Painted myself into a corner?

[gordon s]

When you build the traverser, the base needs to be wider than the actual track base. With one of this size, it needs as much support as possible. Once you have it extended to its full width in either direction, the weight of the overhang is considerable. The way to overcome some of the alignment/weight issues is to widen the track spacing on the in road tracks.

 

The key to alignment on a traverser of this size is to reduce the cross movement to three or four tracks in each direction.

[Philou]

@ gordon s

 

The traverser as shown on plan #72 (now underneath the two orange rectangles above (plan #226)) has track spaced at 60mm (for hand-of-deity movements) and they are at least 140mm in-board from the edge. But nonetheless, I take your point regarding overhang each side and I shall ask my son-in-law, who is a whizz mechanically, of ideas of how to overcome the fulcrum effect.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

BTW: I hope you're able to get out on the golf course despite the weather .

[gordon s]

Thanks for your magnificent effort in reading ET from start to current date.  That deserves an award on its own.....

 

Played Thursday, but on temporary greens, as it's course maintenance week.  Hopefully we'll be back to normal tomorrow for the AMP Trophy.  Downside is the early tee time and an even earlier alarm call.  

 

Monday sees a 'summer' league match at Temple, with another early start.  No wonder I don't get much done...

[Philou]

Gordon,

 

You're too kind - I really ought to be thanking you (I don't want this to seem a 'I thank you' ... 'No, I thank YOU' ... 'I thank you' ... etc comedy show) as it was reading through your efforts of starting ET and then re-starting over that really gave me the impetus to get going again. I have picked up on things that you have tried and whilst making my own pointwork may just be outside my capabilities, I'm darn well going to give it a go. I have already created a simple cross-over on a 20m main-line radius curve via Templot (on paper only, don't get too excited there at the back). Why 20m? Because it's the curve through Ledbury station. It's a start.

 

Golf? Monday? We're being threatened with snow here . Good luck and I wish you a good season out there.

 

Philip

Edited March 24, 2018 by Philou

[Philou]

Hello chaps,

 

Hope you've all been busy - scaffolding arrived yesterday (Sunday) and two wheezing geezers (me and Mrs P's pseudo-brother-in-law - don't ask) put it up today - it didn't take too long, just under an hour. I got it all in place when it started to rain. Safety barrier to go up tomorrow morning and if it's dry I shall start raking the joints out. I have to be careful as we have blue-tits nesting in the wall and I don't really want to disturb them - if at all possible.

 

I have also been preparing some groundwork in respect of the barn - setting out the proposed timbers. Scarm was my friend. It's not really an architectural tool but it's given me a flavour of what it will be like and it helped me see that the stairwell I had in mind was not going to work. Would you like to have a look? Aw go on .........

 

I've had to place a trap door over the stairwell opening as I don't particularly want to do a Humpty Dumpty.

 

 

 

 

Looks all neat and tidy, but the reality is far from it . It'll be fun taking the old timbers out first.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited March 28, 2018 by Philou

[John ks]

Have you considered extending the mezzanine floor?

 

It may be possible to extend the floor joists by about 1M & canter levering them over the main beam.

 

 

 

With this extra metre you would have extra space to add hidden storage tracks & reduce the size of the traveser/ fiddle yard

 

 

 

Or you could extent the layout to fill the new area & have more space around the fiddle yard

The above may not be possible or legal

If you already have the floor joists cut to length then replacing them may not be affordable 

John

[Philou]

Hi John,

 

Unfortunately you've hit the nail on the head - the timbers are already in the barn drying out. They are a maximum 6m for the north-south (as looking on the plan) and 8m for those east-west. In any case, what is not seen on the plan is on the top of the low wall upon which are the posts, is a lower mezzanine that is no wider than a corridor that is used as storage. I don't think Mrs P would view it too kindly if she were to bang her head on the extensions - the difference is 5' and she's just over that. I shall be pinching about 300mm of airspace so that will ease the area above. However, I shall probably lose some of that IF I dry-line all around to help with insulation/heating, dust and vermin - I need to cost that bit out .

 

But thanks for the proposal.

