Vintners' Yard

[CourthsVeil]

Eric,

in my simple thinking, "the open area in the centre at the front" is not bad at all. Sometimes it's a pleasure to see a layout that is not filled up with structures to the last sq-in.

I would leave it as it is…

Best

  Armin

[Mark Forrest]

Another vote for keeping the open area, erm, open.  Maybe have a look at some photos of yards though, maybe either some road vehicles or goods awaiting loading or onward transit wouldn't go amiss?

[burgundy]

Thanks for the support for the idea of leaving the front area open. I guess that my hesitation is that, with St Pauls in the left background and the Docks to the right, the suggestion is clearly that the location is somewhere not too far from the southern end of Tower Bridge. And I am not sure that, even in the late 19th century, there would have been much in the way of open ground with scrubby bushes in that part of the world! However, another set of warehouses would really make it a bit inaccessible - as well as obscuring the view - so I guess that it is just going to stay that way.

I shall certainly be adding some population and some traffic to make the place look a bit more lived in - current activity is painting some horses. Strangely, there have been a number of threads about figure painting, but not much about horses, so a bit of observation and experimentation is required.       

Best wishes

Eric       

[burgundy]

It has been a long time since the last update to this thread, which fairly reflects the painfully slow progress on Vintner's Yard. All of the construction has been done, but what is left has been the “system integration” to make the whole thing work. If the locos and rolling stock have been hand built and so has the track, how do you know which one is at fault when you get a derailment? The result has been a longish period of poking rather tentatively at one problem or another – and then going away to think about it. This was brought to a head by some minor surgery, which resulted in enforced idleness (convalescence), justifying some intensive model railway therapy.

First step was to use one loco that I know runs well (built by North Bridge of this parish) and use that to identify problems in the track. This identified two turnouts where there were dead spots. Checking with a meter showed that in one case a switch rail was no longer properly bonded and in another that the wing rails were not bonded to the crossing V. I can only assume that they had previously been making mechanical contact (but not soldered) and that a generous dose of ballast and copydex had introduced an effective layer of insulation. This involved digging out the ballast to gain access, to add a short jumper wire.
This raised the next problem. The layout is mounted at about 4', which is fine for viewing but less good for working. In fact, the area of rough ground at the front left includes a small bush built round a wire armature, which became a complete pain in the armpit (literally). So the whole lot was dismounted off the trestles, put on the floor and the proscenium front was removed. Floor level is also not the best working height, but it did allow the excavations and soldering to be carried out. Tilting the layout over also caused the reappearance of a 6” steel ruler that had disappeared behind the low relief buildings some months ago. 
The testing had also confirmed a nagging feeling that all was not well with the permanent magnets for the AJ couplings. The late Bob Haskins had generously given me a bag of magnets, which he “thought might be useful”. I should have been warned by the innocent smile with which he presented them to me. I don't know where they had come from, but the larger ones could attract a cut of wagons from some distance and cause them to vibrate over the magnate – far less cause the AJ coupling to actuate. A generous layer of ballast only made the slightest difference. If Bob was watching me dig them out and replace them, I am sure that he was having a quiet chuckle. 
So then the proscenium front was put back in place, the lighting bar was screwed in position and the next step was to iron out the bugs in the other locos and rolling stock. The intention is to have three traffic streams working through the yard. The back siding will service the line of warehouses occupied by members of the Worshipful Company of Vintners – so mainly vans and open wagons with casks. To the right is a spur off-stage, which will have NPCS traffic, mainly grande vitesse vans and similar. To the left, also off- stage and reached by the front siding, is a gas works, requiring regular supplies of coal and generating coal empties, coke and noxious by-products – I need an excuse to run the sulphuric acid tanker. Most of the stock is available (although in need of some tuning to get better running) but I need to build a couple of 5&9 coke wagons, which have been maturing in the cupboard for some time. 
Except …............ Early in the testing process, I discovered another crossing V that seemed to be causing locos to hesitate. Further testing with the meter indicated that the V was live with the switch thrown in one direction, and dead in the other. My suspicions began to fall on the switch – which is buried under the view blocker warehouse – which was not glued in, but was pretty solidly in place as the surrounding scenery had bedded it in nicely! It was finally removed with the aid of a craft knife (to surgically separate it from its surroundings) and a cake slice (to slide under it and lever it up over a wide surface area): Mrs B is not aware of this. The methodology for the wiring had been blindingly obvious when I did it, so I had not bothered with a diagram. Two years later, that seemed less of a good idea. And the space under the switches is not designed for accessibility, so, even if the switch was not the cause of the problem, it certainly needed to be replaced by the time that I had got it out. After generous quantities of the 3Ps (patience, perseverance and profanity), it has all gone back together – hopefully with some lessons learned about maintainability (still need to do the wiring diagram). 

