Your solution for building that tabletop was brilliant, Sam! I am also "woodshop challenged," so I very much appreciate what you did. And removing those power connectors was a good move toward more realistic track. I would suggest one upgrade before you get much further along, though. Nailing the track directly to the wood base will result in very noisy running. I recommend pulling up the track and remounting it on cork sheet, cut in strips to form a roadbed. Alternatively, many folks will cover the tabletop with a sheet of home insulating foam (say, one inch thick) and glue the track to it. This will take care of the noise and would also allow cutting and shaping the scenicic ground and make it easir to add track ballast, trees, grass, etc., etc. And I'd paint your wood or foam base with a cheap medium to dark brown acrylic paint before adding the track. Then any gaps in your ballast and ground cover won't stick out. Sorry to go on so; guess I'm a bit over excited about your new layout. Cheers from Wisconsin!

I really hope the TT 120 is successful for Hornby as it could be beneficial for those with limited space and a much bigger layout could be achieved as well. Keep up the good work Sam.

Even private ebayers combine postage so it's the least I would expect from hornby. Even if its just a tick box you select on their website like the hattons trunk service.

This setup reminds me of my first layout. My grandfather had a love for model railways, and he built us a layout when I was maybe 4 years old. This is going back 25ish years. It was a basic loop, I don't remember many of the locos I had, but he cut the base wood himself, he assembled it all himself and he kept it in the garden shed when it wasn't used. He did eventually add a few sidings, but he died before being able to properly expand the layout, so a few years after his death, my dad and I moved the old layout to the house loft and made a weird boomerang shaped layout, basically out of two standard oval layouts. It was unplanned, but we eventually just linked both layouts. My stepmother filmed us working on it in 2006, and I only found the footage on an old CD a couple of years ago. I haven't seen or even touched the layout in 13 years, but it was a real trip looking at the old footage.

Awesome! Intrigued to see how the models turn out!

love it. Thanks for doing tt:120 Sam!

Sam you... you splendid fella. That sigh at 1:15 is all the comment needed about Hornby at present. It also succinctly sums up why you are worth watching, time and again. Ta.

got my TT set through today. Looks ok. Glad you're covering it.

Thank you for showing this, especially the track assembly and thank you for your detailed review of the train set as well. From what I have read or heard about TT Hornby want to attract new people to the hobby. I am potentially one of those people but I am not sure yet if I will commit. I need to figure out what I really want. Is the fun in taking lots of different track, building it up and trying to change the layout all the time which is how I played with the Scalextric or Lego. Or is the fun in having a layout and adding more and more to it in terms of detail and buildings as well as more track and trains. I am not a train enthusiast either but I can appreciate the proper British train types as opposed to the fake type steam locomotive I got given in a battery train set toy at Christmas. This is still fun but takes up lots of room, can only be a circle/oval and doesn’t run that great with it‘a single coach and speed! (Just at the point I had tried to forget about wanting a train set as well) One curious thing is the idea of a layout on a tabletop, which is something I would need, with either taking it apart every day or something that could lift off and be stored upright! On every video I have seen, except one, has been built on the fairly large boards like yours and some are even fixed in place or the intention is to take the room over! The layout on the table was to big and had the track rather perilously run off the end balanced on a stack of books. It’s not Scalextric so I presume having train crashes are best avoided. Maybe Lego trains would be for me!

Great job Sam, but i don't really fancy someone else cutting my wood thanks 😳😳🤣🤣🤣

Thanks Sam. I'm looking forward to seeing a TT:120 Unboxing and Review video.

hint: solder to the bottom of the fishplates, you can remove them from the track to do it so no melting of sleepers and the fishplates generally take solder way better than rails anyway - run a few wires to somewhere to sick a terminal block (lay them alongside the rails on the surface and they can look like trackside infrastructure when painted (or use black/grey wires!) that baseboard is nicely done, did look at TT:120, looks nice, hope the range grows though

Nice job and reasonable size layout.

Very nice my friend again ur trains and ur ideas are the best. Keep being awesome. My layout isn't much. But I can show u my trains I have

Thanks for that video Sam, I'm looking forward to the rest in the series. I don't know what Loco you have bought but I have just taken delivery of the "Eastener" and was a bit worried as loads of video I have seen show bits have fallen off the loco and the carriages make a terrible noise. Well my loco was fine but after running it in I then attached the carriages it sounds it sounds like they are dragging an injured animal around the track, although this only happens on the radius. I've ordered all the "Track Packs" and may have to buy some more track as I'm not too keen on the Hornby layout. I've decided on a 5X5 feet board.

