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About this blog

Originally built as a Modern Image layout for the 2007 RMWeb Challenge . The blog now also covers my other layout (the Boxfile),  wild ideas for new layouts and general reflections...

Entries in this blog

Operational

Layout Operation - Some Definitions

This arises from the recent thread on Ally Pally.   Blacklade's modest experiences at the show are matter for another post, but one aspect of the post-show discussion was the claim by several people that many or most of the layouts were not running trains, and somewhere [probably at post 358] the idea arose that this was because the layouts and their operators were using timetables or sequences or something of that kind.   As will be evident from the subsequent discussion htt
Ravenser

Ravenser in Operational

10
Layout schemes

In which Ravenser finally locates the "Create Blogs" page

Longer-standing members will remember the 2006/7 Layout Challenge which started on RMWeb2 before we broke it. This produced a number of rather fine layouts including Keyhaven. It also - mostly - produced Blacklade.   The basic remit of the Challenge was to produce a small layout providing a showcase for some of the high standard RTR we have enjoyed in recent years . LisaP4 defined the rules to require layout to have a maximum footprint of 6 square feet . That killed off an idea of mine
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

5
Layout schemes

Messing Up Sydney Harbour

This is another of those speculative posts about possible layouts, so here goes....   Not so long ago someone posted a video to Clive Mortimore's layout thread that got a few people going - including me.   http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87205-sheffield-exchange-what-a-to-do/page-66   In short it was a rather eye-opening documentary film about operations at Darling Harbour Goods in Sydney in its dying days during the late 1970s. Backed up with anot
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5

The Donkey and the Bales of Straw

I said in a posting on my workbench blog that layouts required seperate comment, and I've remarked a couple of times that I got myself hopelessly overcommitted on far too many fronts , even before work matters absorbed all my energy in the first half of last year. The two things are linked..... so perhaps a survey of my layout commitments is over due, at least to show where I'm coming from   For quite a number of years I was extremely heavily committed to a layout project in my club . It wasn
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4
Layout schemes

I'm Not Committed to Building This, You Understand - Mark 2

It's been a very long time since I last started a layout project. For the last few years I've been stubbornly trying to get on top of the long, long list of stock projects for Blacklade, and the nearest thing to a new venture was the decision about 3 or 4 years ago to sort out my stray bits and pieces of steam stock, fill in the gaps, and try to have a "funny trains" steam period nominally set in 1958 . That inevitably resulted in me buying cheap new projects as fast as I cleared existing projec
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4
Layout schemes

I'm Not Committed to Building this, You Understand...

In a previous posting , I mentioned trams . I am trying quite hard to be a good boy and finish things off ,not take on new projects and commitments; but despite my best intentions there have been stirrings on the tramway front.   It started when something caused me to look at the Street Level Models website. I spotted a card kit for Manor House tram station (LT), and that started something stirring. Wasn't Manor House the northern terminus of one of the Kingsway Subway routes ? It was
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3
Layout schemes

Shifting Sands

This is by way of a speculative post.....I've remarked before that it's been a very long time since I started a new project. Over a decade in fact. Between 2000 and 2007 I launched into 4 different layout projects, all 4mm/OO - Tramlink, a club layout project, the Boxfile, and Blacklade - but since then, nothing.   I've recently resurrected the Boxfile - see postings here - and though I'm still hunting gremlins in the stockbox it's working a whole lot better than ever before. Proper sy
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3

Magpie's Nest

A couple of weeks ago I was meant to have someone round to see the layout . Unfortunately they went down sick on the day, Blacklade was up so I had a bit of a play - and things weren't running especially well. So I started fixing things and well...   In fairness I'm not sure the layout had been run more than once since Shenfield last September. My attention has been fixed on sorting out the Boxfile for the 4 months. If you don't use things it shows, so action had to be taken. I bought a rollin
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3