 

Philip

[Joseph_Pestell]

Hi John,

 

Unfortunately you've hit the nail on the head - the timbers are already in the barn drying out. They are a maximum 6m for the north-south (as looking on the plan) and 8m for those east-west. In any case, what is not seen on the plan is on the top of the low wall upon which are the posts, is a lower mezzanine that is no wider than a corridor that is used as storage. I don't think Mrs P would view it too kindly if she were to bang her head on the extensions - the difference is 5' and she's just over that. I shall be pinching about 300mm of airspace so that will ease the area above. However, I shall probably lose some of that IF I dry-line all around to help with insulation/heating, dust and vermin - I need to cost that bit out .

 

But thanks for the proposal.

 

Philip

 

If I have understood that correctly, you could cantilever the layout out beyond the mezzanine floor to gain a couple of feet.

[Philou]

Hello Joseph,

 

The cantilevering south wards is around 300mm over and above the assumed 5.5m that I had determined to be the size of the layout - the reality is that I really should dry-line the barn walls as they are 500mm thick and made of stone - their insulating qualities are nil. Assuming that the walls are perfectly true vertically and horizontally (probably not) I would lose another 50mm all around. The maximum gain would be 200mm. However, east-west, I might gain 300mm! . Every little helps as I would probably use any extra area to ease the curvature of the main running track.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

I'm back - this time toying around with the baseboards within the plan above and just as well too. It has shown up an annoying 'inconvenience'.

 

As I have extended the floor plan slightly all round, and had I left the proposed baseboards starting in the top left-hand corner (0,0), assuming a baseboard height of 1m off the floor (height plucked from the air for the exercise only) there would have been less than 1.2m headroom for those coming up the stairs. By now starting on the right-hand side (50,7950) (50 taken off for dry-lining) the headroom is now increased to 1.6m which is much better. Increase in board height = more headroom. I am very reluctant to bring the stairs further into the railway room as it will involve cutting more load-bearing timbers that I want to avoid as much as possible.

 

I have avoided amending the plan #226 to use up all the 'extra' floor space as until I lay the floor down I shall not know if the room is square or not - I suspect not very - so I err on the side of caution here. The coloured blocks below the floor plan shows a possible dividing of the layout into convenient transportable modules so that I can take them out so as to work whilst on their sides for soldering, maintenance and the such. The modules as shown, avoid all cuts through pointwork. However I do think there are rather too many - more cuts = more rail joints = more possible problems.

 

It's a bit of a pity that I am uncertain about the 'squareness' of the proposed space as I could have got some plywood in and started to make modules and at least lay paper templates to see the lay of the land whilst I'm not raking out joints - rain has stopped play for today .

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

Edit: The system wouldn't let me attach the file. I'll try in another separate post.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Philou

[Philou]

Hopefully it will work this time:

 

Nope!

[Philou]

At last! Bit of a faff. I had to use the basic editor and resave it.

 

Here it is:

 

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

Been busy repointing the wall and so I've had to let the modelling and proposed layout slide a bit. However, Mike The Stationmaster and I, have been in contact regarding Ledbury station - especially the goods yard in trying to determine the track layout. He and I have found very little by way of photographs showing what is what - the signal box seems to be always in the way!

 

Notwithstanding, I have generated several layouts of the station area based on OS sheets (that are not always accurate) and guesswork from what can be seen in the odd photos. There aren't an awful lot of changes, but I should like to know what the signal box is hiding .

 

I attach for your delight and delectation, and thoughts, the various layouts:

 

 

 

 

With my DIY hat on - here is the scaffolding that my brother-in-law and I set up about 10 days ago and some of the repointing work. I am about half way along the wall now.

 

 

 

I did manage some modelling - trying to attach six copper strands onto some fence posts with some rather shonky cyano glue - was not a happy bunny.

 

 

Road surfacing and grass to be added.

 

Cheers everyone (hope you all had an Easter egg),

 

Philip

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Philou]

Hi RMWebbers,

 

'Tis I - reporting back. Not a lot to tell except that I have now finished re-pointing my wall - delays caused by poor weather, grandchildren, parties (wedding and birthdays), dreaded tax returns (UK and French  - urghh) and generally 'other things that must be done'. The scaffolding is down and I must now turn my attention to setting up some decking - I  need to dig into some unknown soil eg: is it soil or made-up ground? I shan't know until I start digging out this week. Once done I can put in some concrete footings with some galvanised steel plates upon which I can then set up some timber posts clear of the ground to then construct the decking framework - happy days ahead .

 

On the railway front - I had a personal delivery of some goodies by Mr Lord of LordandButler himself. Express delivery in under 24 hours - beat that!

