Warren Lane (formally The Layout Formally Known as Warren Lane, and Wulfruna) again...

[Satan's Goldfish]

Yeah all is well, i'm just out of the house for at least 13 hours a day at the moment which has severly dented modelling time. A week off has been booked in October (seriously, that's the earliest i can get any time off, i'm putting serious thoughts into my current career choice because this sucks) and assuming i'm not swamped with household tasks i'm going to get stuck into the layout again. I have a pile of parts waiting to get put together now.

[Shed]

Hope you get some time soon

[Satan's Goldfish]

I've started tentative negotiations on a big *ss shed which i told Mrs SG would be for the tractor mower and other garden stuff, more inclined to put the layout in there instead which hopefully will help with building progress. About half of my October break is now booked with house work

[naturol]

How's the building work going. Mine over ran by two months and about £3k, but I. In now.

(And built a 15' X 7' railway room. Yippee. Show us your shed......

[Satan's Goldfish]

The shed/outbuilding currently with a hottub in is coming from a neighbour, he's saying after Christmas..... but still hasn't agreed a price with his wife...... it'll need modifying slightly as it's currently 16x10, and i need it to be 32x10 so there's definately going to be some additional cost involved in the long run if i ever want to set the whole layout up at home*

 

There's a new motivational tactic in place: Part of WL is in its trolley at the back of the dining room, Mrs SG and myself have started using the dining room more, with the end scenic board staring at me while i eat, giving me ideas.......

 

 

 

*there's a community centre across the road from our house with a big function hall which i can use during the day when test full setups are required.

 

 

 

 

Update: Shed is go go go for January Will be erected in its 'small' size to start with (which is still big enough for boards to be set up and worked on) with extending and reroofing carried out at a later date when the rest of my domestic chores are completed.... 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Satan's Goldfish

[Satan's Goldfish]

Still no shed yet....

 

However, I'm currently sat at the dining table enjoying the fumes as I try and break down the glue/paint mix Alan used on the big fiddle yard. It's not going well. The cobalt point motors have all been removed and I was hoping to be able to take up the points without damaging them to re-use on the fiddle yard in its new format. I think that idea is rapidly leaving the room, they are going to have to get destroyed to be removed. New plan! Cut track at edge of area to be removed, then go mad with the scraper. I have plenty of spare code 75 flex track for this, just need to check my stocks of medium radius points.

 

Edit update: despite having a good soak in some interesting smelling stuff, the ply Base delaminated easier than the points would unstick from it. What did you stick these down with Alan?!

Edited February 4, 2017 by Satan's Goldfish

[Satan's Goldfish]

I won't violate another thread with my thoughts, but C6T has just introduced me to this gallery;

 

https://whitemaskmk2.smugmug.com/Trains/Essex-and-East-Anglia/

 

Which is just a fantastic GEML and surrounding area fest covering the era I'm wanting it to look like.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Back on post #34 I started stock piling the wiring diagrams as they evolved. That post is now null and void (but left intact to show the evolution and simplification of design) and the 'completed' diagrams with explanations are here. As much as electronics is one of the things i enjoy the most about the hobby, I took a good break from the diagrams as I felt they were getting a bit more complicated than they really need be. A couple of weeks ago I came back to it and a much simpler solution has resulted. Honestly, this is simpler!

 

A few things first; the track diagram on the previous page is roughly correct but a couple of alterations have been made. I had originally thought of adding a cripple siding on the first original Warren Lane board, following the destruction caused to the first FYI board as I've tried to remove track from I've decided not to do any alterations at all to the 3 scenic Warren Lane boards. On that subject, from an operational standpoint I don't expect to use the point ladder from the yard at the opposite end to the headshunt (except access to/from receiving). Again my original thought was to remove the point ladder and salvage the tortoise motors, but these will now remain. A separate control panel is to be added away from the main panel for these points instead as they are about 15ft away from where a train driver can see clearly. Also not on the plan are a couple of points that will be soldered in one position accessing sidings that are scenic rather than operative.

