A self-contained OO micro branch station with through running

[sjrixon]

I'd agree with the fitted statement. The Milk tankers were fitted, and passenger rated and hence would (could) be behind a railcar.

 

If you look at a mixed train with an autocoach, if they had some 'odd' trucks behind they had a guards van too as the trucks wouldn't be vacuum fitted.

 

If you ran with a conflat, you would need a guards van... I've no idea if that ever happened.

[Huggy]

Some wonderful old images, and great ideas coming out of this one!

[dpaws]

I'd agree with the fitted statement. The Milk tankers were fitted, and passenger rated and hence would (could) be behind a railcar.

 

If you look at a mixed train with an autocoach, if they had some 'odd' trucks behind they had a guards van too as the trucks wouldn't be vacuum fitted.

 

If you ran with a conflat, you would need a guards van... I've no idea if that ever happened.

 

Thanks Scott, really much appreciated. Please forgive my laziness in asking rather than googling, but what other types of stock were run singularly and detached along a branch-line, being fitted and passenger rated? With my bitsa station approach this type of stock is perfect for my shunter+1 movements 

 

I assume a horse box, CCT and then perishables so fish, dairy, fruit?

 

Were short wheel base mail vans ever dropped off for a local sorting office?

Edited May 29, 2018 by dpaws

[sjrixon]

Anything that has a vacuum brake could logically be used.

 

As a GWR man I have a selection of 'tail traffic' that I run. 

 

Siphon, CCT, Python, Fish Bloater, fruit vans, Milk Tankers, Horse Box (GWR Brown Stock). And yes a couple of closed wagons with vacuum brakes.

[dpaws]

Anything that has a vacuum brake could logically be used.

 

As a GWR man I have a selection of 'tail traffic' that I run. 

 

Siphon, CCT, Python, Fish Bloater, fruit vans, Milk Tankers, Horse Box (GWR Brown Stock). And yes a couple of closed wagons with vacuum brakes.

 

That's the stuff, nice name - "tail traffic" - and what a perfect list for an "Inglenook" shunting session with a bay platform / goods dock. 

 

Armed with the new phrase I just found this from the Stationmaster:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/592-mixed-trains-and-tail-traffic/?p=3832

 

Yes, I remembered the XP part which I remember on the side of my Conflats - I'd forgotten about the brakes...

 

Strange how just one photo can be the missing piece of a jigsaw previously unknown!

Edited May 29, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

One can imagine a railcar slowly pulling into it's nose into view from stage right, stopping (dcc doors slamming, whistles blown, starter signal arm drops etc) then continuing on west to reveal a wagon in tow and going off-scene stage left, only to re-appear reversing into the bay to drop off and then continue back to off-stage left to "further along the branch".... 

Edited May 29, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

http://www.barham-kent.org.uk/room_84_show/R84S%20Duty%20List%20TailTraffic.htm

 

The duties of the Class 4 Clark - that's me, the fat controller - would be determined by either the Inglenook card and dice selection system or the waybill method of train selection, depending in which mode the layout's being operated in.

 

Could be a healthy ritual to adopt, solving an Inglenook conundrum over the morning Moka onboard, kickstarting the grey matter for the day ahead.

 

I wonder if I could get away with a glass top for the cabinet and then introduce the layout in situ as a breakfast table to SWMBO... 

Edited May 29, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

 

We are blessed to have google! Lot's of useful "tail traffic" info discovered here: http://www.railcar.co.uk/topic/tail-loads/

 

"I vaguely recall some ballasting being undertaken on the coast using catfish (ZEV) or dogfish (ZFV) hauled by DPUs"

 

now wouldn't that set the tongues wagging at a show!   

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

 

E55012 hauling a tail load, 31/10/16. Ifan Huws

 

Quite obviously staged given the date, but authentic I'm sure and quite charming no doubt!

 

I wonder what happened to the exhaust pipes, didn't a pair run vertically either side of the centre window panel? I confess I'm no dmu buff!

 

EDIT: Solved! Must be at one end only... duh!

 

 

 

E55012 stands at Wolsingham, operating one of the first reintroduced heritage services on the Weardale line, 28/6/14. Ian Dobson

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

A happy day! My girls are out and have their own money, Radio Paradise is streaming without dropouts and there's plenty good coffee on the stove! Finally a full day lost in railway land...

