SRman's Current Layout - Newton Broadway

[SRman]

Unusually for me, I bought something non-British. I have always loved the New South Wales Government Railways (and successors) V set interurban double deckers. Auscision recently released them in several different liveries, some of which lasted for quite a long time. Mine is in the so called 'blue goose' livery that they were delivered in right from the first units in the late 1960s. A few still wore this livery in the early 1990s, I believe. The real ones were built and delivered in several batches over quite a long period of time, with the first ones in approximately 1968, and the last in 1989 or thereabouts.

 

This one depicts the slightly later guise, with blue guard's indicator lights and ditch lights at the front.

 

This was an extravagance/indulgence on my part - a quite expensive one - but I have had quite a few memorable trips on real ones of these smooth-riding, quiet and comfortable units to destinations in the Blue Mountains and to Gosford and Newcastle to the north of Sydney.

 

Auscision say that the fitted couplings are only suitable for 24" radius curves and above, but a quick test showed they could just scrape around my 21" curves, but it was a little too close for comfort, so I fitted the longer couplings (supplied in the box) to one end only of each coach, retaining the shorter ones for the adjoining ends.

 

I have fitted a Lenz decoder to the powered car, and a basic Bachmann (ESU) decoder to the unpowered driving car, after first testing on DC. Running is good, and they *just* clear my tunnel mouths on the underground section (these being HO where my normal stock is OO, the clearances required are not much different).

 

 

 

They may not get a lot of running in the future, but will be on display  at other times.

Edited July 18, 2017 by SRman

[Gwiwer]

I do like the V-sets, both stylish and comfortable to travel on, and the model appears to do them justice allowing for over-bright lighting.  Don't think I'll be able to accommodate one myself.  The 4TC will be hard enough to find space for!

 

The layout is also looking good Jeff.  

[SRman]

For a long time I have had a part-built Ratio provender store sitting on the layout near Newton Broadway station - a location it doesn't actually belong to at all! Anyway, I decided to start building again. However, I can't find the instruction sheet at present, so I have had to wing it a bit.

I decided to replace all the printed wooden floors and battens with Wills wood planking. Any inaccuracies in the positions of joints will not really be visible unless someone inspects the interior with a strong light and a magnifying glass. I have simplified the wall battens a bit too but, again, it won't really be visible.

There is more to do and the roof is currently just sitting perched loosely on top, but it is taking shape.

Does anyone out there have an instruction sheet they could scan in and send to me, please?

In the meantime, here are some photos of the progress. the right-hand door is hanging a little crookedly, but I might just leave it like that; the effect is actually not bad.

[Caddy]

Someone may have already commented earlier in the thread but I love the old Hornby Dublo signal box in the background!

[SRman]

Someone may have already commented earlier in the thread but I love the old Hornby Dublo signal box in the background!

 

There have been a few compliments over time, but thank you for yours too.

 

I have detailed some of the improvements way back in this topic, but post 268 is probably a good place to start (although there were some earlier posts about it too) - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/27719-srmans-current-layout-newton-broadway/?p=1306325

 

Still, for my $AUS25 investment at a swap meet, I think I did OK.

[DougN]

SRman, I think you could do quite a impressive run down but still working store. the doors just hanging off a bit isn't too bad. A Lot of weathering to go on when you paint it! 

Edited July 30, 2017 by DougN

[SRman]

For a bit of fun, I made a video up showing a variety of trains running through Newton Broadway station. There is a bit of steam, some diesels and electrics, locomotives, DEMU and EMU stock, freight and passenger all included. The time periods / eras are mixed up too, but I have kept appropriate locomotives on the right trains for the eras. At the end, there is a GBRf class 66, 66 701 Whitemoor, on Freightliner HHA wagons; that was due to the failure of Freightliner 66 610 that was supposed to haul that train (a failed decoder, which has now been replaced).

While I have many more locomotives not shown here, the video would have been way too long if I had attempted to include even half of them. Some of you may argue that it is too long anyway ... just turn it off if that's the case.

