Long Marton

[peach james]

Jeff had kindly asked for this area.  I'm going to move new discussion about Long Marton here.

 

Some background:

The real thing- well, it's a small community, to the north of Appleby.  The station lost its service in the great culls, and has not regained it.  Buildings still mostly exist.  The station is now a B&B, and the goods yard is in use by a hauler (or was, in 2006, when I last visited).  

 

The model:  I'm on version 3 of Long Marton, making it unlikely that I will ever make a different model.  It is a sectional layout, designed to be movable.  It _might_ be possible to exhibit it, but it is not designed as an exhibition layout.  The scenic portion is 3' x30, consisting of 5 sections.  (Trout Beck Viaduct, Bridge 253, Goods Yard, Bridge 254, Station).  It is currently laid in Peco code 100 track, although there is a plan (!) to relay it in SMP/Marcway.  

 

The layout is far from conventional in an electrical sense- it was built from the start as a DCC layout.  The scenic side hardly describes what else there is.  The storage yard is a 15 track set of 18' long loops, capable of holding up to about 60 SWU's,  There is also a staging yard, which is a bit shorter at 40 SWU and 6 tracks.  (one of which is needed for running through, usually).  These are set up to feed onto UP (for the storage loops) and Down (Staging).  Both of these are connected via a pair of triangle loops, so that trains are always facing out of the storage yard.  The whole layout is wired for track circuits, with something over 140 individual blocks.  Railroad & Co v5.0.c is used to run a automatic sequence, based on the operation of the mechanical lever frame and block instruments. (it's so much easier to write that than it was to program what I have gotten to...)

 

I have been working on this version since 2006, when I ripped out the temporary baseboards from the previous version and started to get a bit more serious about building a DCC computer aided version.  The previous version was going to be DC, with rather buried hidden loops that caused me no end of distress.  (lesson learned- make the loops at least somewhat accessible...)

 

I have two assistants, in the form of my lads Daniel and Allen.  I'm semi retired, having served 20 years in the Royal Canadian Navy as a Marine Engineer, finishing as an Artificer with EOOW qualification for HMCS Protecteur, the 2nd last of the RCN steam turbine ships.  (Preserver went to sea after PRO's fire...sort of...)

 

If anyone finds themselves on Vancouver Island, you are welcome to come visit.  

 

James

[Physicsman]

Hi James.

 

Glad you finally decided to move the Long Marton thread into here. I know you were reluctant to move the original thread into the S&C area, 5 years ago, but it's good to consolidate the ongoing S&C layouts in this one place.

 

Hopefully we'll see plenty of action on here - and Lego is bound to feature at some point!!

 

Jeff

[peach james]

So, since the club is coming to visit, the layout has decided to slightly malfunction. It looks like one of the ds44's used in the staging has died. Next fun task: remove only two boards to get at it. That might be Thursday, as tomorrow I am off to start laying track on the new club layout. It's going to be a 16x2 terminus station, with the future option of running through.

 

(The ds44 is a stationary decoder used to run single torti mostly in the staging yard)

[67A]

Come'on James where's the piccies!?

[peach james]

Come'on James where's the piccies!?

It hasn't evolved at all scenic wise. Well, at least not much- I have been mauling some of the cross board hills so that they should be even instead of 6' or more fault lines !

 

I did a bit of troubleshooting today, trying to get the auto to work.  I have one block still showing occupied, when it is not, that I have to still look at.  The other one I tracked down and found the issue- I'd bent over a pin when I was replacing the DS44 (turnout controller) mentioned above.  So, the state tonight is trains back in the storage yard, having run through one lot of filling and then emptying.  I'm going to try again tomorrow AM, and then tomorrow PM it's off to go work on our club layout, with some cork laying.

 

In news relating to that, the 30 9G servos I ordered in December showed up- I was fairly sure I was going to have to reorder them.  I suspect they have made 2 trips to Canada, one on a Harjin ship & one by air. The intent is to use them on the club layout for switching Peco turnouts, and possibly Ratio signals.