My base board as a kid was a piece of chipboard that my dad cut into a rough shape with a jigsaw and then we painted it green. We made little trees from twisted brown wires and green foam. Built a load of HO kits for it with my dad. Had a couple of HO train sets on it. Happy days

Good work

Great video - thanks for sharing your experiences. Can I ask what size the baseboard is?

new layout will be cool Sam nice build to the channel thank lee

Wow Sam I love to see you make a new layout and it’s tt! I hope you don’t replace 00 with tt! Shame about the shipping! I love what you do you help me make good chooses when I get a new loco and make sure I don’t buy a faulty model!

Lovely stuff!!! Gotta say tho , the choice of no sidings is interesting.

Thank you Sam about the Christmas stuff, I don't know why the Royal Mail is have problems this year so far. Cheers Jasper & Willow

Hoping to see some of the TT120 stuff at Model Rail Scotland in Glasgow later this month.

Yes, you did it Sam! Great stuff I'll watch with interest 👍 Pop some wheels on that and it'll fit under the bed 🙂

Oh boy!!! Tt120 is so good

Brilliant sam. Iv ordered the TT Easterner train set and it doesnt come with a track mat so some ideas are welcome. Im hoping to follow your lead, im hoping to have mine wall mounted.

Sam, I'm glad I live in Australia because I can go to my local hobby store and buy the Hornby TT from them...

What was the size of the baseboard you had built Sam? Thanks

Smooth and flat track. This will be a revelation for Sam. If possible I leave a notation on orders for "ship complete". I have had a few instances where I get nickled and dimed to death with shipping charges.

Great video! Can't wait to see more tt stuff!

Can't wait to see the TT reviews

looking forward to your tt:120 layout. i think that hornby are regular comedians as to the ordering and the way they put the tracks i a silly huge box. i lost it when you showed the size of the track pice and the box 🤣🤣🤣🤣😁 keep up the good work you are doing sam. 👍👍👍🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪

When I was a lad (long, long, long time ago) I had a TT gauge, think it was Triang back then. Appreciate they are smaller but scale wise not sure how much. I know I used to use mainly OO gauge accessories, pretty sure it looked ok, but I was young.

Looks great! Loving the layout!

Good video here Sam, great to see track being put onto a board and not the floor especially with TT being smaller, from my experience I wish I had put my track onto some form of table when I first started in this hobby because nowadays I’m paying the price for having track on the floor and the floor I used to lay it on wasn’t carpet.

Oh great to see TT:120 content finally in action Sam. You know what, for the money you could just have well bought 2 Ikea Linnmon/Adils tables 100x60 cm, £35 each..., making 200x120cm. We’ve seen these used for a TT beginner setup which is a rather clever idea we thought. Well done for calling out H again. From our understanding, they have contracted a 3rd party logistics company..., but obviously the H way... (little regards for picking a reputable quality contractor, i.e. cheapskating). Understandably, you wanted to show H TT tracks, but Peco would trivially be the better choice probably. Anyway, each their own of course and great to see your TT content coming together. Cheerio.

Should have watched this one before your recent TT120 video. lol Anyway..thats great work Sam. Well done.

I'm interested to see how this develops. I really thought you would have added some kind of shunting area for an inglenook puzzle. Do you plan on decorating it too?

Awesome video today Sam really looking forward to see what you have planned

Good one

You should add some scenery like ballast grass a station etc to make it look nice and look like a proper model railway.

decent job! I actually had to repeat the moment where you paused after saying about the "cut your wood" part and had to think for a moment! good humor

Yooooooo!! TT scale!

That's amazing

@samstrains what are your plans for the inner part of your board? More sidings and some scenery? I understand you can get TT scale cars trucks etc Great to see you are covering TT120 and also track planning/building

Really amazingly size layout and nice tidy connection under the plywood 😊 look forward to see the more TT120 model soon, well done Sam!

Now you can review Australian Queensland Rail models in HO3.5!

I'm interested in TT120, however, I'm waiting for the traction I want to be produced. I'll use Peco track, though.

The Hornby postage method predates the TT 120 offering. Back when Hornby were the only vendor of pre-grouping carriages, the livery of one company was not being offered through the retailers. So I went on line to order a number of them to make up a consist of 6 different coaches. I could buy from Hornby but would have 6 postage charges added to that one order. As I live in Australia, each postage charge was more than the carriage. I wrote to Hornby to see if they could combine the order in one parcel. After quite a while the answer was a flat “No.”. They did not even bother with a nonsense excuse. So I did not order and bought the far superior Hattons version when they emerged. So glad.

Thanks Sam great review as per usual. I'll be moving house one day and mebbe I'll convert from 00 to tt120, I'm facinated to see what happens with this new scale. Regards Terry

This looks awesome, you had a lot of creative ideas for designing it like using Sketchup and modifying the power tracks, the plugs for the wiring are a great addition as well. I can't wait to see what it will look like with trains running on it!

