Major Update!

I had almost a full weekend to only concentrate on this layout project for once and thus I could finally do many of the things I've planned to do to change the layout. I've been gathering some materials for a while and now I had all the time I needed to work on the modules and other things. 

I've been avoiding building new modules for a while now since my plans have been changing quite a bit over the last year and I want to be totally satisfied with the level of quality, functionality and realism of the current modules before I move on to new ones. This has resulted in a huge amount of work since these first modules were built at a time when I had totally different plans considering the layout, different standards that I set for myself and even less model building skills that I now have :)

Now that I'm starting to be satisfied in the current modules and can consider them 'finished', it might be time to start building something new soon!

New on the Layout

Here is a list of all the work I have done to all the four current modules. This took about 12-14 hours in total..!

Heart Cape

- Tidied the surfaces up with some water and paint

Flamewood Island

- Added a second row of Led-lighting to the roof. Now there's lights on top of both tracks and so the light spreads evenly on the station. I previously thought of just going with the original one row but wasn't satisfied with the lighting. The station originally had just one row because only half of the roof was modelled. The stations now have full roofs with a hinge-system for access purposes so I now have to also model all the lighting.

Hedgehog Avenue

Then...

- New trees have been placed around the module for a more varied scenery.

- The module has been treated with some Woodland Scenics soil to cover the last remaining surfaces that until now had just painted styrofoam.

- Platform displays have been added to the roof of the station, one on each side.

...and now

- The ticket machines have been converted to Finnish HSL-machines instead of the original German ones.

- Viessmann street lighting has been added.

- Two missing signals have been installed on the module and all four signals have been tidied up.

Eastern Lane

Before...

- The whole module has been lengthened by 7cm to accommodate for a new pair of turnouts.

- A new pair of turnouts has been installed and electric motors and decoders have been installed to all four turnouts. All turnouts now have the hand levers removed to be more prototypical.

- The track has been properly ballasted with grey ballast instead of the previous way of just laying the track on top of a gravel mat surface.

...after!

- The road has been changed to a wider one and curved parts fixed (the originals were way too clunky-looking). The road also now reaches the end of the module to be continued on the next one.

- Viessmann street lighting has been installed.

- The module got more trees, bushes, foliage and soil to cover all the painted surfaces as with Hedgehog Avenue. The background 'forest' area has been expanded and now includes a small gravel path that leads from the buildings to behind the track fence.

- A new woods-area has been made to the other end of the module on both sides of the track, previously only having a grass field. This includes low-density pine trees instead of spruces.

New on the Website

- All-new pictures added on both the Eastern Lane and the Hedgehog Avenue pages.

- Some other pictures changed from other pages to reflect the current state of the modules.

Introducing the Tka 4, along with some bus models!

New Rolling Stock

The Tka 4 work car is now finally finished! I have converted it from the Viessmann 2611 "Robel" that closely resembles the one found on the real metro, and can now say that I'm happy enough with the results.

The most obvious change is the paint scheme. The Tka 4 is fully yellow, so I had to paint the black parts in the original to yellow. This took a tremendous amount of work, much experimentation with enamel paints and although I still couldn't achieve a 100% smooth surface, I'm now fairly happy with the result. 

Image from www.raitio.org

Other new additions include a self-made exhaust pipe, new handrails (also self-made from scratch), decals, separating the front window and headlight panel into different parts with yellow borders and changing the location of ladders.

Some details of course still differ from the original but this modification is close enough to the "Tka 4" that I think the typical viewer accepts the minor differences, especially when considering the enormous amount of time saved by converting from a ready-made model instead of building from scratch.

Check out the video demonstration of the Tka 4!

The other thing that I finally did is that I took the necessary amount of time to go through the bus models, which I still were not happy with, and cleaned them up to a point that I can now finally consider them finished. Now I've set the standards for myself in how I want to convert the buses and what amount of detailing and quality is enough for me, and therefore I have now ordered three new models and will start working on them soon enough!

New on the website

- Updated the "Rolling Stock" and "Work Cars & Other Equipment" pages with pictures of the Tka 4.

- Updated the "Public Transport" page with pictures of the finished bus models

Layout section updated!

New on the website

Eastern Lane track plan made with Railmodeller Pro.

- The layout section has now been updated to suit for current plans, and now include new, more visual and detailed track plan screenshots, as I've begun to use Railmodeller Pro instead of Scarm.
- The "Overview" and "Modules" pages have been slightly altered and some text has been moved from one to the other for more coherency.
- Yet again, some corrections with spelling etc.

