History
This is a brief history of my current layout (straight to photo's).
I remember when I was young that my father obtained a second-hand layout on a baseboard (6' x 4' I think). It was a double-loop with some sidings in the centre and had some small hills and a couple of buildings. I had three loco's, two my parents bought me in Hornby kits and an old shunter that came with the layout. I cannot remember what sort of loco's they were but from memory I think they were American F7's. I remember the track was steel as I had to polish it every time I wanted to use it. During one of our family moves we had to sell it, so that was the end of my train hobby at that time.
In my late 20's I was living in Tanjung Enim (South Sumatra, Indonesia) where there isn't a lot of entertainment and was looking at various hobbies. I started out making model kits then, via mailorder, ventured into radio control. I tried planes, cars (electric and petrol), boats (sail and electric) and even a M1 Abhrams tank. Whilst fun, none of these seemed to capture my interest for very long. One day on a holiday to Jakarta my wife and I stumbled into a Marklin shop and it rekindled my childhood memories. We didn't end up buying one of their kits (they didn't accept Visa!) but I soon had a Lifelike kit on mailorder and I bought a Faller kit in HO (the coal mine). Whilst living in Tanjung Enim and then subsequently when we moved to an apartment in Jakarta, I continued to collect track, scenery, rolling stock, locomotives and other bits and pieces. I even had a baseboard made up to fit the Hornby track mat.
In September 2001 we had an addition to our family (my son Ben) and the apartment was no longer big enough. Therefore in November 2001 we moved to a house in Jakarta. I finally had the room to build a layout.
Construction
In hindsight my baseboard system is probably all wrong but I guess that's the fun of this hobby, you can only learn by doing. As mentioned above I had a baseboard made up, it was 6' x 4' and skirted by approx 6" pieces of wood. For whatever reason at that time I decided not to lay the track directly onto this baseboard but lay in on a separate piece of ply which would then be cut out and glued on top of the baseboard with even risers all the way round to accommodate automatic track switches which would be underneath. Areas on this board were cut out so that I could make appropriate depressions with plaster at a later date. The problem with this method was that I would not eventually be able to access any of the electrics as they would effectively be sandwiched between the baseboard and the board on which the track sat. To solve this problem I ended up cutting big access hatches into the baseboard so that I can get underneath and access wiring on the upper board.
My track plan is based on the Hornby track mat, it was just easy to use their design as it put quite a lot of track in a small space. The only difference is the inner sidings where I have added an Atlas turntable. All of the track is Hornby which again in hindsight I probably wouldn't buy again, I think just about every one of the switches on my layout have come apart and have had to be put back together.
Wiring
The wiring is a bit of a mess underneath even though I have tried to keep it as tidy as possible. Essentially the wiring is as follows:
 | 2 x track loops (DC variable voltage) |
| 5 x isolated sections for each of the turntable spikes (DC variable voltage) |
| 3 x independent loops for lighting accessories and running the two Faller motors (AC fixed voltage) |
| 1 x wiring for DC motor to power the turntable (DC fixed voltage) |
| 1 x wiring for DC lights (DC fixed voltage) |
Theme/Era
In short, the theme centres around an Indonesian coal mine in the 60's to 70's. However given that I have mostly British rolling stock this is not so correct. In addition, I have used the current names of all Indonesian entities like Bukit Asam, Pertamina, PLN which I am sure differed in this era.
Basically everything is on my layout to support the coal mine: the transformers power the mine, the turntable services the mines trains, the town people work in the mine and the small station serves the town people.
Locomotives & Rolling Stock
Rolling stock so far is a bit of a mixture and really reflects my personal taste although only steam and diesels, you won't find any electrics running on my layout. My preference now is for Hornby products as they have greatly improved over the years, are quite reasonably priced and I like the British prototypes. I also have a few other products including Lifelike, IHC, Trax and Lima. This is a summary of my favourite loco's/rolling stock:
Locomotives:
| Hornby - Merchant Navy Class "Clan Line" - The pride of my 'fleet', runs superbly. |
| Hornby - Class 2800 - 2-8-0 - I bought this because it is Hornby's only loco with a smoke generator. Well worth the bucks, looks great. |
| Hornby - Class 37 (x2) - Co-Co -Weathered set of Class 37 diesel/electric's, people complain about the bogies not being right, I don't care, these look good. |
| Hornby - 0-4-0 Pug - Got this as a freebie for spending so much, not fast but quite powerful |
| Hornby - 0-6-0 Thomas the Tank Engine - Had to have an excuse to have a train set, so bought this for the son |
| Lifelike - GP38 (3) - I bought three of these when Toys R Us in Jakarta used to sell them, not any more |
| Hornby - 0-4-0 Tank Engine - Freebie from the Hornby club and has been weathered by myself |
| Hornby - Diesel Shunter - Another Freebie from the Hornby club, this thing goes like a rocket |
| Lima - 4-6-2 Not sure what this one is, bought it second hand and runs well |
Rolling Stock:
| Hornby - Pullman Coaches (3) - Bought a rake of the new coaches with lamps on the tables, nice looking but not so good on a small layout as tend to derail quite frequently |
| Hornby - MGR wagons - weathered (2) - only 2 left in store otherwise would have bought more |
| Hornby - Procor Hoppers (5) - weathered - I like long rakes of similar rolling stock |
| Hornby - Crane - weathered - One of those just 'gotta haves' |
| Hornby - Annie & Carabel - For Thomas of course! |
| IHC - Sound Car - Looks like a gondola with crates in it but has a sound unit which gives the choof-choof of a steam train. Its sound is a bit crude but adds to the realism behind the Hornby Class 2800 with smoke generator |
This site was last updated Sunday October 12, 2003