So far, I have not obtained permission to reserve any real space for my model railroad. So I am starting out with a small piece of chipboard, that fits under a bed in the guest room. Not big enough for anything that in any way looks real. But big enough for an oval with a siding, so that I can prototype the technical stuff.
My first purchases:
1. Uhlenbrock IB-COM (Gentofte Togcenter)
2. Uhlenbrock LocoNet feedback module for 3-rail track (Gentofte Togcenter)
3. Märklin BR216 German diesel locomotive (Lokdoc.dk)
4. Various LEDs, 555 timers, rectifiers, 7805, 7812 etc. and not least a great big motherfucker transformer, that was quite a lot cheaper than the one Uhlenbrock and Gentofte Togcenter probably thought I should have bought (Mouser.com)
Picture of the new locomotive
LEDs etc. is just a basic supply of components that is to be used for houses, rebuilding rolling stock, and many other purposes. But right now (october 2014) they are all kept safe in their bags. Some components have already become useful.
I have been bying chipboard in Silvan, that I through quite an effort has turned into a piece of furniture that fits under the bed. Until further, it has had it’s place in the livingroom, where I assume it is going to stay until it must give way for the Christmas tree anno 2014 and the Christmas train.
I have built a protype railway on this furniture, so that I can start my work with electronics and computer control.
A simple oval with a few sidings – built with my old metal track (Märklin M-track).
The very basics work. I had a little trouble getting the Uhlenbrock software to run on Windows 7 64-bit. But Uhlenbrock support was quick to help me out, so it was less than a week before the new locomotive was chuffing around the oval:
Oval with metal tracks