 

Some may look at this and think 'you should have gone for DCC and a PC to do all that, much simpler', I have no issues with those who choose that route, but that's not what I was after creating.

 

First up is an overall descriptive operations picture:

 

 

As for the panel built for Warren Lane, it's hopefully designed to be simple. Everything is spread across 4 control panels but the entire layout can mostly be operated from the main panel which will be fixed to the end curve with the stabling point.

 

Main panel:

 

 

All simple enough on the surface! Wiring:

 

 

All the wiring diagrams are designed to use the same few components so there's less spares to hold if there's a failure. Primarily, 12v DPDT relays, 24v SPDT relays, Single pole 12 way rotary switches, and SPDT switches. Most items outside that list are involved in tell-backs rather than direct control.

 

Diagrams (main panel and remote) for the far end of the yard:

 

 

 

As can be seen, having a signaller at the far end is required to fully use that end of the yard. Also on that diagram I've started labeling where wires will feed through tag strips for future reference. The electronic connection between all boards will be via 25way d-types, the board mounted part being a breakout connector for easy wiring and fault chasing. Pin numbers for these will be added as things progress.

 

Finally for parts controlled by the main panel, relays for the fiddle yard cobalt motors:

 

 

These will be located on the centre FY board with the rest of the FY automating system. The cobalt are being salvaged from the FY as it is being modified. They are some of the original ones produced and don't cope well with 12v across them! On the original Warren Lane panel I solved this with resistors making a potential divider which dropped the voltage to between 7 and 10 volts depending on total point orientation. They ran hot! (But reliable). This time, I'm using +12v and -5v, but the return from the cobalt will be floating at 3.3v to give a roughly +/-8.5v supply.

 

And no, I've no idea anymore why the fiddle tracks aren't in a more logical alpha numeric order. It's obviously evolved to that at some point in early planning when an error needed correcting and been easier to stick with rather than doing a full renumber.

 

Controllers next. I bought 10 PWM modules with reversing switches from Ebay a while ago for this. I just need to find some suitable hand sized enclosures and bigger throttle knobs for them.

 

 

I need to check what the controller connector is at the 'Maggie' position and they'll all be built to match that. As the Maggie position is in front of the layout, the track feeds from the controller are crossed so trains still run in the direction the operator is looking at them. The front position also feeds control voltage back when it's connected to activate the front control panel:

 

 

This was something else I was going to modify for the cripple siding, but then things changed....

 

Following a query elsewhere on RMweb, I learned that the Ipswich fuel tanks used to be run at the head of a Harwich intermodal then tripped to Ipswich. Brilliant. So I've added a fuel tank siding and bought a couple of TTAs fitted with Kadees that can run instead of a flat on some container services. On the Maggie panel there's an 'off' position that has a wire that fed back to an LED on the old main panel to show when Maggie wasn't using it (which was mostly ignored by the operators (so why have I added a similar LED to the new PANEL?!)) This wire now feeds back to control the 'Slip siding' tortoise so a front operator won't need to shout to get access to it.

 

The final part to talk about is the panel fixed to the middle fiddle board, which is also where the PSU will live:

 

 

Starting with power, the plan is to use a slightly modified old ATX SMPS from a PC as I have a couple spare to run the layout and lighting (the old strip lights are being replaced with LEDs). There will be a separate supply here that feeds around to power the cranes, keeping all the mains in one place.

 

 

Power LEDs and volt meter for basic fault checking.

 

Finally the automatic fiddle yard system. 2x diagrams for Up, and 2x diagrams for down. This is simpler than what I originally had in mind and has been designed so that if any part fails it won't interfere with operating the FY manually instead. I won't go into full descriptions on how it works, but the basics involve using IRDOT 2Ds to sense where trains are in the fiddle yard and select the next one to move. The Fiddle yards have a track feed at each end which are isolated from each other to avoid any shorting out, with power being fed to the required train from the departure end. There's a couple of delay timers when it swaps between tracks which will create a roughly 5 second gap between arrivals and departures allowing the whole system to reset itself and select a route before proceeding. Switches on the control panel allow anywhere from 1 to 7 trains to be used in each direction (tracks 3 and 8 must always be used), so tracks can be isolated to remove and swap trains about by hand while others keep moving.

