fairly compact layout with loops that interconnected through the turntable.

What was particularly intriguing was that he was experimenting with the Y points again. Instead of directly running them into the repair shed he used it to provide one route into the shed and the other branch to be  a continuation of one of his loops. To reach the other bay of the repair shed he created a separate line in.

The engine shed was used in a more conventional manner apart from the bridge that needed to be negotiated to get in.

This layout persisted for an hour or two until Isaac's brother wanted to play as well. With a bit of negotiating a new loop was added for Isaac's brother. As the turntable was deemed the best way of accessing this new loop Isaac placed the cross over piece in his side of the layout. This meant that Isaac had an interesting arrangement where a train starting from bay 2 of the repair yard would follow the route round that either led it to bay 1 or all the way back to bay 2.

Another thing I asked Isaac about was why his tunnel was blocked up later in the day. He explained that the steam trains had got it dirty so his men has washed it down and now they were waiting for it to dry before trains could pass through again.

Go your own way

Isaac doesn't have the monopoly on the track ownership. Many of the elements belong equally to his brother. When they choose to play with railway at the same time they mostly muddle their way through and create a joint layout. Occasionally artistic differences get the better of them. This usually results in a spectacular falling out and they decide to work separately.

In this case Isaac's layout is on the left and his brother's on the right. The lifting bridge is back in favour as I finally found a way of fixing the issue with the hardboard support breaking off: I glued the ramp directly to the bridge. Isaac's layout it quite simple and I think this reflects the fact that to get the tunnel, buffer and bridge he let his brother have the lion's share of the track in exchange

His brother's track is interesting because it contains two loops that you can get on, but not off (unless you reverse). Isaac doesn't really like this kind of thing and so would normally work to make sure that loops have an exit and entrance.

What is also noticeable is that neither of them choose to use the engine shed or repair shed, which have become part of most layouts since Christmas. I'm not sure why, maybe the high emotions meant they decided not to escalate matters by bringing more coveted items into play.

Christmas comes but once a year

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. As would be expected, Christmas 2011 gave Isaac and his brother have had some additions to their railway set. An engine shed, turntable and tunnel on Christmas day and a workshop and new train on boxing day. Today's post is the layout Isaac put together on Boxing Day morning, before he got the presents for that day.

It started, of course, with the new additions to the set. The engine shed was felt to be a superior siding, but later another one was added for the train with the black engine, Isaac and his brother call this train Old Puffer Pete. For those of you familiar with Chuggington you'll understand. The turntable and tunnel were added in quick succession and then the serious layout building began.

Isaac started off with the two interconnecting loops. It was quite a nice arrangement that allowed the trains to come out of the engine shed and enter the first loop straight ahead. This loop then swung round and the trains crossed the turntable from another direction. They then proceeded round the broader loop and crossed the turntable third time and ended up back at the engine shed. It was all very neat, but also said something about the way the turntable was viewed. Rather than a device to turn locomotives and roiling stock round it was used much more a method of switching the direction of the track.

Isaac quickly realised that this layout out some limitations. The main one being he and his brother were often in conflict about the direction of the turn table. He then proceeded to build a third loop which became a wonderfully complex arrangement with a siding, crossover and bridge. This extra track solved most of the conflict, or at least spaced them out.

I'm sure over the coming days even more interesting layouts will be devised. Especially as the possibilties of the new track and buildings are realised.

Taking the scenic route to bed

Isaac's take on sidings is that they are somewhere for trains to sleep. For Isaac's trains, as for many of us I suspect, there must be days when sleep would be very welcome, but there's a lot of ground to cover before we get there. Today's track was a case in point.

Isaac started off by building the two loops that shared the hump backed bridge in the middle. This amused him for a while before he realised to his horror that there were NO sidings. He quickly added two short sidings. And that would have probably been that normally, but today Isaac was a 4 year old on a mission and that mission was to use as much track as he could. He wanted to extend one of the the sidings to make a third loop and was dismayed to discover he had no more points in the box.

I thought he might dismantle the second siding and do without any, but this would be like having a house with no bedrooms in Isaac's world. So he dug out his crossover and placed it in one of the loops and then proceeded to join the two sections of track up. If it had been me I would have taken the shortest route, but it became clear that this was going to be a very long way to the buffers for Isaac's trains. My sympathy went out to the drivers of the trains, who, at the end of a tiring day, would pass tantalisingly close to their final destination only to realise there was a long detour to make before the came right back to where they started.

After building this track Isaac spent the rest of the day trying out various constructions with his wooden bricks. I have added a close up of his tunnel. He's been attempting to build one of these for a while, but has been thwarted by the soft foundations of the carpet. He resolved this today by using his level crossing, which worked brilliantly.

One small foot note, Daddy finally got a look in as well. No siding for me, but Isaac had a few bits of track left over so I gout a very little circuit all to myself. No photos I'm afraid, but I do feel that I have arrived.