  
The casettes for the fiddle yards have been built at different times and with differing degrees of care. I have taken the opportunity to square them all up and, where the thickness of the wooden section varies slightly, to ensure that they are all the same height by adding some paper or card to the undersurface. The plan uses separate, short casettes for the loco, cut of wagons and break van, clipped together with “U” section pieces of brass. It allows a train to be rearranged in the fiddle yard without having to rotate the whole thing 180⁰, but I am not sure that it is not more bother than it is worth. The jury is still out on that one.  

Last year Father Christmas brought a MRRails Sound system. At this stage, I am not planning to go DCC, even if I thought that a chip would fit into some of the smaller locos in my collection. However, the idea of some sort of background noise seemed worth a try and, with such a small layout, it seemed feasible to put the noise in the layout, rather than the loco. My first thought was to put the unit at the far end fiddle yard where there should be more space. This meant threading a new pair of wires from the 12v controlled outputs to the far end of the layout, so that the new unit could be powered with the aid of a pair of crocodile clips. Getting the wires up from below the layout and out through a small hole  in the scenic break proved interesting. In the end a crochet hook did the trick, enabling me to poke through the hole and hook the wires as they protruded up from below. I quite like the  background sizzling noise that you get when a loco is stationary, but the “chuff” is linked to the power output of the controller, so that the gearing of each individual loco dictates the  speed of “chuff”. There is a “speed” controller on the box so that you can slow the chuffing down to match a particular loco's speed, but that may mean that the box will need to be  within reach at the main fiddle yard end – which is already a bit crowded. I may need to rethink this one.     

Current activity is to get the AJ couplings to operate reliably (cue hollow laughter from Crichel Down). Having tried out the intended operating pattern, I suspect that I may need to install at least one more permanent magnet to make shunting a bit more straighforward. Once I am sure that there is no more major excavation or surgery to do, I have some point levers to install and people and livestock to populate the layout.
Best wishes
Eric

[DLT]

Great to see this lovely layout at Taunton today Eric, thanks for the chat, and for the advice on building Brighton locos.

All the best,

Dave.T

[burgundy]

As Dave has mentioned above, Vintner’s Yard made its public appearance at Taunton for the RMWeb show last weekend. Tucked into a cosy corner with Polpendra, there seemed to be a steady flow of visitors and I am grateful for all the kind comments that were made.

This appearance finally satisfied the original objective to produce “a reasonably quick, stand alone layout that works”. I am not sure that 5½ years is reasonably quick but the Taunton show was a demonstration that it did actually work. What I had forgotten was that it was intended to fit into a Peugeot 107; fortunately I am now driving a Seat Ibiza and it was a very snug fit......
The show was preceded by some work on the track to get the locos working consistently, some tuning of the wheelsets of the rolling stock and a lot of effort to get the AJ couplings working. None of this is particularly photogenic. Adding the population and road transport is much more visible – and satisfying.

The layout did actually operate pretty smoothly; even the AJ couplings were working more often than not, although I have learned to operate them on straight sections and avoid trying to make them work on curves. The one bad moment, just after lunch, when a both locos started to hesitate at the same location, was cured with a cotton bud and some meths.  A short section of track seemed to have acquired a disproportionate amount of grime and the only explanation that I can think of is that it was just below a Velux rooflight.
There were a couple of lessons learned. Both relate to the fiddle yard, particularly the one at the operator’s end. Firstly, the chain that holds it vertical in transit was not up to the job and almost half the links had broken by the time that the layout was removed from the car. Fortunately, the chain was not intended to take any weight when the fiddle yard is in operation and it was replaced by lengths of masking tape for the return journey. I may need to come up with a plan B. More seriously, the short length cassettes, which seemed like a good idea in design, were a bit of a pain in operation. The idea behind them was that a three wagon goods train would have a cassette each for the loco, the cut of wagons and the guards van, so that the order could be reversed. The cassettes are joined by simple bits of brass, bent into a U shape, which provide both alignment and electrical contact. The problem was that, even with the minimum amount of stock on the fiddle yard, it was all getting rather crowded and the turnaround time to re-sort the different bits of train, on their own sections of cassette, into reverse order, was becoming painfully long.

One option might be to build a new, slightly longer fiddle yard, which can be detached from the rest of the layout. The present arrangement is determined by the minimum length to hold the “standard train” and the maximum length that will fit in the car. A longer, free standing fiddle yard might solve the problem although it might introduce a whole new set of issues about alignment and locking together with the layout.
Finally, in deference to the organisers of Taunton show, a couple of the businesses in the Yard were given names.

Best wishes
Eric

[Graham_Muz]

The kind comments you received at Taunton Eric were totally justified! it was great to see you, Vintners Yard and your exquisite modelling in the flesh, so to speak.