 

I have very eclectic tastes - in the parcel was: a Dean Goods in plain green - good for use on the Dymented branches, an LNWR D2A (in LMS black without the tender half-cab) - so good for some period running and a very recent release of the Class 150/1 with sound in ATW colours. That will be fine for up-to-date use on the Cardiff-Shrewsbury run via Pontrilas. I shall have to get an equivalent in Centro (?) colours for the Hereford-Birmingham run via Ledbury. Oh dear, the credit card has run away!

 

On the layout I've tried to design a mechanism for the traverser - I'm thinking a square tubular steel frame with a threaded bar at each end which is free to rotate via a cycle chains and cogs. The bars pass through mounts that are threaded. The mounts at each end are fixed onto a solid frame so that when the threaded bar turns it moves back-and-forth through the mount thus allowing the traverser to move. I need to think up some means of secondary support to the traverser so that the weight is not carried by the threaded bars that would no doubt flex too much. I've only done back of fag packet sketches at the moment and I don't know if it's feasible or not! My inspiration for this comes from the lathe mechanism for moving the piece towards the clutch - if you know what I mean. Any ideas?

 

Regarding the plan, I have toyed with the idea of creating additional storage space under Pontrilas by taking off a sub-branch to the Dymented branch behind Ledbury viaduct. However, even on a maximum grade of 1:50 (2%), there's less than 200mm of headroom notwithstanding bracing/supports under the Pontrilas boards - so it's pretty much a non-starter.

 

I shall, instead, create additional shelving under Pontrilas and Ledbury and keep the spare stock in cassettes. I wanted to avoid packing and repacking all the spare kit I have. It means I can have everything 'themed' ready for use - excepting the big units such as HSTs and the blue Pullman that don't lend themselves so be readily split. They will need to stay out more or less permanently.

 

There we are - that's it for the moment. I'll pop back from time to time with further updates.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited May 27, 2018 by Philou

[Denbridge]

Hi RMWebbers,

 

'Tis I - reporting back. Not a lot to tell except that I have now finished re-pointing my wall - delays caused by poor weather, grandchildren, parties (wedding and birthdays), dreaded tax returns (UK and French  - urghh) and generally 'other things that must be done'. The scaffolding is down and I must now turn my attention to setting up some decking - I  need to dig into some unknown soil eg: is it soil or made-up ground? I shan't know until I start digging out this week. Once done I can put in some concrete footings with some galvanised steel plates upon which I can then set up some timber posts clear of the ground to then construct the decking framework - happy days ahead .

 

On the railway front - I had a personal delivery of some goodies by Mr Lord of LordandButler himself. Express delivery in under 24 hours - beat that!

 

I have very eclectic tastes - in the parcel was: a Dean Goods in plain green - good for use on the Dymented branches, an LNWR D2A (in LMS black without the tender half-cab) - so good for some period running and a very recent release of the Class 150/1 with sound in ATW colours. That will be fine for up-to-date use on the Cardiff-Shrewsbury run via Pontrilas. I shall have to get an equivalent in Centro (?) colours for the Hereford-Birmingham run via Ledbury. Oh dear, the credit card has run away!

 

On the layout I've tried to design a mechanism for the traverser - I'm thinking a square tubular steel frame with a threaded bar at each end which is free to rotate via a cycle chains and cogs. The bars pass through mounts that are threaded. The mounts at each end are fixed onto a solid frame so that when the threaded bar turns it moves back-and-forth through the mount thus allowing the traverser to move. I need to think up some means of secondary support to the traverser so that the weight is not carried by the threaded bars that would no doubt flex too much. I've only done back of fag packet sketches at the moment and I don't know if it's feasible or not! My inspiration for this comes from the lathe mechanism for moving the piece towards the clutch - if you know what I mean. Any ideas?

 

Regarding the plan, I have toyed with the idea of creating additional storage space under Pontrilas by taking off a sub-branch to the Dymented branch behind Ledbury viaduct. However, even on a maximum grade of 1:50 (2%), there's less than 200mm of headroom notwithstanding bracing/supports under the Pontrilas boards - so it's pretty much a non-starter.

 

I shall, instead, create additional shelving under Pontrilas and Ledbury and keep the spare stock in cassettes. I wanted to avoid packing and repacking all the spare kit I have. It means I can have everything 'themed' ready for use - excepting the big units such as HSTs and the blue Pullman that don't lend themselves so be readily split. They will need to stay out more or less permanently.

