The Fifth Layout - Touch

[peter220950]

I had settled on a quartet of cake boxes, but a couple of remarks on one of the threads fired off something in my brain that gave me an idea for a fifth, yet to be even fully formulated, that would give the whole project a nice coherent theme.

 

As always when I'm looking for inspiration I put my new idea into Google, and

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had decided to base my boxes on the 5 senses, and there couldn't be a better hint that I was on the right track than one of the first images that came up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there we are, I'm now at five boxes not four, they will each be themed as one of the senses, some, like the cake will be easy, taste. Similarly the box of cakes in the cake box will be smell, it is a chocolate cake factory after all, and that's already thought through as to how it will work, I have all the bits I need to sort it.

 

The view from the bridge will be sound, I have yet to fully experiment but want to hook up a couple of speakers to the Kindle, to enhance the bass, so that just leaves touch and sight.

 

My initial thoughts were for a sight layout with a long train of some sort, possibly on a viaduct or similar, and using my old friend from Palin's Yard, the mirror, but it looked like it might be difficult to get a decent viewing position, and there is quite a lot of degradation of light in the mirrors.

 

 

I think the 1/12th layout will be suitable to cover sight, after all people will look at people looking at a layout.

 

This leaves it down to a touch layout, likely to feature some sort of animation controlled by the viewer, yet to be decided, a crane, rail mounted digger, or similar.

 

Favourite at the moment is something which may be of use in the future, so it really ought to be O gauge, and I'm looking at the Leytonstone wagon lift.

 

 

The principles of operation would be the same as my tippler, with a winding motor controlled by a hand held switch, and travel limited by mico-switches.

 

In an ideal world a loco would push a wagon onto the platform, then withdraw, the hoist would lift, and a second loco would pull the wagon away at the top.

 

This has more than a few problems, there isn't room for a wagon and a loco to sit to the side of the lift, and there would need to be automatic uncoupling. It's easier in 4mm, but the work would be wasted, in 7mm it might get re-used, so it looks like it may have to be a compromise, with just a wagon raising and lowering. It's tight height wise, so I need to get some rough plans drawn up, I suspect the control hut may push the rules to the limit by being spring loaded to retract when the lid goes on the box, but time will tell.

 

Not what I really set put to do this morning, but I do have a year to do them, and much of the componentry is already lying around. My feeling is that it does make a nice rounded set, rather than a ragbag of disparate ideas, though some further thought is now needed to harmonize their appearance.

 

And then there's the small matter of a Cameo, still at least I'm only doing one of those!

 

Peter

Edited October 15, 2017 by peter220950

[BG John]

Do it as a cameo, and you could include a loco. Of course you could build it as a separate module that plugs into the cameo version. The timing of the two competitions means you could do the cakebox first, then convert it to a cameo .

[peter220950]

Good idea, but I think I have enough on my plate with 5 boxes and a cameo, so it would have to wait until everything else is done.........but it is worth thinking about.......... and I might build it with that plan in mind........

 

 

 

Peter

[peter220950]

Well the mock-up didn't quite go to plan,

 

 

Once built it highlighted a height problem, it's not that the height difference between tracks is an issue, but when you add in the support that is below the deck it far exceeds the box. I could have compromised by making a smaller height difference, and cutting down the support deck, but this seemed to make the whole thing a bit pointless, it would just become a freelance hoist, and I wanted something based on reality.

 

A trip up into the black hole that's our roof dug put some of my 00 from the 1970's, and it started to look a bit more feasible.

 

 

but for some reason, probably why I gave up on it in the first place, it didn't quite seem to do it for me, then I went back and dug a bit deeper.

 

 

Now I always felt that TT was the greatest missed opportunity in model railways, if it had come along a bit later, when mechanisms could be engineered better, I think it could well have taken over as the most popular scale, but it somehow missed out.

 

Using 3mm/ft the hoist may be a bit more challenging, but I think it gives greater scope to get a decent representation of the Leytonstone lift. I have also found some more photo's of it in use, so I will now start to plan the mechanical bits in detail. Once up and running the walls and building can be built around it.

 

Peter

[NickBrad]

I'm really looking forward to how this one progresses.