 

Well, the track's down for the first time. I gave up with hot glue as it drove me mad in the end. I'd found a bargain cork Nobo board which has 1mm of almost velvety fine cork with 9mm of soft block-board stuck to it and it works out just fine for pinning the track. Obviously there are no droppers soldered up just yet as this was about trimming the track pieces and fitting it all together.

 

 

Speaking of which, I've decided no fishplates, not the conventional type anyway, I'll be using the C&L fine scale type which slide either side but not underneath the rail.

 

 

I found that the end sleeper had no chairs to allow for a conventional fishplate to slide onto the bottom flange.

 

 

Any tension in the rails and the rail ends straighten and this creates kinks between adjoining pieces of track. To resolve this I've used a short length of fully webbed sleepering from a spare piece of "fixed track" instead to hold the rail ends in place and butted up together for now until the fishplates arrive in the post one day.

 

Worth mentioning that their lengths of flexi repeat this sleepering style periodically; I've cut them out and slid the others up to fill the gap instead, it looks much better to my eyes.

 

The large radius turnout is a piece of art; all have a little flex built into them so you can transition into the curves quite gracefully. With this in mind I swapped out the remaining smaller radius RH for a semi-flexy Y turnout which opens out to around a 1000mm radius and that's the minimum now. The traverser will be on the mainboard and will be positioned behind the tunnel's portals.

 

The canal diorama was a beauty but the siding's just not long enough to do the scene justice, so it's now a short siding much in need of a trap point! Whilst googling a new photo took my eyes, that of a due out soon range of industrial buildings; I want to look through that archway and see the bay platform with my camera's lens.

 

 

I reckon that canopy could keep my 08 dry too, and that'd look cute! If you chopped all of the larger structures in half you'd have a decent semi-low relief backscene!

Edited June 8, 2018 by dpaws

[sjrixon]

It has to be said, that sounds like a dream day! Looking good.

 

I'd seen the building before, but I like your plan for it, should really look the part.

[dpaws]

It has to be said, that sounds like a dream day! Looking good.

 

I'd seen the building before, but I like your plan for it, should really look the part.

 

Thanks Scott - yes it's all feeling good so far, it was a very constructive day. Three steps forward and two back a few times but overall I'm happy.

 

The only good thing about waiting for things in the Italian poste is that you have loads of time on your hands so you may as well be fastidious with every detail just to keep you busy. I think that's the difference between a "that's nice" and an "oh wow" reaction.

 

I'm quite excited for the industrial style courtyard for goods with the tracks sunk in level and a yard crane - and that canopy is wonderful....

 

 

Sadly I doubt that the large double doors under the stairs will be box wagon sized - would have looked great with a pair of sunken rails disappearing under the door...

 

The smallest building would make a great weigh-bridge office too, but it's that peek-a.boo through the arch that's switched me on. I still think I can get away with double-sided viewing too...

 

 

I'm thinking about the control panel etc above the traverser and hidden out of view from the scenic part behind low relief or a "background flat" forced perspective collage - sounds easy, likely impossible but we'll give it a shot! Controlling from the traverser end leaves both sides free from viewing when it's set up running lengthways in the centre of our narrowboat.

 

 

(this isn't our boat although the layout's similar - anyway, you get the idea, the layout would sit on the table)

Edited June 9, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

It took a couple of attempts but eventually I got the platform clearances sussed... that GRC&W parcel's railcar's a big old girl on a 4x1 layout and that's before having tail traffic along for the ride!! I had a play to see how it all feels once populated with stock; the Sulzer has five coal wagons held in the longest siding and the bay can comfortably hold a trio of box wagons, or the railcar of course. It's doubtful that I'll diversify the stock with passenger workings so we can assume that the station's just closed but for now at least the goods yard remains busy. 

 

For the Inglenook shunting puzzle principle to work I need the other three wagon siding to be off-scene, further up the branch-line beyond the platform. The "loco plus three" headshunt is served by the traverser road (228mm) plus a 140mm drop-down stub siding on the other side - though that will make more sense once I've redone the baseboard CAD mock-up.

 

 

It's doubtful that I'll include passenger workings so it's safe to assume that the station's just closed but for now at least the goods yard remains busy...