 

Up:

 

 

 

Down:

 

 

 

I think I may have accidentally designed a minor error in track supply in a couple of places on the IRDOT diagrams, but easily solved (just need a bigger screen to work it all through in my head).

 

Once all the tag strips data, resistor values, etc are all added, these will need printing and laminating to travel with the layout. Construction will be on Vero board this time. A lot of the circuitry around the IRDOTs is identical for each one (not obvious on the diagram) so multiple boards can be built meaning there's a quick spares fix.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Satan's Goldfish

[Satan's Goldfish]

Been nothing container related recently, so here's an FJA I've been working on!

 

 

Priming, Paint job, and Kadees required.

 

Seems pointless doing FFA/FGA with Bachmann's due out, so I thought I'd try something different with the s-kits parts I've got. The main body of the wagon is a prototype 3d test print from wild Boar, thrown in as freebie with some other items I ordered from him a while ago. As such, it's received a little metal reinforcement at potential weak spots around the thin deck near the bogies, and some material needed removing to allow the bogies to pivot without hitting the frame anywhere. Lumps of metal that make up the s-kits bits add some weight to the overall model, it's definitely not as heavy as the all metal kfa pictured next to it, but much better than an unloaded FLA so I don't predict issues with unloaded shunting.

[Satan's Goldfish]

First paint. The straightened bits of paperclip are hard to notice after a grey primer and a coat of matt black. There's some fine threads of plastic from the printing process that need snipping out from in the frame work, these are much easier to see now they're black. I also need to fashion some draw hooks for the head stocks to finish them off before its next prime and paint (there's so many angles to point the spray can on this that not everything received a coat)

 

[Satan's Goldfish]

More FJA progress. As mentioned above the thread like whisps of printed plastic have been snipped out to neaten it up. Draw hooks have been added (more bent paperclips (simple but cheap and effective from normal viewing distance)) along with Kadee no.5s. Kadees needed a piece of plasticard mounting under the wagon framework to fit to, and part of the wagon end filing down for clearance. In an ideal world I needed a kadee with a longer shank, but funds are tight so I used what I already had to hand. I don't think it helps that the kadee on the KFA is quite long!

 

Apart from a good weathering and picking out details like the hand brake wheels, that's this wagon done I think. The deck height levels nicely with a Hornby KFA (the prototype FJA deck is a few mm higher than a KFA deck) despite the buffer beam looking higher.

 

 

 

 

[Shed]

Great work on the wagons

[Satan's Goldfish]

No movement on the layout front, everything seems to happen at once here and a 'new' car and possible house move is looming up.

 

But, I've taken some time keep looking at wagons, and I think I've reached the point that I need to produce some tiphook transfers:

 

 

The tiphook kpa's are modified Bachmann autoballasters (generators and unloading equipment removed) which will be run mixed in with a set of PGAs. The covered wagons are resprays of Lima BHAs which will need code 75 friendly wheels and more subtle couplings to complete, they will mostly work with speedlink services or boost numbers in a steel rake (most un-GEML!)

 

Still on the list to convert and make transfers; 3x grainflow polybulks and 8+ v2 vtg ferry wagons. The grainflow transfers are a bit beyond my abilities to make, but artwork for the ferry wagons is mostly complete.

 

Another set of wagons in the works are based on oversized steel load set that appears in an international ferry wagons book I've got. Again, probably never appeared on the GEML.

 

 

Heljan cargowaggons will receive some plastruct I beams as load that will overhang the 4 wheeled runner in the middle. The runner is a ho roco model, it's not clear in the picture but the buffers are tiny and will need replacing. The prototype also has its ends and first side segments removed to clear the load, but i haven't yet worked out a clean way to remove them from the model.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Additional; just noticed the tiphook wagons all seem to be riding on the same bogies (different manufacturers), do any in the group know if the autoballaster bogies are available as a seperate item as that would solve the lima wheels and couplings in one move.