 

James

[peach james]

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( I thought I'd add, the photo is from my dad's collection, and shows 8122/ OF, the last road steam in the UK in commercial use.  It is an older photo, as it has the small tar tank on it.  I think everyone in the photo is now dead, unfortunately- dad is the camera man, so isn't in the photo )

 

 

 

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I need MRJ 65, and a few others- thanks to members of Top Link, I have a nearly complete set from 0-230 or so, and then it gets a bit spottier, as the distro into Canada has gotten a bit more difficult

MRC's on the top, the 80's ones.  Pre 1980 went to another member, and that gains me a free pile of magazines at some point in the future.  And lego- the overhead has my Simpson's Mini-Mart just showing.

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Sur-forming a bit of land to flatten it out

 

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This bit needed a wood reinforcement for the clamping surface.  The outside really could do with one too, and the paper arch should be put into place !

 

 

 

It started working a bit better today, as I cleaned track, and tracked down a few of the interesting things going on.  I'm fairly sure I had deliberately changed one block to show full time occupied in order to avoid the turnout issue (referenced above).  The last trains of the day ended up in a pile up, but that's fairly normal...followed by traveling to help glue down some cork and track on the new club layout.  (12x2').  Tonight I have been mucking around with a few other changes, fixed a locking issue, and changed a little niggle with the software.

 

James

Edited May 10, 2017 by peach james

[peach james]

Bug squashing. I've been running lots of trains up through Long Marton, squishing programming bugs as I go. The latest was just adding a pair of macros to Firth of Clyde, which was missing the designation as a passenger engine for the signal box codes. Tonight's great fun is why D5718 (yes, a class 28...) all of a sudden doesn't want to stay coupled to the CONDOR, ( or at least, the easy one, not the proper one that I have to make from the scratch aids I have). First I had to go digging to fix the 2nd smoke unit in it, then it didn't want to stay attached. Tomorrow is off to play with lego, then taking the little lad to a cardiologist on Tuesday (his GP thinks he may have a heart murmur, so not that serious yet...). Hopefully back at running trains by Tuesday evening. Next week is boxing of Lego, and finishing the design for our train show here in Victoria, on the 28th at JdF in the curling rink.

 

James

[60091]

 Tomorrow is off to play with lego, then taking the little lad to a cardiologist on Tuesday (his GP thinks he may have a heart murmur, so not that serious yet...). Hopefully back at running trains by Tuesday evening. Next week is boxing of Lego, and finishing the design for our train show here in Victoria, on the 28th at JdF in the curling rink.

 

James

Hi James

Good luck for the visit to the cardiologist tomorrow. Hope it all goes well.

 

Regards

Alan

[peach james]

I haven't shot any video, but the up trains are starting to get to be almost boring in their regularity, they go though just fine !.  (1-2-2, 5, 4-1, 3-1-3 or 4 !).  I will shoot a bit of video, but they are really acting fairly reliable.  Next is a bit more work on the down trains, as I have only run one through down so far.  I'm hoping that there are no big glaring errors in the down portions, at least not beyond trying to use the up train identifiers.  

 

Allen went for his cardiologist, he has a heart murmur, next step is a ultrasound to see what they can see.  No restrictions on him though, so currently he's playing with Daniel on the floor, or somewhere around !.

 

James

[peach james]

Well, the sets of video have gone smashingly ! As anyone with a layout knows, the gremlins come out as soon as a camera is aimed at it, or you have a visitor. So, to date I have managed to have a rear end collision, several fail to starts, and a couple of me caused derailments. The worst of them so far has reduced the #of shock fit vans I can get at by one...because there is now one stuck in the wall...

 

We are off to go swimming, so more tries tonight. I'm not sure what will go wrong, just that something will !

 

James

[peach james]

Well, what did I go and do?  We (one lad at a time) and I went off to the Victoria (BC) train show last weekend, https://flic.kr/s/aHskW1AwTm is the resulting folder of images.  Now, after 4 days of reconstruction, I am off to Vancouver to see Midnight Oil.  On Sunday, I have the club coming out, so I am expecting every possible bug/problem to rear its head starting at noon on Sunday.  I need to clean track again, and do a bit more tidying up, as well as putting the table away where the club layout is going to get plopped.  It's a 2'x12' (16' with the fiddle yard) design, currently at the tracklaying stage.  

 

I will post again on Monday,

 

James

[Physicsman]

Good luck with the show, James. I'm sure it'll all work out fine. And if it doesn't, smile and get on with life!

 

You really do some travelling, don't you? I guess it's a consequence of living in such a huge country. Midnight Oil - haven't they been around since the 80s?

