Making roads, bridges and tunnels...surfaces

I'm readying myself to make a bunch of stuff for the landscaping and I realised that I need decent stone surfaces for roads etc.

Buying this stuff readily in Sydney is pretty hard and when you do find it, it's quite expensive. Why not use by Canon bubblejet and some matte photo paper and just print exactly what I want?

Google to the rescue...

I did a few searches on Google for Cobblestones and so forth on the Images section and found these:

I then used them as textures to fill rectangles in MS PowerPoint and produced this sort of result (PDF).

And now it's all running nicely...

I've finally wired in the Arduino Mega 2560, the Pololu servo controller, a relay board to control the track blocks and the L298 motor system to drive the trains and the tram. 

It's all nicely tucked away under the layout and finally all trackwork is in place and a demo program is running which allows the train to run on every track section, exercise all the points etc.

I'll post more still shots later but for now, here's a video...




Next will have to be the 'real' software which allows for 3 engines to run on the layout at once.

A very quick update - protoype layout ready!!

Some track is now concealed behind the rams on the inner track.

For those of you who helped by reviewing my track plans, notice I have included extra points to allow both entry and exit from the outer loop.

An HDR photo of my Fleischmann tank engine near the station in the middle of the layout.