 

Thanks in advance....

 

 

 

Self note: reduce logo art height 4 - 5mm.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Satan's Goldfish

[Jack374]

Additional; just noticed the tiphook wagons all seem to be riding on the same bogies (different manufacturers), do any in the group know if the autoballaster bogies are available as a seperate item as that would solve the lima wheels and couplings in one move.

Thanks in advance....

I emailed both Bachmann and Dapol (whose bogies on the HIA wagons are just as good), and I got a roundabout no from Dapol and a very blunt nope from Bachmann. I'm either going to cast them with resin or use S Kits ones for my wagons that need them, I haven't decided yet. They're very elusive it seems!

 

Thanks,

Jack.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Thanks Jack, I'll make the best I can with the Lima offering for now then.

[GWRPhil]

Evening

 

Any updates to the layout recently.

 

Hope you and mrs sg are all well at the moment

[Satan's Goldfish]

Hi Phil,

 

We're good thanks, working too hard and not enough spare time as ever... then there was getting caught in Hurricane Irma...been an interesting few months! Layout progress is tied up in our hoped for house move at the moment which could take a while, but it will be worth it as we'll have plenty of space to keep the layout set up permanently if/when it happens Slowly stock piling all the electronic bits I need before I start building new panels, and getting distracted by all things Swiss to fill the time.

 

Saw Dan and Mick a few weeks ago, I hear things have changed for you too? Back in the west country!

[GWRPhil]

Yeah.

 

It was time to give life a shake up. Just decided my life needed to take a new direction and part of that was getting back to my roots and being nearer family.

 

Just got a new job for well known telecommunications company that likes Hollywood actors based adverts.

 

Hope Irma didn’t cause you to many problems.

 

Hope the house goes well mate. We’re living with my dad temporarily at the moment. We’ve got offer in on house atm and it’s starting to all go through. Needed to be down here for little ones new school year so decided on short period with dad. A novel experience after around 20 years of not living under his roof.

[crazynitwit]

Back on post #34 I started stock piling the wiring diagrams as they evolved. That post is now null and void (but left intact to show the evolution and simplification of design) and the 'completed' diagrams with explanations are here. As much as electronics is one of the things i enjoy the most about the hobby, I took a good break from the diagrams as I felt they were getting a bit more complicated than they really need be. A couple of weeks ago I came back to it and a much simpler solution has resulted. Honestly, this is simpler!

 

A few things first; the track diagram on the previous page is roughly correct but a couple of alterations have been made. I had originally thought of adding a cripple siding on the first original Warren Lane board, following the destruction caused to the first FYI board as I've tried to remove track from I've decided not to do any alterations at all to the 3 scenic Warren Lane boards. On that subject, from an operational standpoint I don't expect to use the point ladder from the yard at the opposite end to the headshunt (except access to/from receiving). Again my original thought was to remove the point ladder and salvage the tortoise motors, but these will now remain. A separate control panel is to be added away from the main panel for these points instead as they are about 15ft away from where a train driver can see clearly. Also not on the plan are a couple of points that will be soldered in one position accessing sidings that are scenic rather than operative.

 

Some may look at this and think 'you should have gone for DCC and a PC to do all that, much simpler', I have no issues with those who choose that route, but that's not what I was after creating.

 

First up is an overall descriptive operations picture:

 

Main Control Panel Ops Info.jpg

 

As for the panel built for Warren Lane, it's hopefully designed to be simple. Everything is spread across 4 control panels but the entire layout can mostly be operated from the main panel which will be fixed to the end curve with the stabling point.

 

Main panel:

 

Main Control Panel Apperance.jpg

 

All simple enough on the surface! Wiring:

 

Scenic Point Control.jpg

 

All the wiring diagrams are designed to use the same few components so there's less spares to hold if there's a failure. Primarily, 12v DPDT relays, 24v SPDT relays, Single pole 12 way rotary switches, and SPDT switches. Most items outside that list are involved in tell-backs rather than direct control.

