Getting Something Moving 4 - Sequence

Over the weekend I continued to play with test run the project. Having tried a fulls/empties system through what will be the hidden right-hand end of the circuit I found that I ended up having to hand-shunt behind the scenes a bit too much, it was far from a smooth operation. Eventually I found an operating pattern that works for me, which looks vaguely realistic even if it does rely on some trickery.

It goes a little something like this:

1. A train of "fulls"(incoming load), represented here by the grey loco and (ahem, empty) wagons (three wagons in reality). This is always propelled anti-clockwise, pausing as it enters the unloading shed at the lower end of the curve on the right.
2. Whilst paused, the other train (blue loco) which is empties or maybe bagged produce, runs around clockwise to the fiddle yard siding at the rear.
3. The "fulls" trains then sneaks off back to the FY around the hidden part of the circuit. The blue loco, perhaps having switched wagons, then reappears anti-clockwise and goes back to the font siding.
4. It might leave the wagons here and head to the workshop (curved) siding and pick up another wagon, only to be interrupted by the fulls arriving again. Once they are gone it can take the wagon from the workshop to the FY siding.

There are a few variations possible and you can swap locos between duties if the one off the "fulls" backs into the workshop siding and is replaced by the other loco. I had to make a couple of adjustments to the layout to make this system work in reality, increasing the length of mainline isolated by the fiddle yard point to accommodate a loco+3 wagons and a slightly lengthened hidden siding (it will poke through the backscene and have to be hidden with the circuit). Once I had done this, I was able to make a video to demonstrate it...

Ironically I discovered that this pattern is possible without any of the section switches I have installed, but they do add flexibility. It also seems to potentially work with the stock equipped with MicroTrains couplers, so I might not need to switch to Greenwich for this layout.

Of the wagons seen here only the ones in the empties train are likely to be used on this layout, the others are a bit too "miniature" in style, new wagons can be built when the final load is determined. The grey diesel in the photo, an MG Models kit as seen on my workbench a couple of months ago, is likely to be finished off for this layout as it is a bit shorter than existing locos and looks better on the tight curves.

Colin

Getting Something Moving 3 - Little Tricks

There were a few tasks to complete on the trackwork of the new micro layout to bring the first phase of work to a close.

Most are illustrated in this picture, see if you can spot (from left to right): a strip of thin card under the outer rail of the curve to add a slight degree of cant; fine wire 'bonding' between the rails around the rail joiner (I usually just solder the rails together but though I'd give this method a try); extended sleepers for the dummy point levers to eventually sit on; Milliput in the Peco point motor holes and a second wire from the microswitch towards the rear of the layout for behind the scenes operation.

For this point the tube under the point was put in place when the track was laid, and extended afterwards, diving under the track in a slot cut into the baseboard surface. The point wires are 0.7mm wire in Evergreen 3/32nd tube, held in place with RCL rail spikes. At the other end the wires are folded back on themselves, bent up and then soldered to add a little strength, then have a section of chocolate block connector screwed over the end to give something to grip.

Overall the board now looks like this, ready for some more test running to determine amongst other things how it can be operated and which coupling system might be used.I can't help getting a sense of de-ja-vue at this stage, all the way back to 17/10/2005 and Shifting Sands!

I can't help getting a sense of de-ja-vue at this stage, all the way back to 17/10/2005 and Shifting Sands!

Was that really 15 years ago?

Colin

Getting Something Moving 2 - Trackwork and Wiring

Easter Sunday dawned bright and sunny, and once the formality of the egg hunt was over I opened up the workshop and set-to tracklaying on the new micro layout. The first step was to draw out the curves and point positions from my full-size plan onto the board. Having it painted an even colour all over aided this somewhat.

I know a lot of people lay track quite quickly, but I prefer a steady approach in order to get a smooth permanent way. I started with the two points at the front of the layout, getting these in place with the linkages to their relevant slide switches and pre-wired rail joiners took most of the morning. After lunch the rest of the circuit was laid, using Peco "crazy track" with the rails pre-bent in my home-made rail bender (three screws in a piece of wood). I had also made up some styrene templates, tracksetta style, to aid laying the curves smoothly. After a couple of setbacks, including having to remove and replace one piece of rail, and also a lot of adjustment in the top-right corner, this was the state of play at the end of the day, with the front siding only placed in position.

With only the afternoon available on Easter Monday I completed the track laying to my satisfaction, using a few oddments to produce the hidden siding. Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete the wiring that afternoon, despite having created a control panel in advance.