 

There we are - that's it for the moment. I'll pop back from time to time with further updates.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

regarding extra storage. Adding a fy under the station is asking for trouble because 1. Access. You will need at least 6", preferably a lot more, to enable you to attend to trains. This leads to, 2. Gradients. To obtain the seperation required, you will need a long line of hidden track to achieve the gradient required. Models, particularly recent RTR dont like gradients. Realistically you would be looking at a hidden feeder line going all the way around the room, assuming youd be storing trains of more than 3 or 4 coaches it leads again to 3. Access. All that hidden track will come to be a pain in the ass for maintainance, cleaning, derailments, etc.

[Philou]

@Denbridge

 

Under board storage I guess is a bit of a no-no if you try to keep to shallow gradients AND have enough room under the boards (plus their bracing etc) to reach in and lift out. What would we say? 70mm for the height of stock, 70mm + clearance (20mm?) plus the thickness of your hand and grab of the fingers - another 100 - 150mm? I would guess at 250-300mm overall for comfort. And then, there's all the pain of setting back on the track if something derails .

 

I think cassettes will have the edge ....... .

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Denbridge]

@Denbridge

 

Under board storage I guess is a bit of a no-no if you try to keep to shallow gradients AND have enough room under the boards (plus their bracing etc) to reach in and lift out. What would we say? 70mm for the height of stock, 70mm + clearance (20mm?) plus the thickness of your hand and grab of the fingers - another 100 - 150mm? I would guess at 250-300mm overall for comfort. And then, there's all the pain of setting back on the track if something derails .

 

I think cassettes will have the edge ....... .

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

to be honest, you have plenty of storage. Reckon it would be easier all round to stick with what is planned. When you decide to change the period being operated, change all of the trains. You surely wont be mixing pre-nationalisation and modern stock on the layout.

[Philou]

That's why I think cassettes are a better option:

 

Stock is already 'boxed' on rails ready to be linked to the track; and,

 

Stock can be made up in its respective eras ready to go.

 

No, I won't be running modern and pre-nationalisation together - though I shan't have enough of everything to run from 1900 to 2018. Tempting as it is, my pockets are simply not that deep! In any case, as sure as eggs is eggs, someone will no doubt say 'Oh. You can't run that loco with that stock because ......... ', even if you try and coordinate everything. I shall try and not do too many glaring errors, Rule 1 notwithstanding of course .

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[John ks]

Philip

 

Here's another idea that may not be practical but if it is then you can increase the floor space in the layout

 

instead of canter levering the floor over the main beam would it be possible to canter lever just  the layout  over the void.

 

 

 

Were you looking for a way to support your traverser

 

Use ball or roller bearings 30mm/50mm outer diameter with a hole that is a snug fit over you selected size bolt( between 6mm & 10mm should work)

The version on the LHS uses an inverted V as a guide (the bearings may have to be offset so that the bolts don't foul each other)

The RHS version requires at least 2 sets of guide bearings (on the same rail) to keep it on track

 

 

john

 

 

[Harlequin]

Hi Philou,

 

With threaded bars, I think the time it would take to move from position to position could become annoying.

 

There are drawer runners or drawer slides available that are; 1m plus in length, fully telescopic (i.e. 1m plus extension), heavy duty - designed to support loads from 50kg to 200kg and above.

 

The issue with such runners is that they only allow motion on one side of their "closed" position but that shouldn't be a problem if designed in from the start.

 

If the traverser was supported on such runners you could simply manually push and pull it to align the various tracks and use a separate mechanism to provide precise alignment.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Harlequin

[Chimer]

Fwiw, following on from Phil, I designed this once - never built it, but think it should work ……..

 

 

The traverse table is two thicknesses because the intention was for one road to be a cassette, so there would have been a cut-out in the upper thickness for the cassette to drop into.  The traverser was going to be double-ended, and the traverser roads around 5' 6" long.

 

My engineering designs tend to follow the brick-built outhouse school!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Philou]

@john ks

 

That is rather a good idea cantilevering the layout boards over the void (it's on one side only), as it will easily give enough headroom to make use of the space underneath (I described it earlier as being no more than a corridor) for storage without banging one's head on the new floor beams and no space to lose stock down the hole. What's more I gain a metre or so extra length down the short sides ................ what to do with the extra space? I reckon Harlequin will say I can revisit his idea of looping the Newent branch back upon itself - we'll see . Thanks for the roller bearing suggestion.

