Hammer Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 It's a nice wee track layout. I'm pretty sure Hornby Magazine published something similar a few years ago, with half the track enclosed in a hill, providing a fiddle area etc. Been quite tempted to do something similar in N since I don't have the room to do anything bigger then an OO diorama. Looking forward to following your future progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 Yes Hornby did do a small layout, it was a little larger than ours, but crammed in so much. Don't think they included a fiddle yard as such, but they did have part of it under a hill.# This layout was designed as a tester for our skills and to learn the hard way those little things you;d wished you'd done after half of it was alread done! E.g. putting the wire for the wire in a tube operation into the hole on the point and not a loop around the pip, second, the platform edging, because it's such a tight curve the ends could have done with a bit of shaping to get them sit together tighter. Thanks for looking, look forward to some more replies. Alex and Amy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 Evening The backscene has been attached and the track under the tunnel mouths has been ballasted and we're almost ready for the fun bit! the messy bit, Modrock and scenery! Had a test run this morning and discuvered one of the points didn;t wok (ALREADY) so re-did it (Better) and hopefully it will now continue to work. Nervous and Exited about the messy bit, now it's starting to look like a propoer railway. Alex and Amy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 A light hearted Poll, - Who can claim to have done the most, Amy, - Painted the sky onto the back scene Painted the Platforms edging (and a fantastic job was done too) Ballasted and glued one point and track Wired and Soldered all of the lighting system Alex - Sawn timbers and screwed everything together for the base board Ballasted and glued one point and track Cut all the card for the tunnels and backscene Wired the point rodding and control system Comments welcome Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold RedgateModels Posted January 20, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 20, 2010 A mad dash to Total N Gauge (Arnold near Nottingham) saw us purchase most things that we thought we needed, but another trip is planned ASAP. erm, did you mean Total N Gauge (Hucknall near Nottingham), they will be providing trade support at the forthcoming Mansfield show 17th & 18th April. Layout is looking good, always fancied doing something like this since seeing that layout in HM. I think the builder emigrated and the layout went into storage.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 erm, did you mean Total N Gauge (Hucknall near Nottingham), they will be providing trade support at the forthcoming Mansfield show 17th & 18th April. Layout is looking good, always fancied doing something like this since seeing that layout in HM. I think the builder emigrated and the layout went into storage.... Yes Hucknal not Arnold, don;t know where that came from. Best get meself off to the Mansfield show then, We've learnt a lot by doing this railway, and although a lot of monety has been spent on such a small project, there are many things e.g. A pack opf post boxes SIX in a pack, only need one or at most two, that will come ni handy for a future railway. It's been great fun and above all, it finally gives those loco's/DMU's a leg strectch and something to run on, even if it is ROUND AND ROUND ADN ROUND! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold RedgateModels Posted January 20, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 20, 2010 Best get meself off to the Mansfield show then, This is turning into a shameless plug for the show - you would be most welcome of course we have two N gauge layouts this year as well as Total N and their demo layout (another roundy roundy) cheers Ian (originally from Hucknall) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 New Lessons learnt The Peco Platform edging - placing It does need cuts for it to bend, and if they are done with a width of around 0.5mm ish, to allow a track pin to slide in, they can be used to pin the edge into place, a hot glue gun around the inside edge keeps them in place. The Peco Platform edging - painting It's not as scary or as hard as I thought, well at least amy made it look like neither of those! Made me wish we'd have used those Peco tunnel mouths, for they could have looked just as good as well. Painting - Don;t use cr=ppy brushes, spent longer trying to get the stray hairs out of the painted sky than we did actually painting it! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 22, 2010 Author Share Posted January 22, 2010 Morning, Finally able to add this latest picture, (come from phone) Comments welcome. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eastwestdivide Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I see you've got a station building coming, but what's the plan for scenery? Rural and green, or urban and grotty? Or somewhere in between? And is it going to be crammed with detail to try out techniques, or open and spacious? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 22, 2010 Author Share Posted January 22, 2010 Well, I wanted urban grot, but Amy wanted rural scenery, so a compromise, Starting at the backscene working forward, a farm house and very rural look, even bought some cows! a road them works forward and crosses the railway by means of a level crossing. - Quick question - do the red circles on the level crossing point towards the road or the railway (when the gates are open to the road? The station will have a sligtly more edge of urban look to it, post box, bus stops cars etc. The Sidings however, Well I did want a coal siding with staithes, (just because I wanted one - not truely prototypical, but what I fancied) however, with a Class 150 sprinter and BR Blue loco's possibly a large logo loco etc, what would be more appropriate? when and where was the last coal siding served by traditional 16tonne mineral wagons (emptied from their sides) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 22, 2010 Author Share Posted January 22, 2010 A very crude mock up But it gives th idea, what to put in the bottom left corner though??? was going to put a coal siding with staithes but decided for an early 80's based layout, it just was plain wrong, so what instead?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 For the 80s, you could get away with logging traffic, although I suspect there were seldom small amounts of felled trees being dispatched. Some kind of tanker drop off maybe? I'm struggling to come up with anything solid - most of the traffic I'm familiar with (fish, minerals, livestock) had shifted to the roads by the 80s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 22, 2010 Author Share Posted January 22, 2010 Well, that just leaves an engineers siding into which the odd open wagon might get left, or odd cripple taken out of train, thus anything could go in there really, Remember at Lowdham, even in this day and age, an engineers wagon got shunted out of a train and left there, (I think in the end it stayed there for a bout 5/6months! Or thinking about it, you could go for something like, what happened at Grindleford (Hope Valley line) it was next dfoor to Earles Sidings and when the yard was full the sidings next to the box (former goods yard roads etc) were used as an over flow, into which Cememt wagons were left and tripped from to Earles, EASY, sorted, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Russ (mines a pint) Posted January 23, 2010 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2010 You could definitely do fuel in tanks, even in short 45t tanks for the 80's. Mallaig had an oil depot that had 2 tanks conveyed on rear of passenger trains often loco (sometimes as small as a 20 but more often a 37)- 2 coaches and 2 short tanks- a gift for the modeller! and oil tank depots always look scruffy and urban even when in the middle of nowhere! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 23, 2010 Author Share Posted January 23, 2010 Roughly connected up the signals this morning, they both work ok and just need to solder the connection now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacRat Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 Nice little idea. How about a loading facility for used paper or other civil disposals at the siding in question? (if things like these exist in UK, haven't seen this modeled, so far ) You could definitely do fuel in tanks, even in short 45t tanks for the 80's. Mallaig had an oil depot that had 2 tanks conveyed on rear of passenger trains often loco (sometimes as small as a 20 but more often a 37)- 2 coaches and 2 short tanks- a gift for the modeller! and oil tank depots always look scruffy and urban even when in the middle of nowhere! Arn't there rules limiting shunting of mixed trains with passengers on board at intermediate stations? I think, in Mallaig all passenger could get out off the train before shunting took place? What made me wonder looking at your pictures is, how do you fix problems with the point switching mechanics when the landscape is in place? I would have placed this on the bottom side of tha board to retain accessibility, me thinks. Looking forward to seeing the signals in place and working. Mac Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 23, 2010 Author Share Posted January 23, 2010 Yes, took a long time for you to spot that one didn't it Wilson, (Dad's Army ref:) Yes it would have been a brighter idea to have put the point mechanism on the under side, as there is no access to it one the hill is in place, thus it's fingers crossed, toesed crossed and anything else that can be crossed, that they stay working, i expect that they wont for ever, which will then meen something else eill have to be down, although as a cheeky back up plan, you may notice that the tunnel and back scene cut outs are big enough to poke a hand throgh to change the point should the worse come to the worst. RE: the Siding, got a mate who's badgering me to let him build a working crane for the layout, not sure however where and why one would be required. But perhaps in the civil engineering yard lengths of scap rail could be lifted out of a wagon? got it: on the end of the wire from the crane is a small magnet, that alllows it to pick a length of scrap rail from the wagon, when it places it on the ground, there is an even larger magnet under the road surface that will take rail away from the cranes weaker magnet? Would that work? thoughts & Ideas? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacRat Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 ... got it: on the end of the wire from the crane is a small magnet, that alllows it to pick a length of scrap rail from the wagon, when it places it on the ground, there is an even larger magnet under the road surface that will take rail away from the cranes weaker magnet? Would that work? thoughts & Ideas? Depending on the polarity of the two magnets two things could happen, I'm afraid. a ) if the polarity of both magnets is the same direction, then at some point the stronger on will snap the piece of scrap and the other magnet, which then can be ripped off with force only. b ) if the polarity is in opposite directions, the magnets will repel each other leading to strange movements while trying to lower the load. Would it be possible to have an electrical magnet on the crane which can be switched on and off? re: the point switching, would it be possible to have some removable parts in your hill, strategically placed, to allow access where the wires come out of the tubes, like a little hut or house or a rock....? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 24, 2010 Author Share Posted January 24, 2010 Depending on the polarity of the two magnets two things could happen, I'm afraid. a ) if the polarity of both magnets is the same direction, then at some point the stronger on will snap the piece of scrap and the other magnet, which then can be ripped off with force only. b ) if the polarity is in opposite directions, the magnets will repel each other leading to strange movements while trying to lower the load. Would it be possible to have an electrical magnet on the crane which can be switched on and off? Well the plan was that the cable (wire) on the magnet holding the load, wouldn;t be pysically long enough to be caught by the magnet force of the one on the ground. I.e. there would be a permanent gap larger than the force of the two magnets, however strong enough to pull the load off the other wcrane magnet, sounds inplausble and may turn out to be, but that at the mo is the plan, electro-magnatising the crane's magnet would get rid of the need for the second magnet, but be tricky. re: the point switching, would it be possible to have some removable parts in your hill, strategically placed, to allow access where the wires come out of the tubes, like a little hut or house or a rock....? Possibly, but I think that one is just going to have to be put down to experience. and the lesson learnt is not to put it on top of the baseboard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 morning Finished off the electrics, finally bought a good connecting clip (maplins) but had a worrying moment when nothing worked after connecting them, firstly I'd managed to pull the first power cable off of the under side of the switch and secondly the only bit of connecting that I did ( the inidividual wires from the signal to the two way switch) was "Dodgy" stray wires were touching across the switch contacts and causing the circuit to fail. Once it was working, one could play train driver whilst the other played signaller! The signals add another dimension to the operation and will hopefully make it more entertaining to potential viewers. made a start on the scenery last night, though . I think the cutting should come in closer to the trackside?? comments welcome Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eastwestdivide Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 ... I think the cutting should come in closer to the trackside?? comments welcome Well, the bridges/tunnels look a bit like they're for double track, so if you imagine that the line started double and has been singled at some point, then no, the cutting wouldn't need to come closer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 The bridges/tunnels are lyddle end, they looked good, but are for doubloe track really, although we needed them like that as the point are almost underneith them. but yes suppose not taking it in too far would be better Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted February 4, 2010 Author Share Posted February 4, 2010 Hi, sorry for thre lack of updates, but at the mo, work has concentrated on the crane for the scrap yard. The plan is, Mark has bought the Langley Models large crane and it will hopefull be made to work! Mark's already built an electro magnet, It's 9mm diameter and 3mm high (to the steel, the loop on top is 2mm more) It works really well. It takes 2v and 2amps to reliably lift but it will lift with 1.4v and 1.4amps. Updates to follow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
18B Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 Evening, Some updates at last, Not a lot but, at least it shows the plaster mod rock in place and the basis of the ground work. Also put the two signals on the layout, they both work and it provides a little bit of fun changing the lights from red to green and back to red, oh what fun. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.