You should add a yard and a train shed it would be so great

Sam, I ordered some of your merch the other day and it has arrived in a right state, help!

Hi Sam, Interesting video on the TT120 system and the track went together well. However, I'm mystified by your choice of right hand points. In the real world you will find that cross overs are made up with left hand points. This is a safety feature as crossover point work has to be trailing in the main direction of travel, not facing, which is what yours are. On the subject of Hornby's errors, they even slipped up with the Club membership scheme. They promised a delivery date for the club packages which couldn't be kept to due to the massive response. I should have had mine just before Christmas and it arrived late January. Personally I think they've made a bad choice not involving the retailers. I know my good friends at Great Eastern Models in Norwich are not to impressed. As ever Sam, take care, Cheers, Jon B.

Hey, you’ve finally got a layout on a baseboard 🎉😊😊

Great project, as a uni student who travels to and from uni every summer I have a similar system but broken into slightly smaller sections that clip together. Off topic but can we get sam's trains slippers????

Timing is everything as in I have been struggling with the prospect of putting together just the same thing as you just built in front of me tonight, thanks ever so much Sam.

I remember an article in Model Railroader about TT scale in the early 90s. I wonder if Hornby can finally make the scale a success.

I'd love to see you get that OO layout onto some woodwork... I'm currently building a N gauge layout

That's a pretty neat layout, will you be doing a similar kind of layout for N gauge trains

If anything else, those not wanting to solder could hide the power boxes underneath a station building or something. Although, Hornby could have just made the boxes separate from the track and have removable wires connecting them together to give modelers more options.

This is the video ive been wating for! Will you be foing scenery on this?

If you’re worried about melting plastic parts soldering to track you can solder your wires to a rail joiner/fish plate.

Nice base, your 🔨 hammering reminded me of a Benny hill sketch 😂

Very well done. I look forward to seeing tt scale trains running on it. What is the overall measurement of the layout? Cheers

I'm surprised you opted for buying the tracks individually instead of buying one of the starter sets. 9:40 HO and N scale train sets have always used the same controller, as they both need the same amount of DC current going to them. G scale trains use a controller with more amperage (Bachmann's G scale controller uses 1 amp compared to 0.6 amp for their smaller scales) I do agree the power clamp is huge. Even N scale power tracks don't have such a giant clamp. 11:50 Bachmann's curve track packs always include enough to make one-third or one-quarter of a circle. I would like to see you add grass, ballast, and other details to this layout in the future. Maybe make this layout cover two baseboards to fit a station and yard.

5:12 funny story Sam I use Blender 2.75 I think, to do all of my project :) Cheers Jasper & Willow

I saw you j70 review so I decided to let's you about the tramcars

Would lo e to see you do some 009 reviews on the channel as well in the future!!

You can find a lot of things (aside from locos and rollingstock) on european markets, because in Soivet times the scale was picked up by some east german manufacturers and thus the scale spread accros eastern europe and is still popular.

Nice one Sam for this. Really good information on the ordering and the delivery costs. I have to take my hat off to you (if I was wearing one so this will be a virtual but top quality hat) for being a trusted online TT gauge tester for this new format. I love OO but I don't have a huge space to make the layout that I'd really want so maybe TT could be an option or addition. I've still got my now ancient OO stuff though and at some point want to resurrect it from its many years in hibernation and hopefully get some new additions at some point.

Exciting times here Sam. DCC , TT:120 . I'm sensing Mallard, a Class 08, and some rolling stock coming our way. MDF company great service and a good option for many. Thanks Sam 👍. Cape Cod Steve

Hi sam i hope your ok After seeing this i am tempted to run a small tt gauge layout

By the way, buying cordless power tools to make a layout does not have to be expensive. Parkside (not sponsored) 12v power tools are more than up to the task of a model railway building. or all you need is a measuring device, hand saw, hand drill and a screw driver to build a layout (hammer and nails can be substituted for the screwdrivers and screws.

That’s quite nice, can’t wait to see you detail it up

Very helpful video Sam. Having just returned to model railways with the new TT range I find myself with a clean slate, as it were, with freedom to now start from scratch and build a layout I can be proud of. I'll be going through my many years worth of issues of various model railway magazines to draw inspiration of scenic elements I'd like to include. Though I think I may also take some inspiration from my love of Rev Awdyry's Sodor. Having made baseboards in the past I still found your solution to be very inspiring and I may even use MDF Direct myself once I decide on what my layout will look like, not sure if I'll go a basic loop layout or be more adventurous with maybe an L shaped layout. Thank you for this very helpful video, can't wait to see what TT loco's you end up with. I have The Easterner set but eagerly awaiting G.W.R. models.

Yes!!! Thank you !!! I will building a TT120 layout, so this is appreciated! Not pre-ordering because of the postage issue which is known elsewhere. Will save up and order at once.