Points Arising

Things are a bit heavy at work at the moment which is probably why this posting's three weeks late, but the wiring is finally done. Well, sort of just about.   The new DS64 decoder is in , the NCE switch it is disconnected, the last two motors (Cobalt and Tortoise) are in , they're all wired up , and they work. I admit that one half of the slip is only about 98% reliable, but this was clearly the stiffest tie bar on the layout and always going to be the place where any intermittant incomplete
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2

Route One

With DCC Installing the point motors and decoder isn't necessarily the end of the story. Yes, it gets the points working , but more than just that is possible, and yesterday I took the final steps in commissioning the installation   Working the points one by one through the handset is a little slow and clunky . Probably no slower than flicking a set of switches on a DC panel, but just as liable to operator error. I suspect that one of the major causes of derailment and intermittant running on
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1
Reflections

Bits and Scraps

This should have been a posting about ballasting, that being the next logical step with Mercia Wagon Repair. Ballasting began last autumn and quite a bit of work was done, even though it has proved a slow and painful process. There was also the little matter of swapping out four solenoid point motors and replacing them with MTB motor drives after I was warned that continued use of solenoids would ultimately lead to the breakup of the Peco switch blades. Given all the trouble caused by havin
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1
Mercia Wagon Repair

Counsels of Despair

Things have not been going particularly well for Mercia Wagon Repair recently. As a result I've become rather disheartened and I've been wondering whether I should in fact pull the plug on the project.   Issue number one can be seen here:   A key point, buried fairly deep in the track plan has broken up at the tie bar.   This is the second point to break up at the tie bar out of 7 points I've bought so far (The first large radius point disintegrated at the tie
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Ravenser in Mercia Wagon Repair

1
Layout schemes

Pardon My French - or Paint Your Wagon

I started a new job after Easter, and the big lockdown modelling push basically ran into the sands in May and June. But the sale of my late mother's house has now been completed;, and a long-overdue attempt to reduce the chaos of the study has taken place. Out went a large broken computer desk and the very old desktop it housed , and in came a small computer trolley; the office chair moved from the sitting room to the study, the study chair went in the bedroom, and a broken chair from the bedroo
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

1
Tramlink

Skeleton in the Cupboard

A very long time ago, I went to one of the CMRA Workshop events. The bookseller was selling a copy of "Tramlink - Official Handbook" published by Capital Transport. (It was Geoff Gamble - I told you it was a long time ago)   Anyway I bought the thing, discovered that Alphagraphix were doing card kits of light rail units, and I got fired up with the idea of building one , and making a working model. This obviously would need somewhere to run, so the idea of building a small layout based
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Ravenser in Tramlink

1
Layout schemes

This Time I May Be Committed.....

I mentioned in a previous posting   Shifting Sands  that recent developments in RTR had tempted me to consider a possible 009 layout. Things have now moved on...   In the end, the Bachmann Baldwins proved rather too tempting to resist. I think the tipping point was when a little internet research revealed that 2'6" gauge was a de facto British military standard up to WW1, accounting for the Admiralty operations at Chattenden and Devonport and the RNAD explosives factories and depots. 9
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

0
Operational

Postcards from the Layouts

As Blacklade is effectively completed, and so is the Boxfile there isn't too much to post in the way of layout construction these days. Lockdown efforts have mainly been focussed on sorting out the litter of unfinished stock projects - and if the truth be known, drifting into one or two more. And those things have gone onto my workbench blog..   However just to prove that the silence is not that of the grave, here are a few snapshots from when each of them was last up - "Pictures from
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Ravenser in Operational

0
Layout schemes

"Which way shall I turn me?"

