steamydave.co.uk 2025

I took Davedale along to the Whitwell & Reepham Railway Exhibition on new year's day. A great day with about 6 other small layouts and a chance to drive or have a ride on one of their diesel locos.
Visitors were able to have a play with the trains on Davedale.

A custom designed SM32 scale Santa and Rudolf ride around a loop on the counter of the tea room.
A custom chassis allows for a short wheelbase to negotiate the tight radius track. Track, chassis and sleighs 3d printed.
A row of soldiers guard the display table legs as they had to be raised to a clearance height of 14cm.
Battery operated, 2 pairs of AA batteries keep the sleighs looping for about 6 hours.
Features a head lamp, and a glowing nose for Rudolph.

Davedave went on its first exhibition on the 1st June at the NSNGM annual exhibition in Beccles.
This year's challenge was based on 10 as it was is the club's 10th anniversary this year. The roundhouse has ten sheds. Visitors were given the opportunity to vote for their favourite 'challenge' layout, and I'm pleased to say the Davedale was voted 2nd best in show 😀. Very pleasing indeed.
There is still a lot to be completed on the layout, hopefully most of it will be completed by 28th July where the layout will be displayed again at the Mid Suffolk Light Railway event.

A new iron bridge designed and printed for the Dave's Mill layout. In fact, I'm thinking of renaming the project 'Iron Bridge Mill'

Exciting day. 3 new Kato 11-109 chassis arrived today. Now I can get some of the body kits made up - once I decide on which couplings to use.

After a bit of shuffling around, the new track plan has been sorted.
Full size plan printed.

Well, I think this is it. The final layout/track plan for the layout.
Basically the same design - mountain in the North West corner (single track working), main line passing 2 stations (West & East).
A passing loop going through the goods shed area.
A passing loop to feed the locomotive works leading to the turn-table and the traverser.
The original South East dead-end station terminus and the North Eastern engine shed should now connect together - hidden behind the East Station.
The very front (South) shuttle line will still run with a randomly timed shuttle service between stations.

The slave control board will talk to the main control unit via the SPI bus.
Each of these boards have the following...
8x DPDT relays - these will connect/disconnect power to track zones, and swap between red/green signal LEDs for that zone.
8X Power MOSFET diodes for switching power to the point motors from the Capacitor Discharge Unit. (2 ways for 4 points)
8x General I/O ports for general use - 2 of which can be PWM outputs.
Comms via the SPI bus or via Bluetooth via the RS232 port.
Ability to have a stored sequence for automatic running.

2 of these units will be required for the main loops - with another to be used for the inner areas such as the traverser & turntable.

These couplings are great if you can get them set-up correctly.
They are American-style knuckle couplings that use magnets to uncouple them.
Under tension, the couplings stay connected going either way over the magnet, but it the tension is released slightly (by backing up a tiny bit), the magnet opens the knuckles.
In this open state, the wagon can be pushed down the siding (into place) as the knuckle is forced to stay open during this push.
Once the loco (or other wagons) mode away, the knuckle springs back to it's "ready" position to allow it to be re-coupled later.