[mjcampbell]

The layout looks good in those photos.

 

In my experience cassettes are great for home use - flexible, and space-saving. But at an exhibition you become painfully aware the "crowd" is waiting for a train to appear while you are juggling delicate trains... so I have an exhibition FY which is a train turn-table/traverser. Mine has ended up rather complex, but it does allow a train swap to take seconds, and when all the trains are facing the wrong way, a few extra seconds turns them all round safely. You might find you can fit a rotating deck on your fiddle yard - perhaps that unbolts for transport?

[burgundy]

In my experience cassettes are great for home use - flexible, and space-saving. But at an exhibition you become painfully aware the "crowd" is waiting for a train to appear while you are juggling delicate trains... so I have an exhibition FY which is a train turn-table/traverser. Mine has ended up rather complex, but it does allow a train swap to take seconds, and when all the trains are facing the wrong way, a few extra seconds turns them all round safely. You might find you can fit a rotating deck on your fiddle yard - perhaps that unbolts for transport?

Thanks for that suggestion. I will give it some serious thought as it sounds like a neat solution. 

Best wishes 

Eric

[Penlan]

I notice the buildings seem to have some familier names in the Wine Trade.

[Donw]

An interesting project Eric with some very nice modelling. I see now I had commented on this earlier but somehow it had dropped off my radar (it is impossible to follow all the things that interest me). I note your issues with the cassette fiddle yard. I have tried a rotating traverser see here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79053-cambrian-and-gwr-0-gauge-loft-layout-a-slight-diversion/page-17 if you are interested.

I also note you are a LBSC fan. Did you know the late Peter Korrison his LBSCR layout (in 7mm) was most inspiring.

Don

[burgundy]

 I note your issues with the cassette fiddle yard. I have tried a rotating traverser see here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79053-cambrian-and-gwr-0-gauge-loft-layout-a-slight-diversion/page-17 if you are interested.

I also note you are a LBSC fan. Did you know the late Peter Korrison his LBSCR layout (in 7mm) was most inspiring.

Don

Don

Thank you for the suggestion - I have been thinking about it during the idle moments today. I can envisage either

- a simple turntable arrangement with four tracks, which would allow me to have two rakes of vehicles for each of the three traffic flows on the layout or   

- a traverser with a turntable arrangement as you suggest.

I think I will have to get out a pencil and paper to sketch both options and work out the geometry.

Best wishes

Eric

[mjcampbell]

Here's my traversing turntable, or is that a turning traverser?

 

 

 

It's complicated to build, but works well at exhibitions, and in this case can turn even when against a wall. See more here. 

 

A simple turn-table would be simpler to build if you don't have width constraints.

[burgundy]

Postscript
Vintners' Yard appears in this month's edition of BRM – shameless plug. Andy York's photos, taken at Taunton last year, give a very flattering series of views of the layout, picking out some of the cameos.
What I failed to bring out in the article was the suggestion that Dickensian London, as portrayed in Vintners' Yard, was probably not a terribly nice place to live, if you were poor. There are the 5&9 Models figures of the Artful Dodger and his mates, up to no good. There is the Victorian entrepreneur, with his wheelbarrow and shovel, going around clearing up after the horses and the group of labourers hoping for a day's work outside York's wine warehouse. The railways would be fascinating to see, but I am not sure that I would want my Tardis to take me back there for too long!
Again, my thanks to Andy for his excellent photos.
Best wishes
Eric

[LucasK]

Such an impressive layout. I was wondering if you could tell me about the acid tanker.
Lucas

[burgundy]

This one Lucas?

It was apparently built at Brighton Works for the shipment of sulphuric acid and has some kind of internal vessel for the liquid, with wooden lagging around the outside. Worryingly, it is shown with no brakes! A drawing by the late Colin Binnie appeared in Model Railway News many years ago. A 4mm scale kit in whitemetal was produced for some years by Woodham Wagon Works.

I hope that this helps.

Best wishes

Eric  

[37114]

Lovely little layout, really nicely executed.

[Penlan]

Another acid tank, also from Woodhams,  The old moto, 'buy when you see them..' applies.

- And yes, this is a make believe livery, and yes 5 link couplings too.

 

[Dave Searle]

And another:

 

 

Cheers,

Dave

[burgundy]

After a spell in store, during which I failed to make much progress on Roswell Mill, Vintner's Yard has been getting a bit of attention for the Nailsea show this coming weekend.  

For reasons unknown, Top Link seems to have gravitated to the yard. 

And Kensington demonstrated the width required for outside cranks, in rather the same way that the Dukedog did to the platforms at Horsted Keynes some years ago. 

Best wishes 

Eric