 

By running the green diesels on the branch-line I can push the date a little further to the mid 60's by which time the Engineering Dept. have commandeered the goods facilities and stable a couple of their steam locos at the head of the long siding before an overhead hoist with the yard beyond holding the occasional piece of the department's permanent way stock.

 

 

Not quite sure where the coal comes into it yet, but I can have through traffic albeit between 30cm loco lifts arranged off scene at either end.

 

The ex-Nobo board that everything's sat on at present will sit on top of the baseboard top board; this give me some flexibility to change the proportion of foreground to background at this early stage without having to re-lay everything just to see how it might look.

 

So far so good... it's rather fortunately that slowly does it! 

Edited June 10, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

I do like the "Baby Warship"; a runt of the early diesels, very photogenic. One day I'll find the courage to weather her up.

 

 

I looked again at the canal photo... I suppose one could run alongside the long siding - raise the whole trackbed section up to give depth to the diorama... 

 

 

There are no trap point equivalents in the Tillig Elite track range but I could slice up a standard RH turnout and hash up something half reasonable... I wouldn't waste a servo motor on it's operation anyway so only glue and patience required - thankfully the main rails aren't joggled to accept the blades so I may just get away with it.

 

UPDATE: The madness has started... and I'm very grateful for the precision of the Proxxon for this sort of a job.

 

 

The point blade is a single piece and appears to slide under regular sleeper chairs so I'm wondering if I can extract a length of normal rail from the adjoining piece and replace it with the single blade... we'll see... I'm wading deeper out of my depth, in blissful ignorance!

 

QUESTION: What do you think? How many chairs shorter from the righthand end would you trim the nearest rail to curve away convincingly as a trap?

 

I think I'll chop three, maybe four... no, three... oh hell, stress! 

 

Buona Domenica - have a good Sunday! 

Edited June 10, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

...and the answer was 4.5... I went 5 in the end - on reflection it's maybe a tad short but it'll do just fine, after all, it's the thought that counts! It's probably too close to the opposing fork too, but tuff 'as I need the siding to hold more than a solitary shunter's wagon.

 

It works though, I surprised myself! When they arrive the fishplates will line up the rails just nicely.

 

TIP: For those intricate jobs that scare you stupid try wearing two pairs of your glasses at the same time and grab a daylight rated photo studio light - at x6 magnification under a false sun it all becomes bigger than O gauge and so everything's so much easier

 

 

( Apart from don't get caught wearing both pairs at once by a tweenage daughter with an Instagram account   )

 

EDIT: I went back and rebuilt it with only 4 missing sleepers as it was bugging me, swapped the operation rod over too. Looks much better now, I slept well!)

Edited June 11, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

Just some random thoughts so I don't forget them!

 

 

I've always liked this backdrop scene, with the raised trackbed and the suburban world continuing down below.

 

Canals and urban mix perfectly, though this type of transfer shed maybe a little OTT full sized but in end relief behind the 

 

 

Hold on a minute - why not reverse the whole thing, add a coal grab on the dock crane and a drop from the trackbed level down to a canal in the foreground (the station platform's now at the back). With a backdrop of a glazed but essentially flat large industrial mill / warehouse (e.g. Scalescenes, as in the photo above) but open at the back so that you can look through one of the mill windows or peer over the roof top to watch the trains below. That forced perspective should make the scenery more convincing too.

Edited June 10, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

Lots happening behind the scenes, lots of boxes have arrived in the post, including, finally, the C&L fishplates.

 

 

The track's now laid and wired for DCC with all sections isolated from each other. Droppers for the track feeds, isolated sections and turnout frogs are all through the board - not looking forward to making sense of the underneath! The underlay is 3.2mm Scotchfil Insulation Putty tape, not recommended for the faint-heated... the grab is crazy but it seems so innocuous. 

 

Next are the MP5 point motors, which will eventually by driven via this circuit board http://www.modelrailroadcontrolsystems.com/8-channel-dcc-decoder-for-mp-series-switch-motors/

 

 

which used the track feed to power it. It's been designed for DCC but I intend to trigger via momentary switch instead - either via Cobalt levers or a Megapoints panel https://megapointscontrollers.com/wp1/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CustomMimicBrochure.pdf. This way it's future-proof yet I have old school controls and no ruddy screens!