I had initially wanted to use the pre-wired control panel from 'Upcycle' but realised that had only three switches, and ideally I required four. Having made a new one to fit above the board at the top left corner I realised that the arrangement from 'Shifting Sands' with everything concealed under the right hand end towards the back would work best, so I spent the next few evenings reworking the parts and creating a support structure under the board edge, giving the area a coat of black paint to save fiddly work later on in the project.

As can just be seen in the picture above I also added mounting points for chocolate block connectors at appropriate points as I didn't trust the board to hold screws firmly. There are six connectors in total, three of which are behind the control panel to aid easy removal of components if required. 

Finally, a week on from Easter, all the wires were connected up, looking reasonably tidy but in need of a couple more clips once testing is satisfactorily completed. A shortage of enough colours of wire was resolved by rescuing a few lengths from a self-isolated stock, maintaining social distancing at all times!  

With the track cleaned, I tested it with a circuit tester and finding no issues trusty no.3 was used to test the track. 'Pandora' observes, and did in fact have a trial run around the circuit, completing it in one direction, but looking incredibly incongruous on 5" and 6" curves!

To mark the occasion I also took a couple of minutes of video, you can see that even no.3 swings out a bit on the curves, some shorter O9 locos may be required, along with consideration of using Greenwich couplings rather than MicroTrains...

The next steps will be to formulate the plans for theme, stock and scenic treatment. That might seem an odd way of doing things but I wanted to take advantage of the time available to get something up and running. So if I don't go straight on to the next stages, don't worry!

Colin

Getting Something Moving 1 - Background and Baseboard

Towards the end of December I posted a photo showing I had a baseboard ready to take forward as the next project, having rejected the idea of extending the Beck Bridge diorama into an active layout in the "picture frame" style. I haven't entirely abandoned the idea of something in this style, but I think it may be in 009 and might be a potential outcome of Humberston on my Mind as mentioned last week. The new board for 'Plan B' was examined in the second week of lockdown and it still couldn't grab me as the basis for anything, especially when I spotted that the backscene board was warping and splitting, despite bracing. Cutting it down to a previous shorter length did nothing to help my feelings about it and I resigned it to the corner of the workshop.

For some time I had been considering an O9 version of Julian Andrews 'United Brick and Clay', which I've been fascinated about since seeing it in the 'Modeller and Scale Model Trains years ago, and having now seen it many times in Howard Martin's ownership as 'Avalon Brickworks'

 

All the versions I've seen have always followed both the gauge and the 'handing' of the original, so in order to subvert the genre my version will be O9, and the opposite way around (partially a practical decision based on the availability of pointwork), I have had the basic plan drawn out (full size) to fit a 23.5" x 15.5" cork notice board for some time and having put 'Plan B' to rest the Thursday before Good Friday, and with a good part of a "stay at home" Easter weekend available to work in, I thought it a good opportunity to get the baseboard work started and hopefully the track laid and wired. Did I manage it? we shall see.....

I've had this cork notice board stashed away for over a decade, with the inkling that another corkboard layout might follow 'Shifting Sands' at some point. This board is of the older style, made from some kind of softboard rather than two layers of corrugated cardboard, I've found this is a mixed blessing... The top surface was missing the cork layer in a few spots, these were carefully filled and sanded.

When I built the board for 'Shifting Sands' I was without a workshop and only had hand tools, so used 21mm x 21mm pine right-angle as the supporting cross-members under the board. In hindsight this was too lightweight so this time I have used 12mm x 21mm pine section. In order to avoid having to notch the end of each cross-member I opted to pack under each timber. Needing material 4mm thick and having no strip in stock, I cut fine strips of some very nice plywood I had awaiting reuse. Underneath the board I marked where the strips would go and opted to seal the board surface with primer/undercoat to seal the surface. I left the areas for the strips paint-free to aid adhesion.

I then tested the cut strips of ply and pine for size, this was the result of working late afternoon/early evening on Good Friday and I felt I had made good progress.

Saturday morning saw the glue and clamps deployed to fix everything in place. The gaps in the ply strips are a rare bit of forward thinking on my part to allow wires to pass over the main support pieces. The extra piece of timber over the centre cross-member is there to make sure everything stayed nice and flat! Whilst the cross-member timbers were from a new piece of timber I had in stock, the shorter pieces either side were recovered from the 'Plan B' board.

With the sun shining the glue was soon drying nicely and after a cuppa the board was inverted and I gave the top surface a coat of "Chocolate Dream" emulsion to seal the cork and hide the filler. This is an odd colour, on our chimney breast it looks a lot browner than it does here, and I'm fairly sure the outer woodwork on 'Shifting Sands' is this colour too...

After lunch I spent some time at the workbench working out the wiring diagram, finding switches, pointwork and rail joiners, and pre-wiring components ready for track laying the next day. 

