Welcome to Highfield Junction

[Revok]

Hi all. I joined a couple of weeks ago, and have thoroughly enjoyed looking around at what everyone is doing with their railways. I spotted a post the other day encouraging members to take a more active part, so thought I'd upload a potted history of my own set up, Highfield Junction.

Hope I have posted this in the relevant area, if not, mod, please accept my apologies in advance.

I'm completely new to G scale, only bought my starter kit in summer 2017. I don't try to emulate any existing line or period, my knowledge, patience (and budget!) doesn't stretch that far. My plan over time is simply to buy locos , wagons and accessories that I like the look of, and enjoy watching the mix and match of trains based as much on colours of the rolling stock as anything else!

For the time being, Highfield Junction is a simple slightly squinty oval, with a few sidings. Its mostly Piko R3 curves with R5 curves at the rear rather than a straight line so the train can twist a little on its journey. The penalty for that was i needed to use one R1 curve to make the layout fit the space I was working with! Its laid on a fairly deep trenches of grit, which holds the track stable enough. I'm not ready to cement yet, as I want to keep my options open. One of the sidings may at a later date be expanded into a long meandering run through the garden, but I have neither the track or the time to develop that for now. (Also, I have to admit I have yet to convince Mrs Revok of what a great idea it is.) Everything runs on analog track power, and will most likely stay that way. I do understand all the superb options digital brings, but I don't think need that. Hopefully a few insulated track sections with control switches will achieve all I want to do.

Enough waffle, heres some pics I took recently to give an idea of what the thing looks like.

Firstly, some longer shots that show the complete track.

 

[Revok]

And here are a few close up pics of various features.

 

[Sean.]

Great start .... It's all down hill from here .... Wonderful ... Welcome aboard the crazy train ..

 

[Zerogee]

Welcome to GSC - great pics of a very attractive layout!

Jon.

 

[Henri]

Welcome!

 

[playmofire]

Looks good and interesting already.

 

[Paul M]

From little branches grow bigger branches! Welcome

 

[dunnyrail]

Nice start and you appear to be going for the USA Look.

But can I say that just buying what you like and fancy can lead you to a land of nowhere, particularly if you have a limited budget. Think of a theme, work out what will fit to that and what is available to fit that theme, you will have less disatisfaction going forwards and dare I say waste less money in purchases that you may regret later?

Have a look at my line, plus the various Vids that I have done on YouTube. All East German themed with hardly any diversions that cannot be justified. Not suggesting that you go down the East German Route but I would suggest that a Porter would fit your theme much better than the Stainz that you have.

Good luck with the adventure, you have made a great start, I hope I have not offended as this is never my intension.

 

[mike]

Hello, and welcome..thanks for posting...great photos...looking forwards to watching your railway progress...

 

[Clive Tucker]

Great looking line, thanks for sharing

 

[Revok]

Nice start and you appear to be going for the USA Look.

But can I say that just buying what you like and fancy can lead you to a land of nowhere, particularly if you have a limited budget. Think of a theme, work out what will fit to that and what is available to fit that theme, you will have less disatisfaction going forwards and dare I say waste less money in purchases that you may regret later?

Have a look at my line, plus the various Vids that I have done on YouTube. All East German themed with hardly any diversions that cannot be justified. Not suggesting that you go down the East German Route but I would suggest that a Porter would fit your theme much better than the Stainz that you have.

Good luck with the adventure, you have made a great start, I hope I have not offended as this is never my intension.

Absolutely no offence taken dunnyrail, I do understand what you are saying and appreciate the advice. To explain my view better, I should probably have said in the first post in the thread that I'm not massively into trains or railway history. So seeing a Stainz steaming past an American loco whilst pulling wagons only found in the UK doesn't look 'wrong' to my untrained eye. You will probably tear your hair out when I tell you that I chose the D&RGW starter set because of all the sets available I liked the look and colour of the yellow passenger cars : )

 

[Zerogee]

Absolutely no offence taken dunnyrail, I do understand what you are saying and appreciate the advice. To explain my view better, I should probably have said in the first post in the thread that I'm not massively into trains or railway history. So seeing a Stainz steaming past an American loco whilst pulling wagons only found in the UK doesn't look 'wrong' to my untrained eye. You will probably tear your hair out when I tell you that I chose the D&RGW starter set because of all the sets available I liked the look and colour of the yellow passenger cars : )

Nothing wrong with "Rule Eight" modelling......