Edited July 6, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

Time to think more about how to control it all - my sketch is inspired by the Megapoints mimic panel system but using rectangular bicolour LEDs. Using the same micro-push buttons for the isolated sections would be neat but it would mean an extra relay board and power supply etc - it'd be far simpler to use a simple latching DPST... if only I could find a mini version; 8mm dia's the smallest I've found so far...

 

 

The control board does mention route setting capabilities but I've yet to work out if this is only via a DCC command or also via push button trigger - the latter could be very useful. The turnout motors are numbered with identical colours indicating the possibility of linking their motions together via the onboard switch options.

Edited July 9, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

 

I stumbled across this inspiring German webpage; http://wp11092200.server-he.de/rbs/sondermodule-0.php

 

His final choice of traverser mechanism is the same as mine - linear rail - and a pair including the blocks are only £28 delivered via a famous auction site... can't go wrong! (A search for "12mm linear rail" will bring up the different length options.) Alignment will be with flush neodymium magnets between the table and the traverser's pit wall. Electric feed will be direct from the mimic panel's switches.

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by dpaws

[Marly51]

Very neat construction work Dpaws!

Edited July 10, 2018 by Marly51

[PaulBee]

I stumbled across David Hyde’s excellent Youtube videos about authentic goods operations on his beautiful “Deresley” layout. (Start here and indulge yourself!)

Just wanted to say a huge thank you for posting the link to David’s video. As a complete novice with no experience of rail operations, his video has helped me a great deal and will no doubt prove to be essential understanding for my second project (must keep focus on my first endeavour for now though).

 

Thanks again

Paul

[dpaws]

Very neat construction work Dpaws!

 

Oh I wish! That timber's not mine, the link will take you to the proud owner who also sells his traverser designs for O gauge (they're not cheap!). I'm guessing by those photos that he's scaled up to a 16mm rail, but to be honest I don't think there's a need to.

 

I will be taking delivery of another Tim Horn baseboard kit soon, they always turn out neat and create a good first impression & Nevard's a huge fan... The fit tolerances are superb; always spot on.

 

Just wanted to say a huge thank you for posting the link to David’s video. As a complete novice with no experience of rail operations, his video has helped me a great deal and will no doubt prove to be essential understanding for my second project (must keep focus on my first endeavour for now though).

 

Thanks again

Paul

 

You're very welcome Paul - it left me feeling inspired too, suddenly it all made sense Now sticking to the plan's proving to be the biggest challenge - I'll have to watch it through again to keep me focused. Must confess I'd love to have another siding of two but it'd ruin the aesthetics... 

 

I see you're making good progress with yours. You're not alone having many false starts. I hope this time's different for you too.

Edited July 11, 2018 by dpaws

[dpaws]

I mocked up the world beyond the track board and clipped on a viewing arch to see how it all works aesthetically...

 

 

 

I'm not usually a fan of low relief buildings backed onto the back-scene, but once it's all in place they'll look convincing through the camera where I can soften the focus in the background with a narrower depth of field.

 

The most convincing layouts usually have fairly anonymous backgrounds which are designed to lead the wondering eye back on to the scene. These low relief buildings are simply too detailed to the point of distracting the eye and also too big - I need HO scale on this horizon to force the perspective.

 

Actually the lines of this "Weybourne Road Bridge" do lead the eye nicely into the scene and emphasise the width, and these were wide expanses of land in the heart of suburbia - of course in later years the railway system shrank back and this only served to visually emphasise the void.

 

 

( curiosity served - yes, the 13xx would fit through the culvert's archway! )

 

 

[andyram]

That does look great.

[dpaws]

A brief Sutton's Sulzer indulgence for Ernie... 

 

The walling in the foreground is only temporary, I'm debating a row of occupied arches which create the scenic excuse for little street or engineering dioramas in the extreme foreground.

 

From the overhead angle you get a better idea of the actual depth - 350mm internal (13 4/5" ish!).

 

The culvert's bridge arch to the right spans a near background space between the main board and retaining wall that offers good potential for scenery. The access road to the good's yard will climb up into the corner (here to the bottom right corner). 

 

 

To the extreme left of the bridge there's a sneaky siding that will provide for two wagons to be hidden off-stage, "a private siding further up the brachline" Visually it'll be hidden by a building that will join the street and track levels together.

 

The street and low relief terrace buildings will cover a full length hidden stock siding which can be accessed by the traverser - this should cut back on handling the stock at least.

Edited July 15, 2018 by dpaws