There is one surprise train there too, that really doesn't belong!

I really hope it's not too boring for everyone. Edited October 7, 2017 by SRman

[SRman]

Continuing my industrial locomotive theme of female names beginning with 'A', I bought some more nameplates, works plates and number plates from Narrow Planet (the service was excellent, as always).

The Hornby J94, Harry, was renumbered a while ago using Bulleid 'sunshine' style numerals, and now has the name Agnes, named after my wife who insisted I buy this locomotive when it came up for sale at a local BRMA meeting.






The Heljan class 05 in Bulmers light green, Formerly #2, Cider Queen, is now number 11, Arabella.






Sorry these are a little blurry; I snapped them off rather hastily on the phone camera. If I take better ones later, I'll edit the post and stick those in.

18/10/2017: Edited to resize the photos and also to replace the first one of the J94 with a slightly better one.

Edited October 18, 2017 by SRman

[Gwiwer]

I enjoyed watching Newton Broadway in action once more. The V-set was quite a surprise and I suspect would be seriously out of gauge were it not a 1:87 model running on a 1:76 layout.

[SRman]

Yet another locomotive that has been awaiting attention for a long, long time is my ex-SR Maunsell Q 0-6-0. I had re-chassised it a year or more ago with a Bachmann DCC-ready Midland 3F tender locomotive, although the decoder socket is actually in the tender.
 

This evening, I stopped thinking about it and actually did something about it. I cut off the four pin plug and identified which wire was which by trial and error on a DC controller. Linking the pairs of wires resulted in forward or reverse motions (good!). Each pair was carefully teased to one side or other to keep the two halves separate. I then tried one wire on one side touching one from the other side, with the controller set at near full voltage. If nothing happened then one or other, or both wires led to the brushes. Only the two track feeds would short out. Once those were identified, I labelled them with coloured heat-shrink tubing.
 

Next, a DCC Concepts S4SA decoder had its 8-pin plug cut off, the blue, yellow and white wires cut short and sealed off with some more heat-shrink tube, and the remaining wires soldered to the correct, matching 'labelled' locomotive wires.
 

A quick test on the programming track indicated that all was well and the address and other CVs could be read and written to. This chassis was then tested on DCC and actually ran in the correct directions, more by luck than skill.

The wires were tidied up and tacked to the motor and housing, the decoder was roughly secured ahead of the motor, and the white metal Wills body was carefully lowered on and secured. Another test was carried out on the programming track to ensure there were no short-circuits from the metal body. Again, all was well.
 

The wheels were given a good cleaning and then 30539 was sent off for a couple of circuits of Newton Broadway in both directions on the smallest radius (i.e. inner) track. I can say it was a complete success and runs extremely smoothly and quietly, although I tweaked the starting voltage in CV2 very slightly.
 

The loco body and tender had their liberal layers of dust cleaned off and some photos were taken. There is still some work to do to finish off the model and its detailing (e.g. a boiler bottom curve section, and a firebox backhead), but it is now fully operational.
 

 

 

[SRman]

For my pre-grouping trains, I rather admired Hornby's forthcoming Crystalate wagon, but the catalogue illustrations showed the huge, clunky coupling. I had rather hoped they would use something finer, but when it came out very recently, sure enough, clunky and chunky couplings were present. However, a little bit of investigation showed that they were of the Dapol-style clip in type. A while back, I discovered that the first release new-style Hornby Pullman couplings were a direct clip-in replacement for the larger couplings. As the all of my early Hornby Pullmans were modified with the slightly later NEM pocket couplings and revised bogies (parts that Simon Kohler, in Hornby's name happily supplied), I have a reasonable supply of these finer couplings. 

The original coupling type, removed from the wagon:




The replacement ex-Pullman coupling:




The underside of the wagon with the replacement couplings in place.




And the wagon as it is now. I'm much happier with it with the finer couplings. Perhaps it could do with a little weathering, but then again, a lot of my other P. O. and railway company wagons also need that.