 

@Harlequin

 

I saw gordon s had used something akin to drawer runners on his traverser, but I hadn't seen anything technical regarding their use. I did see that he had used a simple peg-and-hole system to align the traverser tracks to the board tracks. I do take the point that the threads would take some time to slide the traverser along. Shove and push might be the simpler solution as long as it is free running - perhaps as Chimer and john ks have suggested, to supplement the drawer runners.

 

@Chimer

 

Thanks for the drawing - it's certainly simpler than my mechanical ideas. Having never done metalwork in my life I would have been reliant on someone else for assistance. Whilst my woodworking skills are not too great, I get by (if you don't look too closely ). I have no problems with brick-built sh*thouses err, outhouses I mean. The one at our school didn't even have a roof on it - but it was solid!!

 

I may adapt your plan as I want to avoid taking up too much floor space with the support. As Harlequin has suggested there are heavy duty runners available - perhaps there are some that will allow some overhang without causing too much deflection. I'm thinking here of our Ikea drawer unit at home that is 600mm deep and pulls out to at least 450mm that is chock-a-block with crockery. Been good for 5 years or so for without any undue wear. They're simple domestic runners too!

 

I have seen in tiling shops heavy duty steel drawers full of boxed tiles - and they're heavy! Perhaps that's the sort of thing ............ the runners alone might do.

 

Thanks for the suggestions chaps,

 

Thinking time ahead when I'm excavating in the garden tomorrow .

 

Philip

Edited May 28, 2018 by Philou

[Joseph_Pestell]

Philip

 

Here's another idea that may not be practical but if it is then you can increase the floor space in the layout

 

instead of canter levering the floor over the main beam would it be possible to canter lever just  the layout  over the void.

 

canterlevered layout.jpg

 

 

Were you looking for a way to support your traverser

 

Use ball or roller bearings 30mm/50mm outer diameter with a hole that is a snug fit over you selected size bolt( between 6mm & 10mm should work)

The version on the LHS uses an inverted V as a guide (the bearings may have to be offset so that the bolts don't foul each other)

The RHS version requires at least 2 sets of guide bearings (on the same rail) to keep it on track

 

traverser.jpg

 

john

See #234

[Philou]

@Joseph

 

Ahhh .................. Sorry Joseph, it seems I mis-read your post #234 at the time .

 

Hats off therefore to you for having the idea first.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[DCB]

Hello chums,

 

I'm back again. .......

 

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to proceed with Phil's turntable idea - though I thought it was an idea well worth pursuing as the turntable could have been set further eastwards and the accesses into and out of Ledbury tunnel shortened. However, as you will see on the plan below, the red circle measures 3m diameter and as you can see it is ENORMOUS. I need 3m (or thereabouts) to be able to store a complete HST (2+8) or a decent 9/10 coach + loco. I am also going to need to park a double headed MGR (Class37s) with as many HAA as possible. (I have the required 32 to make up the full length train but even 3m (10ft) won't be enough).So I'm afraid it's going to have to be a traverser instead - pity in a way, as the idea of turning whole trains was very attractive.

 

 

Here are the plans:

 

LayoutE.4.2.jpg

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Philip

It seems a great shame to abandon the turntable in favour of the traverser.  The Turntable deck will only occupy the red circle while actually turning and the obstruction when stationary will be no more than the turntable deck.  It would need a very sturdy pivot but a rear hub off a scrap car would provide a suitable robust pivot. A Turntable would allow a great reduction in handling of trains, no need to uncouple brake vans to swap ends, no need to do anything except swing a train round.  I think a turntable should revolve with a lot less force than the traverser will need to move and any jerks will mean derailments.

 

If you do build a traverser (or Turntable) this length remember new wood is notorious for warping. I would build the runners from angle iron at 12 " centres with double flanged wheels running on them to keep lengthwise alignment. indexing should be simple if it's a hand turned table, I use a spring loaded knife edge dropping into saw cuts in a guide to locate my hidden turntable. Make as much as possible adjustable because it will wear, especially as it runs in from new.

 

Buckingham had a successful turntable traverser, Ok it was 1/3rd the size you planned but that was in the days of 120 seat VC 10s and now we have A380s....