Richard Mawer

Guys Thanks for the messages. All is fine here. Busy but fine. Buckingham West is much the same, but under used. Covid got me out of the habit of operator evenings and I need to get that sorted. To be honest most of my time has been taken up with business which has been very busy I’m happy to say, and our exhibition layout, The Stonethwaite and Bainrigg Railway. This features on RM WEB too.

DIAMONDS ARE A (GIRL’S BEST FRIEND/BLOKE’S PAIN THE….) DELETE AS APPROPRIATE. We have a diamond crossing at Stonethwaite. We wanted elecrofrog of course, but Peco do not make an electro code 100 Short. So I fitted a code 75 with packing below. MISTAKE. It was always a sticking point for deep flanges and wider treads/tyres. I have finally plucked courage to rectify it; brought on by snapping a frog and two check rails while trying to ease it in situ. Yesterday I attacked the board and removed it and 2 short lengths of track. Hours were then spent modifying a code 100 insul frog into a live version using check rails off the code 75 to replace the plastic ones and using rail and solder to replace the insul sections. Its a bit messy on the outside of the rails but that it all hidden when in place. The original code 75. Post surgery. The replacement code 100. Note the amount of plastic check rails and insul breaks. The boosters are another story. The finished conversion.

EVERY DAY IS A DAY AT SCHOOL In the case of Oxrail, it physically was: a Primary school. Anyway, our biggest discoveries were both things we discovered in Kettering, thought we had sorted, but found we hadn’t. In fact they were connected - or not as the case maybe. Kaydees and Fiddleyard. Its well known that Kaydees do not like changes of gradient. This is made worse with short wheelbase stock. At Kettering we discovered we had small changes of gradient in and out of the fiddle yard that we hadn’t perceived as issues. But trains became uncoupled as they left. We also knew that we needed to realign the traverser tracks to match the boards towards Bainrigg. So we relaid the traverser before Oxrail. Even though we thought we had ironed out the worst issues, it was still an issue at times. Michael’s winter project is a full rebuild.

OXRAIL - KIDLINGTON, OXON - OCTOBER 22 Well we made it! We deliberately made the layout lower than some layouts so the youngsters have a better chance to see. Our moving features and the sounds go down well. Given the size of the full layout this was only the second day it was fully operated so we had some discoveries and issues to sort. But generally we, the club and the public were happy.

A TRIP UP THE DALE It’s been a while!!! Phase one was Stonethwaite, the town at the bottom of the Dale with the canal wharf and warehouses etc. We first exhibited that at Kettering. Then we accepted an invitation to Oxrail and in a silly moment said we would have completed phase 2 by then. This phase is Bainrigg, the village at the top of the Dale. The quarry is to be found just outside the village, but that’s another phase! So Dave built another 3 baseboards including a corner. Our layout is modular so the joining methods and track alignment match from board to board. The exceptions are where boards are pairs. We can currently exhibit as phase 1 or phases 1 & 2, with or without the corner and the corner can even be reversed so the L shape can be either way round. Anyway, the clock was ticking over the summer to get it done. Its a brief trip through some green stuff, the outskirts of the village into the terminus. The quarry line passes through but is currently gated. These photos are without finishing touches. Its still a ghost town!

Just a little Yank Like many narrow gauge lines, after WWI, the S&B acquired a Baldwin repatriated from the trenches. Ours is a Class 10 prairie. Seen as a stopgap workhorse rather than a loved member of the loco stud, she was always just known as The Yank.

Grace gets pumped. A visit to the paint shop is needed.

Some final adjustments on the Stonethwaite Wharf board before we start on Phase Two of the project : Bainrigg station. Grace with a brake van. An impressive rake of rusty stone skips and a couple of tank wagons in the siding. Phase one (as shown at Kettering) plus phase two will be shown in Oxford in October.

We even made the Guild News

Gauge O Guild - Kettering. March 2022. More exhibition invitations please. Rich

NOTICE The Stonethwaite and Bainrigg Railway will be displayed for the first time on 5th March at Kettering with the Gauge O Guild. Come along and see us. Cheers Rich

Some of you will know that I am involved in another layout - an O-16.5 Narrow Gauge called The Stonethwaite and Bainrigg Railway. It is on RM Web as well. The layout is going to its first exhibition on 5th March this year at the Gauge O Guild's exhibition in Kettering. Please either check us out on this site or if possible come along and see us in Kettering. Cheers Rich

Sorry for the silence. We’ve just been working through stuff. Plus this blessed virus stopping us. Anyway we are finally due to take it to our first exhibition 5th March at Kettering with the O Gauge Guild. Its starting to come together quite well now.

GOING UNDERGROUND There have been two problems preventing the disappearance of Banbury. One was the need to build a hill. The second was to verify route selection. If you are wondering what I am talking about, yes its loops. Banbury (and beyond) is represented by 10 storage loops and a dumbbell to reverse the trains. To cause the illusion when operating the layout, the Charlton Junction operator will exchange block bells with an automatic operator called Banbury and will send trains to Banbury by directing them into a tunnel. After that I didn’t want any conscious actions - out of sight, out of mind. So the loops and dumbbell are under scenery. All the operator does is to turn a dial to the letter mentioned in the timetable and drive the train into the tunnel. The scenery is formed from shaped high density insulation foam sheets (offcuts from a mate) covered with Readigrass vinyl backed grass mat. This is moulded to shape with a hair drier. The continuous run, known as Charlton Junction, is in the cutting. The line between Buckingham and Evenley is at the higher level at the back. But before I could enclose the loops, I had to have confidence that the point ladder at the entrance to the loops had selected the correct route each time. These points are changed by Peco surface mount solenoids from a diode matrix and capacitor discharge unit. I’ve arranged it so no more than 4 points need to change, no matter what, but just every now and then, 1 fails to throw. When they are out of sight I have no way of knowing and then a train drives full speed up the back of another, or just gets in the wrong loop. I needed some way of knowing what route was actually set. Mark Riddoch came up with answer. As the frog polarity of each point is changed by a micro switch, what if we could use the polarities to check the actual point positions? He suggested an Arduino could do it. Mark has built all the other Arduino boards in use, but I wanted to learn. So back in lockdown 1, I started. And in lockdown 2, I’ve finally done it! It “reads” the frog polarities and when they represent a successful route, the display shows it. The led F confirms that the dialled F has actually worked. As long as the diplay is the same as the dial, all is good. By the way, the red leds around the dial indicate whether that loop is occupied. There is still room for human error, but there is now enough info to reduce accidents. The right hand side dial is for trains leaving Banbury for Charlton Junction and the rest of the layout. The 3 leds in the middle light in turn as an Up train makes its way round the dumbbell towards the tunnel mouth.

I’ll happy send you the code. You just need an Arduino Uno or Nano, some stripboard, the right lcd screen and some buttons. Plus a 5v dc supply.