Nearholmer

In a tense contest today, a panel of expert judges attempted to decide which of the finalists would take home the coveted crown as “Britain’s Ugliest Diesel Locomotive”. So close was the ballot that the chairman, Sir Vernon Windbag-Aesthete, was forced to use his casting vote, declaring: “My decision is that that thing on the right, whatever is, is the winner, because whoever designed it clearly made a stupendous effort to achieve extreme unpleasantness, right down to the clever way in which the livery is used to emphasise its worst features, which is a stroke of genius. It almost hurts to look at it, which is perhaps the highest accolade that I can bestow. The runner-up is undoubtedly a very strong contender indeed, but doesn’t quite reach the heights, because it conveys a slight impression that it’s ugliness is more the result of omission, that the designer simply couldn’t be bothered to make it beautiful, than of deliberate design decisions, although I do appreciate that stupefying dullness is a worthy quality in itself.”. The winning locomotive will now go on to compete against machines from all over Europe, including the renowned former Eastern Bloc classes that have made such a strong showing in previous years.

TBH, I would always ensure that “frogs” are live, and switched via proper contacts, not fortuitous contact at switchblades, on all point-work. It’s not difficult to achieve, and it puts one more thing in the finely-poised balance in favour of the trains doing what you want them to do, when you want them to do it!

May bro has sent me this, of CH at its moodiest, taken as he was walking his dog this morning, trying to dodge an impending downpour.

Back to “live frogging” the double-slips for a moment: This is the diagram provided by Peco (including typo that says it’s a single-slip!): I think the need to insulate all the rails must be dictated by how the various bits of metalwork in the centre of the assembly are fed, and the need to avoid passing short-circuits between wing-rails and opposite polarity running rails being caused by wheels, but I’ll have to peer at it, and draw a diagram, to be sure. If what Peco are instructing is truly necessary, and not a bit of excess caution on their part, the insulating gaps/joiners need to go in at track-laying stage if future “live frogging” is contemplated.

Now you ask, I realise that I have no idea! Starting with shows in the scout hut opposite infant school, I’ve been going to MR exhibitions under my own steam “forever”, and if “big” means London, I can’t actually remember when I first went to Central Hall, just thatvitcwascunvomfortably busy, which made seeing things a real difficulty.

That I get. But, if you connect them to the rest of the railway, no insulating gaps, and then later implement “frog switching”, won’t conditions exist where the section of rail adjacent to the frog ends up at the wrong polarity. I’m not at home at the moment, so can’t study the turnouts or the instructions to be certain, so I’ll look closely later. It’s the double-slip that I’m thinking of particularly, but the concern may apply to all (no, it doesn’t apply to all, only the slip).

Just for education, since I’m not a DCC user: how does that work? Surely if you don’t leave the rail-breaks, then at a later stage implement switching of the feeds to the frogs, that will create short-circuits?

A guy I used to work for would get very annoyed about what he called “fart and fly forward” project management (explanation available if required) but as a means of propulsion for crossing a continent it might work quite well.

Ah, those are the things I saw in the shop; I thought they were by DCC Concepts. Drill bit? 0.75mm I think is what I’ve been using.

I’m going to make a cosmetic (i.e. non-working) trap on mine next week at some stage, so when I’ve done that you will be able to see it and laugh/take inspiration.

Fine file for dressing rail ends? Very fine drill bit for making pilot holes for track pins?

I’m assuming you’re doing this properly “live frog”, in which case, if you consult the instructions in the pack, there is a diagram of where the rail-breaks need to be. Peco recommend insulated rail joiners, but to me their standard plastic joiner seems unduly crude for this scale (except the gauge) track, so I’ve simply left tiny gaps, hopefully big enough not to get bridged due to heat expansion of the rail. The other thing to think about is how you will secure the rail ends at the baseboard joint, if you’ve never done that before. There are as many options as there are people who do it, and I think DCC Concepts sell a pre-made thingamajig for the job. If you wade though the lower thread linked below my signature, you’ll see how I’ve done it this time round, which seems robust (although I completely messed one up this morning!), and could be made very neat by someone with better close-work skills than mine.

