Tomytec Station A

I needed a small rural station for my layout, and decided to buy Tomytec Station A.

It's a nice kit already painted and weathered, nice detailed. There is no need of glue to mount.

All pieces assemble perfectly. I just used glue to fix better fences and small details.

For lighting, I took my fantastic Chinese book of SMD led and resistors that I bought in ebay for no more of 30€. There are thousands of resistors of all values and also a great range of capacitors. Leds are from LedBaron, also in Ebay. It's a bundle of sunny, golden and super golden white leds, plus some red and two-tone red/green.   

I also have special brass strips to mount led and resistor. These strips are really handy and you can bend them to fix it in any position.

After measuring the needed length of the strip, I made a small cut to place the resistor on it.

With a very thin tin wire prepare the place for SMD components:

About SMD leds, they seem very hard to solder because they are really small. But the only difficult thing is not to loose them. I always need more than planned because one of them falls in the floor or gets lost under the junk of my table. Under the SMD led there is always an arrow, it shows the polarity:

And finally that's the mounted led strip:

And the final results in the Tomytec Station A:

I'll add some aluminium foil next to the lights because is's too visible through the walls, but nothing else to add. A nice and easy kit.

Santa Eugènia de Berga train exhibition

Today there was en event in Santa Eugènia de Berga arround trains and train modelling. It was organized by magazine MasTren, it was not as big as ExpoTren (in Lleda, a big city, not a small town like Sta. Eugènia de Berga), but nice to see and with lots of participants.

There was a real small steam locomotive from Ferrocarril del Vallparadis (Terrassa) for kids, in a small straight track, at the beginning of the exhibition. I have always admired those train modelers who build big steam locomotives able to move a full trail with people on it:

After this little track there are a lot of manufacturers and distributors stands.

I had to stop in front of a brass locomotive. That's a strange article in Spain, and I would love to build one of those myself in a future. I heard in Japan there are several builders, may be one day I can get one to build:

I also stopped in front of Zaratren stand. They sell Tomix and some other japanese products, apart from all their good articles. I recommend their led strips for both analogical or digital cars.

And I had to buy some freight wagons from Tomix, they where really beautiful and at a very good price!!!!

Another thing that surprised me in other stand is this kind of precise and complicated mechanism to hold a locomotive... I don't know if there is the need of so sophisticated mechanism... but looks really professional:

And the best for me, it was Marklin stand. No locomotives, no articles, no layouts nor models, just some catalogs and two red carpets for kids to play with two ovals and a pair of battery locomotives. That's best way of making new fans of this hobby and denotes a high interest for its continuity. Something to be proud of.

In the middle of all stands there where two modular layouts, one in N scale and other in HO. These photos are from N scale layout:

The reason to make this train show in a really small town is this building:

Màgic Mon del Tren is a huge layout oppened to the public. You can see it has a entire building dedicated, but today it was too much crowded to go inside and enjoy it, so I left it for another day and have another post to write to all you.

Health, happiness and many trains for all!!!

Peco code 55 vs. Fleischmann code 80

Due to a question in a forum asking the main differences between Code 55 and Code 80 track, and more exactly how is Peco Code 55 track, I did some photos of both types of tracks that you can see in this post. 

I have them installed in my layout and mixed without problems. Code 80 is used only in a hidden yard and Peco code 50 is for all the rest. Nowadays I would use only Peco code 55, but when I started to lay tracks I didn't know there was a more realistic one and I had some Minitrix switches to use. Now all those Minitrix switches and point motors are giving me lots of headaches and problems, but it's too late to change them.

First, here you can see the differences between both tracks. Peco is in front and you can appreciate how rails and sleepers are smaller and more prototypical.

There is a surprise when you face one rail with the other, both have the same height. But if you look closer to it, Peco code 55 sleepers are lifted from the floor. Peco inserts a part of the rail in sleepers and that's how they build a more prototypical track but with the same resistance and consistency.

Leveling the sleepers with the floor you see the difference in height:

Answering the question if both tracks can be mixed, here is the answer. There is no problem and you don't have to adjust nor sand rails if you use Code 80 joiners. Code 55 joiners won't fit in Code 80 rails.

Another good point for Peco code 55 flex track is that it can be bent and it keeps the form. That helps a lot to plan track laying and cuts in rails.

And last but not least, the quality and realism of switches is far away from those Minitrix I started using:

Flex track is also produced with concrete sleepers, but it's not the case of switches. Switches are sold just with wooden sleepers, I hope they plan to have them also in concrete.