Colin

Humberston on my Mind

It's funny how both the backscene images used on the rebuild of 'Beck Bridge' were from the Humberston area. Just south of Cleethorpes this village has an interesting place in the history of narrow gauge railways, with lines in the past serving quarrying, a brickworks and of course the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway, the pioneering green field narrow gauge preservation line that served a real transport function between the bottom of North Sea Lane and the Fitties holiday camps.

I never saw the railway at Humberston, first seeing the stock in storage at Burgh le Marsh as a child, but I later properly made it's acquaintance at Winthorpe near Skegness in 2013. Towards the end of February it seemed that there might be something happening model wise, with the arrival of a Bachmann ex-WD van in LCLR red and a Meridian Models Ashover coach kit. 

Now these won't fit on my 009 layout 'The Old Quarry Line', I can only just get the shorter WD open wagon around the corners! Several ideas are bouncing around for dioramas, I even made up a cardboard mock-up of the popular "cake box" (8" x 8" x 5") size to see what was feasible. Ironically I realised that I could have rebuilt 'Beck Bridge' from it's original cat food box form to this size quite easily had I though of it at the time...

One thing I have learnt from recent experience is that if I am going to build dioramas, they need to be capable of being displayed somewhere, preferably protected from dust. Could I get the atmosphere of the LCLR in one of my 7cm deep display case scenes? Well quite possibly - the yellow line is the outline, the Ruston should be a Simplex and please excuse the cardboard coach mock up! A simpler version without the van is also a possibility.

You might wonder why use the Meridian kit coach rather than the forthcoming Bachmann model. Well, firstly, it is forthcoming with no release date announced. Secondly, and more importantly, study of the LCLR coaches reveals they are very different from Ashover condition, and I suspect that Bachmann may not address these issues. The original sliding doors are gone, as are the droplights and original window frames, and there are differences in the panelling. Also the two LCLR vehicles differ from each other. Using the kit, altering the doorways and some subtle changes will make create a model much closer to the vehicle I have travelled on.

Of course if I pursue this path I'll have to built one of the LCLRs distinctive rebuilt Simplex locomotives as a static loco too, there are several to choose from, the best source material is on Dave Enefer's davesrailpics site (be prepared to lose a few hours in there...)

Colin

The Beck Bridge - New horizons

Working from home has the interesting side effect that being in the house at lunch time is rather boring, so trips down the garden to the workshop can provide a refreshing break. This has produced a few 15-20 minute bursts of activity, and the first benefit of this has been the project to add backscene boards to the Beck Bridge diorama. 

Being a retro-fit this has not been as simple as just fixing them in place. Wanting a curved corner piece added to the complication, and in the end I constructed an 'L' shaped unit in ply complete with the curved corner in place, built up from card formers and thin card, hiding a timber 'L' section to strengthen the join. Further complicating things was that the back piece would sit behind the existing surround, but the end sits on top of the existing surround (as I had no way of hiding it).

I carefully sanded the existing paint from the surrounds of the diorama at the back and sides, in order to get better glue adhesion for the back panel and to be able to fill joins etc at the edges. I also sanded off the coat of paint I had applied to the new sections as I realised I would need to add the timber strengtheners and would need to glue them securely to timber rather than paint.  

Having briefly considered trialling a commercial photo-backscene for this transformation I eventually opted against this as I would struggle to blend the beck into the scene. Therefore the sky is lining paper painted with appropriate emulsion paint. There are clouds but they don't show up too well. 

As can just be seen, at the right hand end I have introduced something that perhaps reflects what I'd really like to see at this moment in time, a glimpse of the sea... I've used a photo I took at Humberston Fitties several years ago looking North up the coast, adding a slight oil painting effect. The track doesn't continue onto the backscene but I've added a couple of paint effects to blend things together and hide the join. This is an incredibly subtle effect when seen in an overall view, but the impact in a low-level shot is much greater.

The beck decoupage has been replaced with a new print and the gap along the rear edge of the board previously painted black has been carefully filled in with scenic treatment including a new wooden fence behind the bushes. The new print is bigger than the old one, taking advantage of the increased height available. It does mean that the beck looks a bit wider in the background. All the backscene work was completed before the 'L' section unit was permanently fixed in place on the diorama.

On thing I hadn't factored in when adding the backscene across the right hand end was the slight limitation to the photography angles looking to the left. It is still feasible to soot this way but maybe not to get the bridge into shot!

The bridge can however be incorporated into long-shots down the scene - I was quite amazed how well this one turned out, a real train heading into the distance effect.

I'm really happy with how these changes have turned out, with hindsight a backscene should have been included from the beginning, but I wasn't thinking of that when I first carved up a cat food box...

Colin