If you’ve never laid track before, you’ll definitely need to take this slowly and steadily, because the Code 75 BH is quite delicate stuff. By choosing that, you aren’t exactly diving in at the deep end, but certainly aren’t in the paddling pool. Do you have the necessary tools? The curves are quite tight, and I’d very definitely want to be using templates (Tracksetta or similar) to avoid kinks, and you’ll have some decisions to make about how to deal with the insulating gaps/joints around those double slips. PS: where is the fold line in this board?

That was looking sort of maybe OK for a laugh, until I got yo the picture of the dinner. What the dickens is that!!??

What is the significance of your username? I read it as a voltage transformer, but is that what it means?

Another slip too. I managed to bngger-up the cutting of the very last track-across-baseboard-joint, damaging the track in the process, so I’m going to have to re-do a section somehow. It’s such a short piece of rail, between the board crossing and the FY turntable that I think I’m going to have to put in a line of brass pins, and solder the rail to the heads of those, possibly using ply sleepers. Is that “Brook-Smith Method”, or is that a form of artificial respiration? I can imagine the section concerned might need to be heavily dosed with spilt sand, and heavily overgrown, for cosmetic reasons!

A good option if you want to stick with a generally wooden form of construction is to use concrete “spur posts”. These are short posts, to which wooden posts are bolted so that they are clear of the soil. I did all of our (tall, and long, heavy panels) garden fence with them, and that has survived unscathed, while our neighbour’s, done at the same time, came down last year due to rotted posts and cost him a fortune to have rebuilt. For plywood away from the soil, yacht varnish is incredibly durable too. On a former line I made a long girder (8ft) to cross an area where I didn’t want posts, using 2x1 softwood and ply to make an I-box, which I then gave three coats of yacht varnish (first one let down 50:50), and that shrugged-off the rain and damp. Soil and stagnant air are the enemies of wood, because the one is full of cellulose recyling bugs, and the other encourages them to take up residence.

Onward toward the FY/sand hopper. This is only a tiny step forward, but I’m using this thread to record the entire process. Observant readers may notice that EST&T now have a loco, but close inspection will reveal that it isn’t really a very appropriate one. I went to the shop to look at both 48DS and 88DS, and when I encountered the famous (to railway enthusiasts of a certain age) ‘Shunter 20’, it sort of leapt off the shelf into my hand. There really is no credible excuse for it being in Sussex, since it spent all its time at Reading, and as someone wrote in another thread “….. went nowhere, and lived under a bridge.”, but it was a loco I saw several times. All the 48DS they had in stock were in overly flamboyant liveries, so no temptation there, but I have remembered one that I saw in still in service late in the day, being used on the construction of the DLR by a track contractor, and apparently Hornsby have issued a model of that, so there is a danger that this could drift into becoming “all the shunting engines I’ve ever known”.

If you want real bus bodies used as NG coaches, delve into the history of the Bord na Mona 3ft gauge lines in Ireland, because they had several old buses mounted on bogies for staff transport, as well as the passenger saloons from ex-West Clare railcars, which were themselves very much bus technology.

Fascinating. Have you ever seen pictures of the old Southend Pier Railwsy railcars? I think you might have re-invented them.

Google ‘Filcris’. They supply very good boards and sections made from recycled plastic, mostly for parks and gardens, but they have a specific range of bits for outdoor railway modelling.

Yep.

Looking the other way. There’ll be some sort of shrubbery between the main line and siding at the entrance to the FY. Does anyone have one of the Horny 48DS? If so, I’d be interested in how it runs without the conflat attached. I’m actually slightly more tempted by the 88DS, which seems a bit more likely for these loads, by this date, so knowledge of that would be useful too.

I’m a huge fan of your diagram; just my kind of thing! Well, this lot is all nailed down now, and the main baseboard joint fidliness dealt with (the EST&T line into the scenic bit of FY still to go). 00 is definitely proving expensive/disruptive though. I got so annoyed by not being able to see what I was doing that I booked an eye test, which resulted not only in the need to order a new set of specs (annoying, because the current ones are only just two years old), but a swift referral to hospital for further investigation of the ongoing deterioration of the retina in my right eye (not a new thing), and the beginnings of a cataract in that eye as well! This, I know, will result in the ophthalmologist stroking here chin, and saying “Hmmm …… we need to keep an eye on that; see me again in a years time.”.

What you might call an acquired taste!