JonD is right in that as you get more into the hobby you may well get a little more focussed on a particular theme, or maybe not - either way it doesn't matter, just enjoy running your trains!
One of the many great things about G scale in general, and especially buying LGB stuff, is that if you later find that some items don't fit with where you want to go you can usually sell them on for a good price in order to finance buying more of the things you decide that you want.....

Jon.

 

[Revok]

Nothing wrong with "Rule Eight" modelling......

JonD is right in that as you get more into the hobby you may well get a little more focussed on a particular theme, or maybe not - either way it doesn't matter, just enjoy running your trains!
One of the many great things about G scale in general, and especially buying LGB stuff, is that if you later find that some items don't fit with where you want to go you can usually sell them on for a good price in order to finance buying more of the things you decide that you want.....

Jon.

I'm certainly capable of being obsessive over detail, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of slowly gravitating towards something more defined than my anything goes outlook at present. My Scalextric layout is fairly fastidious about projecting the look and feel of a 60s-70s era rallycross circuit, but that's because I have a decent knowledge of that scene, something I don't have about railways. Even there though, I succumb to running the odd car which would never have been seen on such a track, simply because I like the car. Otherwise my collection of Shelby Cobras for instance, would sit on a shelf and never turn a wheel. To make it work in my mind I do some mental gymnastics and think of it as an event something like Goodwood Revival!

Whilst the Stainz running on an American backdrop doesn't bother me, to be honest I can see the Porter as suggested by JonD would be better. However, I got that Stainz for 75 quid (with sound). It was basically new, had only ever been used on a static display. It was by far the cheapest way I could get a 2nd loco so I had something to run when I was tinkering with the one from the starter set!

 

[royale]

Welcome aboard, Revok.

 

[BakerJohn]

Welcome to GSC! That's a very cute little layout you have. What is the make of the buffers you are using? I like the look of them!

 

[Revok]

Welcome to GSC! That's a very cute little layout you have. What is the make of the buffers you are using? I like the look of them!

Hi John. The buffers are 'PECO SL-940 1 x Sleeper Type Plastic Buffer Stop 5 Part Kit 'G-45 mm' Gauge 1st'. They are very cheap, but a small caution, they don't mount perfectly on my Piko track, I had to do a wee bit of cutting and filing. However once that's done they look pretty good I think. But don't expect them to stop a moving object, they are there for purely cosmetic reasons.

 

[ge_rik]

Welcome aboard. Nice looking railway. It's up to you what you run on your railway, but if you want to rationalise it, German and French steam locos ran on UK ng railways so why not have a German loco running on a railway across the pond?

Mind you, it's great fun bashing an off the shelf model into something more appropriate. Here's my bashed Stainz


And here's my modified Otto loco


Rik

 

[stockers]

Welcome. that looks like a very good start to the hobby. An extension will follow!

 

[dunnyrail]

I suppose I am now going to shoot my own argument in the foot. Just look at these 3 Locomotives, the first one at the Top was at a Museum in Orlando in 1992, the bottom 2 at the Cripple Creek Preserved line in Colorado 1994. Converting any one of these from a Stainz would not be a particularly hard task.



The Cripple Creek is and interesting oddity and yes it does have some German Locomotives as a quick peruse through the Website linked below will show.

http://cripplecreekrailroad.com/

Also worth looking at some of the early LGB USA odpfferings which consistedcin all sorts of colours and additions being applied to Stainz. This was before the start of proper US Locomotives with the introduction of the 2-6-0 Tender Locomotive of typical US Proportion.

 

[Revok]

Welcome aboard. Nice looking railway. It's up to you what you run on your railway, but if you want to rationalise it, German and French steam locos ran on UK ng railways so why not have a German loco running on a railway across the pond?

Mind you, it's great fun bashing an off the shelf model into something more appropriate. Here's my bashed Stainz
View attachment 240875

And here's my modified Otto loco
View attachment 240876

Rik

Nice job on the modifications, its good idea that gives me a route to go down if I ever feel the need to err towards more realism. And thankyou for providing a little background that allows for the possibility, however faint, that a Stainz like loco may just have trundled across an American line