 

Diagrams (main panel and remote) for the far end of the yard:

 

Yard North Main.jpg

 

Yard North Remote.jpg

 

As can be seen, having a signaller at the far end is required to fully use that end of the yard. Also on that diagram I've started labeling where wires will feed through tag strips for future reference. The electronic connection between all boards will be via 25way d-types, the board mounted part being a breakout connector for easy wiring and fault chasing. Pin numbers for these will be added as things progress.

 

Finally for parts controlled by the main panel, relays for the fiddle yard cobalt motors:

 

FY Point Relays.jpg

 

These will be located on the centre FY board with the rest of the FY automating system. The cobalt are being salvaged from the FY as it is being modified. They are some of the original ones produced and don't cope well with 12v across them! On the original Warren Lane panel I solved this with resistors making a potential divider which dropped the voltage to between 7 and 10 volts depending on total point orientation. They ran hot! (But reliable). This time, I'm using +12v and -5v, but the return from the cobalt will be floating at 3.3v to give a roughly +/-8.5v supply.

 

And no, I've no idea anymore why the fiddle tracks aren't in a more logical alpha numeric order. It's obviously evolved to that at some point in early planning when an error needed correcting and been easier to stick with rather than doing a full renumber.

 

Controllers next. I bought 10 PWM modules with reversing switches from Ebay a while ago for this. I just need to find some suitable hand sized enclosures and bigger throttle knobs for them.

 

Controller Select and Route.jpg

 

I need to check what the controller connector is at the 'Maggie' position and they'll all be built to match that. As the Maggie position is in front of the layout, the track feeds from the controller are crossed so trains still run in the direction the operator is looking at them. The front position also feeds control voltage back when it's connected to activate the front control panel:

 

Remote Panel Mods.JPG

 

This was something else I was going to modify for the cripple siding, but then things changed....

 

Following a query elsewhere on RMweb, I learned that the Ipswich fuel tanks used to be run at the head of a Harwich intermodal then tripped to Ipswich. Brilliant. So I've added a fuel tank siding and bought a couple of TTAs fitted with Kadees that can run instead of a flat on some container services. On the Maggie panel there's an 'off' position that has a wire that fed back to an LED on the old main panel to show when Maggie wasn't using it (which was mostly ignored by the operators (so why have I added a similar LED to the new PANEL?!)) This wire now feeds back to control the 'Slip siding' tortoise so a front operator won't need to shout to get access to it.

 

The final part to talk about is the panel fixed to the middle fiddle board, which is also where the PSU will live:

 

FY and PSU Control Front Panel.jpg

 

Starting with power, the plan is to use a slightly modified old ATX SMPS from a PC as I have a couple spare to run the layout and lighting (the old strip lights are being replaced with LEDs). There will be a separate supply here that feeds around to power the cranes, keeping all the mains in one place.

 

Power Dist and Mon.jpg

 

Power LEDs and volt meter for basic fault checking.

 

Finally the automatic fiddle yard system. 2x diagrams for Up, and 2x diagrams for down. This is simpler than what I originally had in mind and has been designed so that if any part fails it won't interfere with operating the FY manually instead. I won't go into full descriptions on how it works, but the basics involve using IRDOT 2Ds to sense where trains are in the fiddle yard and select the next one to move. The Fiddle yards have a track feed at each end which are isolated from each other to avoid any shorting out, with power being fed to the required train from the departure end. There's a couple of delay timers when it swaps between tracks which will create a roughly 5 second gap between arrivals and departures allowing the whole system to reset itself and select a route before proceeding. Switches on the control panel allow anywhere from 1 to 7 trains to be used in each direction (tracks 3 and 8 must always be used), so tracks can be isolated to remove and swap trains about by hand while others keep moving.

 

Up:

 

Auto FY Selector Up.jpg

 

IRDOT Isolate and Autochange Up.jpg

 

Down:

 

Auto FY Selector Down.jpg

 

IRDOT Isolate and Autochange Down.jpg

 

I think I may have accidentally designed a minor error in track supply in a couple of places on the IRDOT diagrams, but easily solved (just need a bigger screen to work it all through in my head).