Hi Sam, Nice layout , (what tt are you hoping to get) can't wait 😅, All the best Brian 😃

When I built my layout, I also had no woodworking skills, so I didn’t do the baseboard with any framework. It still works either way. Also, I think Peco flexi track would be cheaper.

If you don't mind me saying. You need another set of points. If your traveling clockwise on the outside and switch to the inside. You have to backup to get to the outside.

It's smaller then ho/oo but larger then n scale cool

could you try to expand the layout and make a series on it?

Hi Sam. There have been a lot of complaints about the Hornby tray TT 120 track. In that the sleeper web is not flat but bends up. Also that you can not get a smooth perfect circle as the rails are too long on the outside, leaving gaps on the inner rail joints. How did you find the Hornby TT 120 track?

So which locomotives and rolling stock will you be buying?

I've discovered something Sam: tt120 set in Aus is the equivalent of 335 GBP, as opposed to 195 GBP in the UK, as opposed to the 175 GBP plus 50 GBP postage as I had ordered it less of course the club discount. Hornby have put a no online sales to Aus from the Hornby website. I appreciate the support your local etc, but I can get a Tillig start set for 122 GBP, in fact for the equivalent of 5 pounds more than the Hornby set, I can get a tillig digital start set. Yes Hornby make British stock whereas tillig, piko, arnold, kres, roco, schirmer, kuehn, Fischer etc are predominantly German. Fairly obviously none of this is the local scene, so a tt purchase will likely be based upon the size preference of tt, and the personal taste of whichever rolling stock appeals. I've already got a fair swag of tt scale, but I'm afraid the sales regime is creating too much of a price barrier to warrant even getting some novelty items, which is a shame. Much as I hugely want an A4 or the Duchess in tt, or even a class 37, they're not really shaping up to be remotely in the same league as the German stuff, whilst admittedly more expensive, the difference does not come close to offsetting the actual models as models.

just so you know, B&Q will cut sheets of MDF or ply free of charge. They will do several cuts of a single sheet and you just pay for the MDF. If you have a small car, you are of course limited to what will fit in your boot

A just saw a loco named “The Flying Buffer Beam”. Made by Peco. It is Amazingly cute ! It would look great on your new layout ! ( don’t think anyone has made a model of it yet, but you could make one I bet )

I like how Hornby is making a smaller scale for those with less room to build a model railway but why didn't they just make n gauge as it is smaller and already popular.

Is it me - or did you forget to insulate between the loops at the turnouts? ...or do the turnouts provide the insulation? Would not be an issue for DCC, but I assume you are going to use analogue? Enjoy ;-)

Will you review any 009 scale locomotives and rolling stock

One day Sam 😃I can see your TT layout getting bigger, with a few sidings .

MDF direct seems very reasonable. Hardwood ply cut to size and delivered for £65. Sounds good to me

whats the widths of 3rd and 2nd radius? got a new coffee table and keep thinking "will it fit?"

Cool

Should have got Peco track, not only is it better such as the points not having those large horrible plastic frogs you can buy it from regular retailers.

I got a question, How come you did not buy any of the TT sets? Would you say the sets are better value for money? Ok that’s two questions. Also I’ve noticed they have brought out the digital versions recently so wonder if they are any good too.

Another entertaining and instructive video. I think you are wise to use a baseboard. No matter how zealous you are hoovering, any piece of fluff will be larger relative to a TT mechanism than to an OO one. I am glad you managed to resolve the shipping cost issue with Hornby. I do hope that Hornby get their act together. No one on their side benefits from such triplications and it only does their reputation harm. Did the points and power tracks come together? Regarding the woodworking tools, you would have had them for another time but this assumes you might use them again at some point and have somewhere to store them. Please keep up the good work.

I have had a similar experience but in spades!!! I ordered 5 sets of magnetic couplings 2x 20mm 1x17mm and 2x buckeyemagnetic couplings. 2 weeks later 2 boxes arrived 6in x 6in each with 2 4x2 inch plastic bags with 2 bags in. The next day a similar box arrived with another 4x2in bag. Despite oredering all at the same time I was charged 3 lots of postage nearly £12 for something that could be put in a jiffy envelope and posted. At least Hornby reimbursed me for two lots of postage. I will not order from Hornby directly again!!

11:46 What? I was just under the assumption that this was basically just the same as normal Hornby OO track, and was confused as why these pieces would say TT120 on the box. Normal track needs 4 for a half curve, or 8 of the shorter ones, and part of the reason for that length is that standard points, the turning part has the same profile as a 2nd radius short piece, which means everything fits together. Looking at things though, those points are longer than the old standard points, do those TT120 points have a turning profile the same as a 3rd radius TT120 curve?

A layout without carpet just isn't a Sam'sTrains layout. 🤣