The Lowlands About construction Pictures from The Lowlands sections updated:  2015-11-16  
Intro Rolling
stock		 Constructions
and tracks		 Buildings and
scenery

Section A 
Bordobrach

Section B 
Warehouses

 Section C 
 Thorwick Station Area		  Section D -
Thorwick City

 

Building the sections, constructions, track and electronics

 
The conditions in the tight space created some challenges and required some compromises

The space to build tracks and scenery, was about 200 mm deep, and limited to 80 mm in height.

The perspective had to be severely compressed in the depth and the buildings were built as relief models ..

As an absolute contrast to the Swedish layout on the upper level, The Lowlands is built without any real prototype as a fictional town in the Scottish lowlands or perhaps anywhere in the UK.
    
 

The sections are built on leftover, damaged panel boards with 6 mm thickness and 1,200 mm length.

The sections have to be easy to remove to access the modules on the upper level during service or if they will be transported to an exhibition.
  • This gives only restricted space for the turnout motors as they have to be surface mounted.
    And there is no space to use extra switches for polarizing of the turnout frogs and rails which makes the turouts a little less reliable.
  • Thatīs a few of the compromises, but these sections are mainly intended for home use, so thatīs OK for me.
    
  
There are many cables, both within and between sections and to the block detector unit.
It can be useful, already from the start to have made a drawing of how the cables should be deducted and labeled.
  • Trackwork            Peco Code 55 
  • Turnouts              Peco Code 55  Electrofrog  
  • Turnout motors     Peco PL11 with metal wire through a thin brass tube to the turout.
  • Turnout decoders  Digitrax DS64 quad control unit
  • Block detector      Digitrax BDL168 handling 16 track sections. (The lowlands consists of 15 track sections.
  • Digital central       Digitrax DCS100   Booster / Control station
 
The back side of the same section with the back scene walls mounted.
    

 
 
The walls, and most of the other scenery have been built with cardboard technique with printed 
sheets pasted on cardboards of different thickness. I have made some extent drawing on the downloadable 
kits from Scale Scenes on the computer before printing, to adapt to the available space.
     

The Bordobrach section with houses with adapted depth and cut chimneys to fit into the avalible space.
    
The same section from above
    

 

More stuff.......
The block occupancy detector will be placed and hidden outside the scenics, just close to the work bench space.

Looks nice and orderly before the cables are attached :-)