 

Once all the tag strips data, resistor values, etc are all added, these will need printing and laminating to travel with the layout. Construction will be on Vero board this time. A lot of the circuitry around the IRDOTs is identical for each one (not obvious on the diagram) so multiple boards can be built meaning there's a quick spares fix.

this isnt too much to do with wiring but how long is the layout.

[Satan's Goldfish]

this isnt too much to do with wiring but how long is the layout.

Layout is 26ft x 8ft, with the front scenic boards 2ft6in wide and fiddle yard 16in wide.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Erm..... been a slight mess-up... the grand plan is to have the layout set up permanently when it's done so size is obviously a rather serious consideration. Mrs SG and I suddenly realised earlier that it's a couple of feet longer than planned... or rather, it's space is potential future space a couple of feet shorter than we thought.

 

Solutions are being discussed. Electronics is the bit I enjoy the most anyway so I'm safe on that front!

[GWRPhil]

Erm..... been a slight mess-up... the grand plan is to have the layout set up permanently when it's done so size is obviously a rather serious consideration. Mrs SG and I suddenly realised earlier that it's a couple of feet longer than planned... or rather, it's space is potential future space a couple of feet shorter than we thought.

Solutions are being discussed. Electronics is the bit I enjoy the most anyway so I'm safe on that front!

Extend the house?

[PhilJ W]

Erm..... been a slight mess-up... the grand plan is to have the layout set up permanently when it's done so size is obviously a rather serious consideration. Mrs SG and I suddenly realised earlier that it's a couple of feet longer than planned... or rather, it's space is potential future space a couple of feet shorter than we thought.

 

Solutions are being discussed. Electronics is the bit I enjoy the most anyway so I'm safe on that front!

 

 

Extend the house?

If there's a window handy and of sufficient size convert it into a bay window, unless your on the 10th floor of a block of flats of course.  

[Satan's Goldfish]

A bit of progress to see in the new year: New end curves! Not scenic now to speed things up a little and a couple of the stabling tracks will be lost but most of the electronics stay the same. Big thanks to Tim Horn for these, a very pleasant couple of days were spent in his workshop knocking these up (along with other projects).

 

 

These won't be fitted to trolleys and come apart into 4x 90 degree curves. However they are shallow enough to fit face to face on top of the other fiddle yard boards so will take up less space. They have also been designed to sit on legs I have left over from the Brit 'modular' experiment a couple of years ago which are very robust but take up less storage space than the metal trestle legs the layout previously stood on.

 

Now the down side, the previous plan doesn't fit and the curve is a little tighter. There should be enough space along side the head shunt for a single track of loco stabling plus kick back for the pair of fuel tankers but it's all non scenic now. The curved crossing may also no longer be needed but I need to have more of a play with track layout to see.

 

The tighter curve has also made splitting the tracks for the fiddle yard a bit more difficult. The outer track design can remain the same, using curved points on the curved boards, but the inner track is too tight now. Instead, it will be single until it reaches the straight fiddle boards and the first and last points will now be 3-ways with a 'normal' medium radius point off it accessing the outer tracks. This means the long loop on the very inside will end up slightly shorter but minimal impact on the rest of the loop lengths.

 

There has been lots of electronic component ordering this last few days so I'm expecting lots of deliveries from China. First step is building the pwm controllers.

 

 

 

Found someone else's attempt at an FSA pair in Great Eastern today so figured I'd treat myself and see what I could do with them as there's still no sign of the Bachmann FFA/FGA sets. The containers have been very well weathered so that's a plus, but had been firmly glued onto the flats The flats themselves were stretched Bachmann FIAs and done quite well with new TOPS panels on the sides, the glued down containers were helping hold them together a bit though.

 

 

 

They need some attention, namely the inner headstocks (I'll use sets made spare by FLA 5 set conversions) and the deck appearance. I started drawing up plans for FSA/FTA flats a while ago so I'll see if I can use the deck top as an overlay on these to improve the way they look with correct mounting points.

 

For now, THAT IS ALL.