[Markeg]

Hi Jeff,

 

You certainly bowled us over with that one.

 

I have done the same on the few Hornby wagons I have that take that style of coupling.

 

I suppose you are off to the BRMA Convention tomorrow.  I have been busy with work and other things and now have a bad cold.  I was going to display my O gauge layout at the AMRA rooms.

 

Mark.

[SRman]

Hi Mark. I'm not actually doing anything with the convention at all. 

While there are aspects of interest, I just need the rest at home for the weekend. After the last convention I attended, I got the swine flu. I'm a little wary of attending crowded situations now.

[Markeg]

I too have come down with a cold and have been resting up today.  I did swap some rollingstock over from BR to LNER.  The LNER stock has not been out for a least 18 months.

A couple of repairs to do.

 

I also changed the coupling/er any Mainline or Dapol wagons too.

 

Mark

[7APT7]

SRman

 

how strange, I came across your YouTube clips, and wasn't even logged in on RMWeb, which I normally start looking at one then get side tracked by looking at other YouTube clips and this was one of a couple I watched.

 

great to see!

 

Jamie

[SRman]

My second 4TC unit arrived from Kernow today, so after decoder fitting it was sent around in tandem with the first one. Both have Kadee #19 couplings fitted at the outer ends, but the inter-unit spacing is just a little too close for comfort. It is nice to have the gangway faces touching, but I am not confident they'll like the inner radius curves. Even so, 416 (blue) and 404 (blue/grey) and class 33/1 D6520 were sent around at increasing speeds until flat out with no incidents or problems on the outer radius.

I also scored a relatively cheap green 4 CEP unit from eBay (yes, yet another one!). That was fitted with a Zimo MX634D decoder (in the absence of any Lenz decoders that I prefer in all of the non-sound EMUs from Hornby and Bachmann), after a quick and successful test on DC first. As this one duplicated 7141 I already owned, I renumbered this one with transfers from ModelMaster. It is now 7156, which is really a unit from the phase 2 batch so is not 100% accurate ... but who will really notice when it is running in service? Unfortunately, ModelMaster made a small error with the sets of transfers and only provide one unit number per sheet, whereas the CEPs really require two such numbers (one each side of the gangway, over the cab windscreens), so I had to laboriously make up two extra unit numbers. That took twice as long as doing the rest of the numbers for the entire unit! I used T-cut to remove the old numbers, and the complete new ones just slid into place. I'll investigate swapping some of the smaller numerals or blanks for the headcodes from some of the spares I already have, just to update the model's era slightly.

[tender]

Interesting that you are using Lenz decoders on your non sound EMU's. I also use these but have found that on my 2EPB's they occasionally stop responding to DCC commands for no apparent reason. Fortunately its usually after the EMU has stopped, it won't start again although i can still switch the lights on and off. The only recourse is to power it off and back on again to resume service. I have 2 2EPB's and they both react the same. My 2 4CEP's with the same decoder are fine.

Just wondering if you have had any problem with your Lenz decoders?

[SRman]

Interesting that you are using Lenz decoders on your non sound EMU's. I also use these but have found that on my 2EPB's they occasionally stop responding to DCC commands for no apparent reason. Fortunately its usually after the EMU has stopped, it won't start again although i can still switch the lights on and off. The only recourse is to power it off and back on again to resume service. I have 2 2EPB's and they both react the same. My 2 4CEP's with the same decoder are fine.

Just wondering if you have had any problem with your Lenz decoders?

No, I haven't had that problem at all. I do note the lights turn off after a certain period of inactivity - I have yet to work out how to stop that, but it is probably just a simple CV change somewhere. 

 

I have five EPBs, which often get run as multiples of two or three units (1 x green and 2 x blue, or more up to date, 1 x blue/grey and 1 x NSE). All have the Lenz Silver decoders. I like them for two reasons: one is that they seem to match the motor characteristics of both Bachmann and Hornby very well, and the other is that by having all the same decoders, it is much, much easier to match the behaviours of the units when in multiple (consisted).

