Harlequin

February 24

I'm not sure photos of the sites with their trees today will be much help in identifying the trees that would have been in the same locations 100 years ago. Within that period Dutch Elm disease drastically changed the landscape, of course.

("Elm Road" is a strong hint as to the trees found at that location.)

In the fourth colour photo in the first post, the trees in question have tree guards around the bases of their trunks so we know those have been intentionally planted and could come from anywhere.

Can you post some photos of the actual trees from the period in question (or similar)? Or point us to such photos in @phil_sutters link?

February 23

1 minute ago, gwrrob said:

I hope all Plymouth residents that follow this thread like @Siberian Snooper stay safe and away from the Torpoint ferry terminal this evening.

The bomb is en-route as I type, apparently.

February 23

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxg3fs3YcK4rJSvIFmkt8aS2F7x5f60G6g?si=VowAIZiRVH0_mf5s

February 22

32 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

I am also going to replace the Mogul's plastic coal load with a sheet of lead covered in the real stuff (happily the plastic coal is not glued in - a nice touch from Dapol). Since I don't have a turntable at Helston I need my tenders to run well when being propelled backwards over the points and some weight always helps - it should also help keep good electric contact on the tender wheels to the track.

The tender in the batch1 moguls had a big diecast block in them with a well to hold a 40*20mm speaker so I'm a bit surprised you think it needs extra weight.

Is there a speaker in the tender? I hope so! If so, you could make sure the diaphragm is facing upwards and do the mesh coal load thing.

February 22

4 hours ago, riddler said:

How about this plan?

That looks very rational. If you're happy with 2/3rd scenic 1/3rd fiddle yard around the room then it makes a lot of sense because you can see everywhere, reach everywhere and easily change things by hand in the FY. It also means that you don't need automation right from the word go - you can run the layout manually at first and get automation working in stages.

February 22

9 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

But that Moor St, it looks a pretty good layout. You have even liked it!

I dont know if its possible, but the objection to the return loop might be overcome if the circular running lines were inside the fiddle yard/return loop, so that the return loop itself could be 'hidden' in one corner, possibly with a removable scenery element on top of it. I haven't checked at all to see if its feasible.

Yes, I like both Moor Street and Cheltenham St James. Just pointing out that if the goal is some roundy-round running with some shunting a through station is in many ways a better fit.

N gauge makes a return loop much easier to do space-wise than OO but it's just a bit awkward to fit into the scenic parts of a plan. However, if it's in the off-scene area then it's much easier.

February 22

1 minute ago, Andy Keane said:

I am confused - I thought with two extra cylinders they would be timed to exhaust in between the other two and, all being double acting, I expected a two cylinder engine to give four beats per revolution and a four cylinder engine to give eight? Does this mean that the timing is set up so that on four cylinders the pistons are in pairs like on a four cylinder four-stroke petrol engine? Clearly I have much to learn!

On the face of it you'd think 8 thrusts per revolution would make for a smoother ride - although maybe not because it would mean thrusts were not equalised across the frame.

I think the practical problem is that the valve timing events offset at 1/8ths would require twice as many return cranks and possibly some separate outside valve gear if rocker arms from the inside were too complicated to set up.

Remember that on the GWR four cylinder locos the outside cylinder valves are worked by rocker arms from the inside so their timing is simply the inverse of one of the inside valves.

February 22

1 minute ago, Andy Keane said:

I have now changed CV 267 from its value of 29 to 58 to slow down my chuff rate - it seemed to be set for a four cylinder engine rather two. Keith at Dapol has helpfully supplied some notes on the various CV settings in their sound project - I think they should really send these out with the loco itrself.

Four cylinder and two cylinder GWR locos have the same number of chuffs per revolution.

Sound projects are often out of sync at first. They can't account for all the loco/gearing combinations they will be used with and in this case it may have been set up for the old batch 1 Moguls where the gear ratio was different.

(Sometimes sound project designers simply don't understand the chuffs per revolution of the prototype.)

February 22

46 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Maybe its me - I have checked with Dapol tech support and they confirm its meant to be there - its just on the overrun when the chuffing dies back I find it rather intrusive. I am hoping there is a CV setting that will allow me to turn that bit of the sound down a tad.

Andy

All GWR engines do it, at least all those with crosshead driven vaccuum pumps. It's a pressure relief valve and should "spit" rather than knock or tap. When it's very loud @The Stationmaster will tell you that it needs some attention. 😉

You can hear it on this video on various engines including 5322.

Edit: There should be two "spits" per wheel revolution and your chuff sync is way out - far too may chuffs (and spits) per revolution.

February 22

If you want a roundy round then a through station is easier to accommodate than a terminus. It means there's much less need for a return loop, which is space-consuming and usually has to be non-scenic.

A through station can still have terminal bays and a goods yard that has to be shunted in exactly the same way.

February 22

Just now, Nick C said:

Wheras the major disadvantage of the Dunster one I have is that the wall aren't sufficiently insulated - they claim they are as part of the design, but 44mm of wood does not give enough insulation to be of any use in a UK climate, and the nature of the design makes it impossible to add any more - wheras a framed design can have 100mm of PIR all round.

It's cold, it's damp, the roof leaked until I replaced it, the doors stick. Whether the original owner used the right preservative I don't know, but I really wouldn't recommend anyone buy one.

Exactly.

The way to get a warm, dry, stable, energy efficient structure is to have the framing and the structural shell inside the insulation layer and a breather membrane outside of that. (Although I would avoid petrochemical-derived insulation as far as possible.)