I have a new job, and (for the moment) most of the time I will be working from home. When I'm in the office I find myself within walking distance of the mortal remains of the Ipswich dock lines, several of whose locos feature on the Boxfile. The shops are open again. The sun shines and we see blue sky. I've had my first dose of a vaccine.    In the meantime, over the last year of lockdown, there has been time for reflection and clarification. The awkward fact is that I've made much les
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

0
Electrical

Gremlinology

In February I had the layout up after a couple of months and all was not well. Things stuck and stalled because they needed a thorough cleaning, the 128's body sat visibly too high, the NBL 21 needed a wheel adjustment, I was reminded that the NRX van needs one Kadee re-setting...   And most importantly, the point that leads into the fuelling point (and which forms part of one end of the run-round loop) stopped throwing . I tried adjusting the motor to release it with my fingers, tried
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Ravenser in Electrical

0
Boxfile

Served Up On A Tray - Dessert

We left the Boxfile last time safely installed on its new tea-tray, but with the track joints still to patch, and scenery to touch up.   The track joints were not at all good - they never have been. In the worst place I think there was a horrifying 4mm long gap in the railhead.   The solution was a bodge I've used in one or two places on Blacklade, though not on quite such a scale. This is to cut a sliver of 40 thou plasticard and superglue it in place in the gap. Once the
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Mercia Wagon Repair

Wagons Roll!

So - the wagon works layout project described here is now on. And very much as forshadowed in the subsequent comment.   Several things have pushed me into actually doing something. The first and most powerful is a problem that has developed with my right eye. Gloomy reflection suggested that if anything was to be done with the N gauge bits it had better be done quickly, whilst I was capable of it.    (I am glad to report that I saw the eye specialists yesterday, and they stat
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Ravenser in Mercia Wagon Repair

0
Mercia Wagon Repair

A Lot of Wiring For A Little Layout

The N gauge project is firmly analogue DC. This is because the core of the stock has been sitting in a drawer for nearly 15 years and none of the four locos concerned are "plug and play" DCC ready . Indeed the Farish 04 isn't DCC Ready at all and would be a real pig to convert. (I understand current production of the model will take a decoder)   Electrical wiring was long one of my blind spots. The wiring of Tramlink (Kent) consisted of a few bits of bell-wire and an on/off switch. Poi
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Ravenser in Mercia Wagon Repair

0
Mercia Wagon Repair

"Think Thrice, Measure Twice"

A fair amount of progress has been made with Mercia Wagon Repair over the last 6-8 weeks. However this has involved a number of revisions and minor tweaks.   The layout - or at least the "main line"  side of it , which was all that had been laid - had been test run  a few times. This amounted to running in a train behind a type 5, the loco running round and picking up a train of wagons waiting in the departure siding , then returning whence it came. The shunter would then shunt the inc
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Ravenser in Mercia Wagon Repair

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Boxfile

Served Up On A Tray - Main Course

The deed is done - or at least most of it. On Saturday I duly trotted off to the local DIY sheds. Unfortunately Wickes and B&Q locally do not cut timber , and Buildbase - who might - were closed. But a sheet of 5mm ply in B&Q was only £5.47, so I bought it anyway.   Having got it home and marked out the cutting plan I discovered that if you heavily score the desired cutting line on both sides with a Stanley knife you can snap 5mm ply along the line much as you would do 40 thou
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Mercia Wagon Repair

"I can see clearly now the rain has gone..."

Things are looking up a bit for Mercia Wagon Repair, and the business seems to have escaped the liquidator's clutches.....   Two or three weeks ago I was feeling more than a little hopeless about the whole thing here , partly (if truth be known) for one or two reasons external to the layout. Although there were enough problems arising within the project to cause dispondency.   In the end after a certain amount of glum staring at N gauge points, I decided to see if  the second
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Ravenser in Mercia Wagon Repair

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Boxfile

Served Up On A Tray

This is by way of a short "statement of concept" note.   The Boxfile (formally Whitefriargate Goods) has been out of commission for a couple of years, after the end of the fiddle yard track became damaged. At one level this simply means a basic and fairly straightforward repair. But it has thrown into sharper relief the main problem with this layout.     That's the board joint. The two files are currently held together - when assembled - by fishplates connecting th
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