Orwell St Johns

ORWELL ST JOHNS A Modern Image Layout in OO
Home Gallery Track Plan About OSJ Exhibition Details Rolling Stock Diary Wiring Links	As this layout is currently under construction we decided to put details up on the site as to its progress. August 2008 Its been a bit of time since we updated the Diary, a lot has been going on and we haven't had the time to update the site. We have now successfully converted over all the main running line and fiddle yard pointwork over to DCC, and using JMRI's PanelPro to allow a Signalman to set up all the roads and signals, just in real life! The next stage is to convert the whole layout over to DCC, this involves re-wiring all the boards, as the existing system is really a little bit to complex to convert, although it can be done the possibilities for faults to occur is greatly increased. Whilst introducing a Signalman we thought we'd better give him and the drivers a time table to work to, well not so much of a Timetable more of a loose sequence, this work really well at its first try and everyone knew what they were doing. The only slight problem was whether the the signalman and driver were working at the same pace! However it give us plenty of operating scope to improve upon. Exhibition Dates 2008 Dates Saturday 10th May - Bushey (Watford) Saturday 29th March - Norwich Saturday 16th August - Renhold 2009 Dates 14th & 15th November - Tolworth (tbc) January 07 Well we have done a fair bit since the last year, we have had three very successful outings at Brandon, the Ipswich Transport Museum and IRMA own summer exhibition, plus we featured on The Railway Channel. Since then, we have made a start on extending the layout so that we can now go all the way around, hopefully that should be ready for the 2008 exhibition session. January 06 We had our first operating morning at the club's Open day on the 7th January and all went pretty well, there were a couple of issues that need to be resolved but nothing too major. We took some photos and they can be found here December 05 Well a bit of a gap in the up dating of this website, but we've all been quite busy with the building the layout and doing various other work down at the club, However this last couple of months things have moved on quite dramatically on the scenic front, to a point were we are almost ready to attend our first exhibition in February at the Thetford MRS show, more details can be found here http://www.thetford-mrs.com/ September 05 Some updated pictures of the layout showing the layout taking shape. here May 04 The electrics are now starting to take a bit more shape, we now have a control panel box built, and once we have the final parts of the track layed we can then start working on the bulk of the wiring in ernest. April 04 After very much careful consideration the layout has been extended by 2 further foot to allow for a much smoother gentle curve from the fiddle yard onto the front of the layout. In addition to this the head shunt on platform one has now been extended and now forms an alternative route into platform one. This now allows us to run long fright trains into and out of platform one (12 car frieghtliner + double headed loco), where as before the longest we could have accommodated was 6 car + Engine. March 2004 - Photo's

ORWELL ST JOHNS
A Modern Image Layout in OO

As this layout is currently under construction we decided to put details up on the site as to its progress.

August 2008
Its been a bit of time since we updated the Diary, a lot has been going on and we haven't had the time to update the site.
We have now successfully converted over all the main running line and fiddle yard pointwork over to DCC, and using JMRI's PanelPro to allow a Signalman to set up all the roads and signals, just in real life! The next stage is to convert the whole layout over to DCC, this involves re-wiring all the boards, as the existing system is really a little bit to complex to convert, although it can be done the possibilities for faults to occur is greatly increased.

Whilst introducing a Signalman we thought we'd better give him and the drivers a time table to work to, well not so much of a Timetable more of a loose sequence, this work really well at its first try and everyone knew what they were doing. The only slight problem was whether the the signalman and driver were working at the same pace! However it give us plenty of operating scope to improve upon.

Exhibition Dates

2008 Dates
Saturday 10th May - Bushey (Watford)
Saturday 29th March - Norwich
Saturday 16th August - Renhold

2009 Dates
14th & 15th November - Tolworth (tbc)

January 07
Well we have done a fair bit since the last year, we have had three very successful outings at Brandon, the Ipswich Transport Museum and IRMA own summer exhibition, plus we featured on The Railway Channel. Since then, we have made a start on extending the layout so that we can now go all the way around, hopefully that should be ready for the 2008 exhibition session.

January 06
We had our first operating morning at the club's Open day on the 7th January and all went pretty well, there were a couple of issues that need to be resolved but nothing too major. We took some photos and they can be found here

December 05
Well a bit of a gap in the up dating of this website, but we've all been quite busy with the building the layout and doing various other work down at the club, However this last couple of months things have moved on quite dramatically on the scenic front, to a point were we are almost ready to attend our first exhibition in February at the Thetford MRS show, more details can be found here http://www.thetford-mrs.com/

September 05
Some updated pictures of the layout showing the layout taking shape. here

May 04
The electrics are now starting to take a bit more shape, we now have a control panel box built, and once we have the final parts of the track layed we can then start working on the bulk of the wiring in ernest.

April 04
After very much careful consideration the layout has been extended by 2 further foot to allow for a much smoother gentle curve from the fiddle yard onto the front of the layout. In addition to this the head shunt on platform one has now been extended and now forms an alternative route into platform one. This now allows us to run long fright trains into and out of platform one (12 car frieghtliner + double headed loco), where as before the longest we could have accommodated was 6 car + Engine.

March 2004 - Photo's