 

I have, in the past run up to three 4 CEPs in multiple, even with an MLV as well, and up to four Hornby BILs/HALs. None have shown the problem you have experienced.

 

I hope you are able to work out what is causing it, or alternatively, that you can find an equally good decoder for your EPBs instead of the Lenz. That Zimo decoder I stuck in the last CEP is good but seems to have a slight buzz, where the Lenz ones don't make any noise (or, rather, they don't make the motor make noise!).

 

 

[SRman]

Duplicating my post in the Kernow 4TC topic:

Well, I got cracking and fitted the Kadee #20 couplings to both units. I was also going to perform a decoder swap with another (completely different) unit that I had recorded on my spreadsheet as having a Lenz decoder, but only requiring two functions. However, on reading the decoder on that unit, it turned out to be manufacturer 48, i.e. Hornby, which means I have now located my second Sapphire decoder! The result of this was that the Zimo MX634D decoder had to remain in the TC for the time being, so I decided to have another go at programming a Zimo to work the lights properly in these TC units.
 

I am extremely proud to announce I got it to work.
 

I started by programming a value of 3 into CV8, then 3 into CV 124 (actually already in there but I wanted to be sure). Then I moved to JMRI Decoder Pro to read the functions, and changed a few checkboxes. The screen shots below were actually a dummy run to duplicate the settings as I didn't take screen shots while I was actually doing the programming. The first shot is the "before" and the second is the "after" - the area with the orange highlight is the section I was playing with.
 

 

 

The upshot of all this is that both units now have operable interior lights. The following shots and video show the combined train in action, with blue unit 416 (with Lenz Silver 21 decoder) leading blue/grey unit 404 (with the Zimo decoder), propelled by Heljan 33/1 D6520 with legomanbiffo sound (ESU LokSound). The video also shows bif's drive lock feature in action; the speed is held while the engine has been ramped up to full thrash. The interior lights on the Lenz decoder work on F5, while the Zimo one works them on F3. I didn't want to tempt fate by fiddling further to try to get them on the same F keys!
 

 

 

 

[SRman]

Yet another new arrival at Newton Broadway: a Rails of Sheffield weathered 10001. There will probably be a few more new arrivals over the next few months too, as the manufacturers seem to be catching up all of a sudden!

Anyway, 10001 was run for a few hours on the rolling road on DC power (longer than I intended as I forgot about it!). I have now fitted a Hatton's 21-pin decoder, which works all of the lighting functions (head and tail lights plus cab lights - both ends not independent). I haven't even opened the detailing pack yet, so it is seen in the photos as it came out of the box. I intend to "Southern-ise" it a bit, with extra lamp irons and a large BR crest on each side. I have found one photo so far showing the position for the crest on one side, but have yet to locate a pic of the other side for the correct period.

I have also had a little play around with the photos to try to take them back to the early-mid 1950s; these follow the coloured originals.

[SRman]

My SECR H arrived from Rails today. It has duly had over an hour of running on the rolling road on analogue power, followed by the fitting of a decoder. There's not a lot of room for a wired decoder, so I decided that a direct plug-in type would be better. The only one I had left is a Hattons Mini Direct, a type which seems to be quite good for motor control.
 

A session on the programming track showed that I needed to up the starting voltage on the decoder (CV2) which now has a value of 11 in it. This is higher than I usually have to put in, but may be because the mechanism is still a little tight. Some proper, continuous track running may improve things further. It will crawl along smoothly at low speed on step 1 of the controller (NCE Power Pro), but not (at this time) as slowly as Skinnylinny's one in his video in the thread dedicated to the Hornby H.
 

