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General movements on Platform 1...

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Electrics

At last, servos and wiring...

Over a year without posting anything!  Disgraceful - dunce's cap firmly on.   Despite the pandemic, lock-downs and other distractions, things haven't developed very much recently.  The first lock-down was taken up with long summer walks and home-based IT work for a local charity.  By mid-summer it was much too hot to work for long in the loft - 30degC plus some days.  Then suddenly it was cold again!   Work restarted before Christmas (2020!) looking at the design of servo poi
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Platform 1 in Electrics

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Clearances

The double-track main line has now been properly trimmed and laid.  Cutting and re-spacing sleepers is very time consuming!  I decided that the concrete sleepers on this section would benefit from being opened out to 8mm centre-centre.  After gluing and adjusting - 5mm coffee stirrers are perfect - the track does look better, even though it's all a compromise in 00.  The station area will be bullhead, so no chopping and spacing will be needed there.   The other time-consuming element w
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Track

Activity resumes - track!

So there's the summer been and gone... wasn't it a good one (in the West Country anyway)?   Now the evenings are drawing in, thoughts have returned to the loft layout.  Track has been acquired, and some progress made in laying it.  Each board has to be laid and wired separately in case it has to be removed some time in future.  The dropped board is easily (!) removable to access an under-eaves cupboard.   The fiddle yard area is a bit of a squeeze to get to (see photos) so hu
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Baseboard

Bits and Pieces

Desperately slow progress, what with family commitments and other life stuff...   However, the dropped (removable) board now has its elevated sections for the bridge under the mainline and a shorter bit for the head-shunt.  Once the alignment was drawn in to fit the plan, the track board supports were glued (with screws in some cases) and various fillets added for lateral strength.  Thought I'd try some laminate flooring underlay foam on this layout - seems to stick down OK with PVA gl
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Platform 1 in Baseboard

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Revised Track Plan

So here's the next development - having realised the similarity to Minories, it is now a Minories with sidings.  This one addresses the issue of the headshunt not being accessible from the inbound route.  The right-hand part with the fiddle yard is unchanged from the initial plan.       A variant I tried when drawing this is to have only a single siding to the bridge, which then becomes a headshunt to two splayed sidings in the top-left-hand corner.  This arrangement mi
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Initial Track Plan

The freezing weather has enabled me to spend a few happy hours fiddling with track components in AnyRail.  This is my initial attempt - it seems to satisfy a number of criteria: a mix of urban and semi-rural double-track somewhere undulating terrain with e.g. a bridge interesting operation somewhere to shunt Any thoughts anyone?  
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Controlling Points

Whatever my track layout will be (still thinking about that ), it'll need some points. But this time, I've decided I shall NOT have a tangle of wires under the board! Even on a small layout, tracing wires/faults/feeds etc can be a right pain in the neck!   So the plan is to have one pair of wires to feed DCC everywhere, and another 4-wire cable to feed digital point control using i2c or similar control. Although I've a collection of old Peco point motors, I can't say I've ever been keen on th
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Baseboards!

Baseboards constructed at last! Here they are:     The key question is what to build here? Almost certainly this will be 00, because I've quite a lot of stock gathered over the years - though some is tatty and somewhat below par so will have to go!   So here's the overall plan:     (Red blobs are wall brackets)   No real track design yet, just a few placements to get some idea of what might fit in this space. Some sort of bridge structure on the dropped board, maybe built-up on the
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Track

00 Track Comparison

It's been a while! Amazed how long it takes to turn a new room into a usable space - painting, flooring, shelves, heating, workbench, lighting - together with the usual demands of family life...   So here we are with a bit of new activity before the layout proper gets under way. The shots below show three types of 00 track: Peco streamline code 75 flat bottom, the new Peco code 75 bullhead, and C&L flexi track.   The ballast looks over scale to me. Which do you think look
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Platform 1 in Track

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Building work

All Change...