Train additions, new details & more

New on the layout

Yesterday I had a chance and inspiration to work on the layout for almost a whole day and therefore I managed to accomplish quite a lot. First of all, the fleet of trains has now grown to three as I welcome the M309 and M319 to the collection! I have owned these trains for a while, they've now been converted into 3-rail digital operation and yesterday I finally fitted the new road numbers for them as my decal-order came by mail.

However, I'm still not a 100% satisfied with the results since the white letter decals are only 2mm in height and the seller only provided one spare of each number, it was really a struggle to get all of them done correctly. I have now already ordered multiple replacements and am intending to replace some of the numbers that didn't end up pitch-perfect.

See the article on the new road numbers!

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I also worked on some new signals for the layout. I've been accumulating the N-scale Roco 20010 signals every time I've managed to find one and I now converted all five I had to resemble metro signals. Read more from the Making of -article I posted!

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Heart Cape and Flamewood Island -stations now
finally got the clock- and timetable displays above each platform. They indicate where the next train is terminating and how many minutes it will take for the train to arrive. These displays have been done from painted balsa wood, with self-made printings glued on top and tidied up with a permanent marker. Very simple and cost-effective. I also made some for the Hedgehog Avenue station that I will install later on.

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New on the website

- Added the Articles -section
- Added a "Making of" article about the signals
- Added another "Making of" article about the road numbers
- Pictures of the new trains have been added to the appropriate section
- Some more recent pictures have been added to some of the pages on the layout-section

Bus updates

New on the layout

My two bus models got a slight overhaul today as I tidied them up a little and added the missing road number to the other one. Both buses also now include some advertisements, which are positioned slightly out of place and make the bus look a bit more ugly - just as in real life!


New on the website

- Again some minor spelling mistake corrections
- Changed the "Public Transport" section to resemble current plans

Test-driving!

New on the layout

Today was time for some test driving regarding future modules. I set up a temporary test layout on the floor and figured out some things that I had in the list of things to do.

First of all, I wanted to determine the actual minimum radius required. The smallest one of 360mm was tested up to the maximum speed in both directions and the M300 can handle it just fine. This is good since I now know I can turn the train around in a small space when necessary. Naturally I won't be using that small of a radius in any visible parts of the layout because of the unsightly looks of it.

Next I tested the upcoming X-crossing and wanted to see how the train can handle it. The were absolutely no problems whatsoever, which was a nice relief. I also tried different methods on programming the switches and decided to have all the four switches follow a single digital address for maximum ease of use. I have altogether resorted to digitally programmed switches for the layout because of their ease of use and minimum amount of wiring required.

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Finally I programmed the Viessmann 26111 "Robel" work train and all the functions work just as they should. The acceleration and deceleration characteristics are very nice and the operations are altogether very realistic. I'm in the process of converting the Viessmann 26111 to resemble the "Tka 4" work car and will post pictures and a video of it when I'm satisfied with the results.

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New on the website

- Minor spelling-mistake corrections
- Deleted the info section about the Lindholm Lines -long distance bus since I no longer plan to use it on the layout

Robel & LED-lighting

New on the layout

Viessmann 2611 "Robel"

Viessmann 2611 "Robel" work car has been bought and added to the collection! This will be modified to resemble the Tka 4 maintenance locomotive found in the real metro system. More information, pictures and possibly even a video will follow after the modifications are ready!

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Flamewood Island with LED lighting

I installed a NorthLight IR-controllable LED-system lighting to Heart Cape and Flamewood Island underground stations. This system consists of 30cm LED strips that can be attached to each other for a maximum of eight pieces.

Both stations now have 90cm worth of strips providing nice interior lighting. I have covered the strips with plastic material to better resemble a real roof light found in large indoor areas. The lighting is controllable with an IR transmitter and can show various different colors. Naturally, I'll usually just use white but some of the other ones can be usable too.

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Modification work has started on two bus models, which are being modified to Finnish 'Veolia Transport / Transdev' colors from German prototypes. The other one will have an older blue/yellow color scheme while the other one will be of the newer gray/white/red -style. Pictures will follow when finished!

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New decals have now finally been ordered so soon I will be able to welcome my second finished train on the layout, the M300 number '309'. The following and currently the last M300, which is still under conversion to digital AC-operation, will be '315' after which I'll start concentrating on bringing the other train types M100 & M200 to the collection also.

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New on the website

- Information on the track maintenance equipment and plans related to them
- New information added to the Trains-page