 

On a different topic, I swapped a Lenz decoder into 4TC unit 404 to make it easier to consist with 416 (which already had a Lenz fitted). For some reason the headcodes on 404 didn't want to light up, so I played around on the programming track, even resorting to a decoder reset. This was made more difficult because the Lenz decoders won't read without a motor in circuit, so I was programming blind, so to speak (the Zimo MX634 decoder I had in 404 temporarily did read properly without a motor in circuit). I eventually gave up on this and took the decoder out to put it temporarily into a locomotive (I chose a DJM class 71 as the bodies just clip off easily). Once I could see what I was doing, the fix was very easy; for some reason, the decoder was set to 14 speed steps. Switching it to 28/128 fixed the headcode lights. The decoder was reinstalled in the TC and all was well.

Edited November 8, 2017 by SRman

[4railsman]

Just spent an enjoyable evening (how time flies!) reading all 28 pages about the development of your layout, Newton Broadway. I am very impressed.

 

On the scenic side, where large areas of walling are installed, you have used various materials but don't mention how you fixed them in place.

 

I did consider using a 220gm sheet of stone type brick paper that I could print on my colour laser, but felt this may not wear well, and also does not have the same look that the plastikard sheets have.

 

On my 4mm (under construction) layout, I'm having trouble finding a suitable adhesive to fix embossed Slaters Plastikard to the plywood used to support the sheets.

 

I have been told that you should not use a solvent based adhesive with styrene, so looked locally for something suitable and the only product I came across was a solvent free tube of Pritt but that didn't set, even after 28-hours!.

 

I am now wondering whether my intended use is a "lost cause" and the only use for Plastikard or similar embossed styrene sheets is to make complete structures and fusing the parts together with solvent such as MEK pack.

 

Would appreciate any advice or suggestions that you or anyone reading this can offer me.

[SRman]

Thanks for the compliments, 4railsman.

For those parts of the walls that are fixed in place (not many actually!), I tend to use PVA glue, undiluted. My most common branded one is Aquadhere.

Some parts of the walling are still loose (or held in place with nothing more than a few spots of Blu-tack) because they are not yet in their final positions; most only need minor tweaks to their locations.

The walls near the tunnel mouth where most of my photos are taken are resin castings of unknown provenance, bought from a local swap meet. The bridge supports are wood (pine) with Vollmer embossed card brickwork glued on with PVA. I use the N scale brickwork as the HO scale stuff seems oversized to me. The filled arches on the other side of the bridge, opposite the platform came from International Models, alas no more, and are also glued in place with PVA, apart from the bit adjacent to the overbridge, as that needs a little adjustment too.

At the other end of the layout, none of the walls are glued in place, and some are merely placeholders until I get the final pattern walling in place.

[SRman]

A few more new arrivals on Newton Broadway, from a couple of different sources.
 

I bought three Slaters wagon kits off eBay. They all have pre-painted and decorated sides and ends (POWsides?), but require some detail painting of the solebars and insides. Two of the kits were of an 1887 Gloucester RCW design, and the third was a 1907 RCH design. I have built one each of the two designs so far: a Crook & Greenaway 1887 type in a rather fetching blue livery, closely matched with a Revell blue (Oxford blue?); and an Allan Feaver wagon to the 1907 design - the packaging very kindly listed Humbrol #100 as being a match for the side colour. The builds were straightforward, although I added brass bearings and replaced the plastic wheels with metal ones from Hornby and Kean Maygib.
 

 

 

I also received a sodden package from Hatton's - it seems to have suffered from our recent flooding rain. Any way, much of the cardboard packaging was wet and falling apart, but all of the actual contents seem to have survived unscathed. The one that could possibly have suffered the most was a DJM J94, but, luckily it only had a few drops of water on its upper surfaces, and the rest was bone dry. A test on DC on the rolling road showed it was fine. I then lubricated the gears and axles as a precaution, then ran it in on the rolling road for a while. It was then 'chipped' with a Bachmann 36-568 6-pin decoder and tested again. It runs very sweetly with this decoder.
 

It is a nice looking model, enhanced by the blue livery and light weathering. It also makes an interesting comparison to the Hornby J94 behind it in the photos.
 

 

[DougN]

The DJ models J94 looks really good I look forward to seeing it in the.... plastic.... in the near future!