 

Hope your lad's ok after his medical tests.

 

Jeff

[peach james]

Good luck with the show, James. I'm sure it'll all work out fine. And if it doesn't, smile and get on with life!

You really do some travelling, don't you? I guess it's a consequence of living in such a huge country. Midnight Oil - haven't they been around since the 80s?

Hope your lad's ok after his medical tests.

Jeff

 

Vancouver is the nearest larger center than Victoria, with >3 million in the city(s) which make it up.  So, traveling there to see bands is not all that unexpected- with only ~300 000 in the Victoria area, we don't always get even Canadian bands playing.  It doesn't help that the ferry cost is about 500 quid for a 44 ton lorry each way, so if you are traveling a show, it adds up quickly.  

 

The Oils have been around longer than that- well before I was born, starting in 1973 ( ! ).  They took a 10 year break, as the lead singer, Peter Garret, was elected to the Australian Federal Parliament, and then chosen to be Environment Minister.  I understand he is a lawyer, which is an interesting reflection of musicians- I can think of a commercial pilot's licence holder, a Dr of Microbiology (in a band you'd not expect !), and a fair # of elected officals.  

 

The little lad is going back in early July for the Echo Cardiogram, so I don't think the Dr. felt it is urgent, but that it needs to be checked over.  I'd not like to moan on here about a lad who runs 2k races & finishes middle of the pack, when we consider people like David (Tetley's) Shakespeare, and Jock.  If he was worse, then I'd said something, but I tend to suspect this will end up being not much of anything, in the grand scheme of sick kids. One of the kids who has been out here to see & play with the lego was the poster child for BC Children's Hospital fundraising here on the island. It really does make me feel honoured to get to let her try and be a regular child.  (3x bouts so far of cancer...)  It might not seem like a huge thing, but it is the sort of thing that _everyone_ involved in can look at as a little positive when the next rough patch happens.

 

I was going to post last night, Jeff, but then the hydro went out...so the WiFi goes out...and the cable modem...

 

The club were here today, only 7 of us this time, rather than the 13 at the last meeting.  I'd like to extend an invite to anyone who makes it to Southern Vancouver Island, feel free to message me, I'm usually around to host people...even if it is not a formal meeting.  Trains did run.  Both up and down.  Down is...well, there appears to be a lot of missing programming- more than I thought there was.  (I had thought I started with down, but I guess I was backwards).  The good news is that the trains were fairly reliable, not as good as Tony W's, but if you fault find every problem, then eventually they won't be problems.  I guess next on my list of fault finding is the 3F, which has serious pickup issues.

 

James

[Physicsman]

James, thanks for the catch-up. If I'm ever within a thousand miles of you (that's just down the street by Canadian standards) I'll be sure to drop in.

 

And I hadn't realised that Vancouver was quite the size it is....

 

Glad to hear about your younger lad. Keep us posted.

 

Jeff

[peach james]

Trainee signalmen at work today- I fired up Long Marton, and both lads were trying their hand at being signalman.  The little one is funny- he's barely tall enough to see the top of the signalbox !

 

James

[peach james]

I've spent the last couple of Sunday afternoons working on an arcology project- emptying out one of our BRMoV's members house.  It's been layers of stuff- I remember sorting some of it 2 decades ago (cor, when I was young...), and more layouts have been added since.  (well to be fair, the main layout had been removed.  (a Swiss HOm3 layout that at one point extended around the room). 

Suffice to say, it's a bit of a task.  It makes my railway room look positively tidy in comparison.  Even when I had the floor covered with stuff, it was no where near as messy as this has been.  

If anyone is looking for Bemo models, I know where there is an extensive supply...

[Physicsman]

Well, it's been a long while since LM was mentioned on here, James.

 

One of these days you might stop some of the gazillion projects you have on the go and "complete" LM! Yes, I know it's never going to happen.

 

Good to hear from you.

 

J.

 

 

[peach james]

Track lifting...

I've lifted most of the Peco Code 100 rail off the scenic parts of Long Marton.  I have the code 75 Bullhead track to relay the layout with- and I've finally found a bit of "get around to it" with Long Marton.

 

There's some other work ongoing on the railway room- I still have some house wiring to do, and I have to reinsulate one wall, then put up some type of celing above LM.  Lots of projects...

James