It probably looks like it's been rather quiet on Platform 1 since the Spring. Far from it!   The almost empty space in the loft above our garage has been beckoning for some time - 16x14 ft seems such a waste! So after considerable um-ing and ah-ing, I took the plunge and had it converted into a proper room, girders, joists, insulation, walls, the whole nine yards.   Work started in June, and by golly those guys got through urn-fuls of of tea! This is after the joists went in:
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Platform 1 in Building work

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Add DCC

Adding DCC Sound and Lights to a Lima class 47

A tidy example of 47323 Rover Group was acquired some years ago. The spartan chassis of these Lima models means a decent amount of space to fit circuit boards, LEDs and a speaker. I finally got round to adding these goodies as the Winter evenings fizzled out.   Although covered elsewhere, I felt there were enough detail differences here to make a new write-up worthwhile.   Approach My choice of components was: Zimo sound decoder, following good experience with a cl
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Platform 1 in Add DCC

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Colour Matching Rail blue & grey - Update

Why is nothing simple?   Further test samples viewed in various types of light revealed some issues. In particular, the use of a grey primer undercoat produced a bluer cast than a white base, despite applying two top coats. As noted in the last post, I'm keen to achieve a close match across my rake of 4 coaches, so can we do better?   A few more shades were obtained (this is becoming expensive) and more trials carried out. To cut to the chase, better colour matches to my two Bachmann Mk1 co
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Colour Matching Rail blue & grey

This week I have mostly been... messing with paint!   Context On my long list of modelling-things-to-do is the assembly of a rake of coaches to make a 4-TC set. This will involve a cut and shut for the driving ends, plus two of the excellent Bachmann Mk1 coaches to form the TBS and TFK.   Whilst gathering the various bits together, my mind turned to how I would paint the driving ends, and importantly achieve a decent colour match to the two middle coaches. Whilst many colour variations exist
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Electrics

Make a DC Controller: Part 2

The amended objective was to produce a simpler, no-frills DC controller that would meet the original 'anytime anywhere' requirement, working with either a battery, AC or DC power.   Circuit Design Starting with the emf-sensing feedback circuit used in Part 1, I removed the integrator and schmitt trigger U1 leaving just U1b as a simple non-inverting amplifier. The output driver Q1 - a cheaper and more easily obtainable BD243C - is included in the gain loop to ensure good output vol
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Platform 1 in Electrics

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Electrics

Make a DC Controller: Part 1

Circuit Design   As described in "A Test Track in N - 4: electrics" I started with an emf-sensing feedback design by Jonathan Scott (www.scottpages.net/UniversalTrainController.html second circuit from top). It was intended that the controller would be powered from AC, DC or battery to enable my N test track to be used 'anytime anywhere'.   Construction   I made a few small changes to Mr Scott's original circuit: C3 to 3uF to reduce inertia on a small layout
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Platform 1 in Electrics

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A Test Track in N - 5: controller and summary

Controller Construction and Test   This turned out to be, er, interesting! The details became rather complicated so rather than get bogged down here, I've put all the electronics geekery in a separate blog entry "Make a DC Controller".   In summary, I ended up with two controllers, using a simplified non-feedback design for this project.       Costs   Case wood and hardware - about £17 (carry handle was £5 of that ).   Track - about £35. Even discount prices seem to have gone
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A Test Track in N - 4: electrics

A simple track plan like this needs only basic wiring:   track power feeds on each side of the box connector across the hinge join jumpers to isolated rails jumpers to the toe of sidings. But all wiring is on view when the case is open, so a neat job is called for.   Wires were routed under sleepers and soldered to outer edges of rails - with hindsight I should have used something smaller than the standard 2.3mm bit on my X25 iron, and perhaps attached certain wires before
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A Test Track in N - 3: Preparation & Track

So now we have a wooden box which needs to be turned into a model railway.   It's very tempting to start laying track at this stage. But some things need to be done now to properly prepare: apply 'knotting' to prevent knots in the wood from oozing and/or weeping resin later (but omit on parts that will be varnished) paint inside while it's still clean and bare two coats of varnish outside to help protect from inevitable knocks and scrapes (and to "bring out the natural beauty of your
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A Test Track in N - 2: Carpentry

Despite wanting this thing to 'be quick to make' I hit an early snag - all is revealed below...   One of the key features of this design is that the track will go inside the frame, rather than sitting on top of the frame per the conventional approach. This means: no underboard wiring, point motors etc (a false bottom could be added - but this is meant to be quick and simple) no track pins - unless it doubles as a bed of nails! Assembly tolerances must be quite tight, as even smal
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A Test Track in N

I think I've mentioned somewhere on RMWeb that, like many others, space is an issue for me. So now that N gauge RTR models have improved enormously, that might be the way to go in order to get something running! Plenty of small-space ideas on here and elsewhere for inspiration...   But first, new locos would need to be run-in - 'run for half-an-hour in each direction' say the manufacturers' blurb - so a test track would be a good idea.   After scribbling with pencil and paper for a while,
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