February 22

I made a shed in my garden to my own design.

I designed it to be easy to build, with internal surfaces that I could join things to, well sealed and well insulated. I bought the raw materials from a builder's merchant and put it all together myself apart from pouring the concrete pad and sealing the roof with fibreglass. It wasn't difficult and the result is a really sturdy little building.

I then filled it with tools and a workbench rather than a railway... What a mistake!

You could do the same, Graham, and all the tools you need to build the shed are the same ones you need to build a railway - so can be more easily justified! (Apart from the nail gun which is a great thing to ~~play with~~ use but only really needed for major building work.)

February 21

1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

That's even more incredible, looking at it from different angles.

To think that you can simply press a button and reproduce more of these, unbelievable.

And all the preparatory work done on a computer.

It's literally like sorcery!

What about that 2021, then?!

Building a loco or any engineering structure in CAD is very satisfying in itself and you learn how they were put together and how they worked in some depth.

3D resin printers are getting better and better all the time. Good ones don't break the bank and print much better detail than the methods employed by Shapeways (at the least methods offered for model railway prints).

There's still the problem of painting and lining the models to overcome but technology will undoubtedly come along to do that at home too.

February 21

Good decision about the goods shed, IMHO.

My suggestion would be to ignore the coal sidings and either handle coal in the yard on the goods shed side or pretend that coal is handled at the Malvern Road yard instead. You haven't got room to do them justice and making them kickback would change the station operations significantly.

What does the rest of the layout look like? To service a station like this you'll need a capacious fiddle yard. Does the FY continue on straight or does the track turn 90° to reach it?

February 20

I got my sound fitted No. 97 "back from the menders" today.

The accessories bag is definitely the one I had originally and the loco had the address I'd programmed into it so I extrapolate from that that it really is the same model that I returned due to her developing a "limp" when turning right.

A quick run shows that I don't see the limp where the whole body sporadically lifted up when turning right but now the motion obviously has a stiff point in it. Every wheel rotation goes through a point where it slows down then speeds up again, whether turning or running on a straight. And the sound file follows.

I'm a bit disappointed but I'll see if there's anything I can do to make it smoother over the next few days.

February 20

9 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Or you could use another Faller balloon, as a perfectly balanced counterweight. One often sees several hot air balloons aloft together even if there is not a particular event in progress, as balloonists take advantage of calm and predictable conditions, and light winds.

To quote Douglas Adams:

The two philosophers gaped at him.

“Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?”

“Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.”

February 20

The flyover bridges of the design you found were a nice feature - something you can do in N when you've got plenty of space and something that allows trains to cross in more interesting ways. Shame to lose them.

The station is called "Camps Junction" but the two junctions are both a long way away, splitting and rejoining the mainline for no obvious purpose because both branches follow basically the same route.

The "branchline station" appears to be on the main line...?

It seems a bit odd to have a double track main line passing immediately behind a major station, with no interaction between the two (but I bet that does happen somewhere in the real world).

How do passengers get to your island platform with so many tracks either side?

Edit: The dumbell format does restrict what you can do a bit and causes the potential reach issues. If you could run some of the tracks completely around the space with a duck-under, lifting section or gate to access the operating well, then I think a layout would flow better with more open curves, easier reach and a more comfortable operating space.

February 19

3 hours ago, heraldcoupe said:

I think we need to look beyond traditional chassis designs to really exploit new technologies. In designing my shells, I was keen to produce something which got away from reliance on soldering and precision assembly. With many RTR models having some degree of springing, a rigid chassis would be a step backwards from where we are.

I also don't think such compromises are necessary. While I see limitations with the currently available materials for MSLA printing ( the area I work in), new materials are appearing all the time, though often at eyewatering costs. The other popular means of 3D printing, FDM, gives a less refined finish, but the range of materials is impressive. For a functional chassis, it may well prove a viable method.
In the meantime, here are the bare bones of the Aberdare chassis prototype in CAD form. This has compensation across the six-coupled drivers, with the pony to be lighly sprung. It will print up for development purposes on my existing machines, once the design is proven I'll start looking at FDM processes, which is a new area to me. The compensation beam is deliberately chunky, with a steel shaft through it to provide the pivot points for the axles.

The wheelset and gears aren't fuly drawn as I've no intention of printing those...

Some weight needs to be embodied in the model for decent pulling power. So perhaps the chassis is more suited to being CNC milled out of metal than 3D Printed.

The shapes shown above don't look too complicated for a desktop milling machine.

February 19

12 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

They were beginning to get a bit smelly. They recommend you give cats a bath every month or two. It's been a lot longer than that since we last got out the cat shampoo.

Really? That's a new one on me!

Who are "They" and do they own shares in cat shampoo? 😉

I've never washed any of mine and they've never been smelly but they have been known to jump into the pond by mistake. They made it pretty clear that it was not an experience they wanted to repeat in any form.

February 19

2 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I find that hard to believe.

Do we know which model decoder is being used?

Zimo have quite comprehensive instructions for their decoders and I would expect dimming of function outputs to be one of the options.

It's an MS450.

February 19

https://www.rapidonline.com/rapid-slotted-mass-set-with-hanger-brass-500g-52-0083

There's also a 1kg version:

https://www.rapidonline.com/rapid-slotted-mass-set-with-hanger-brass-1000g-52-0082

February 18

24 minutes ago, Pendle Forest said:

But when Fitted isn't an option you are left with Sound or Ready. If you fit a decoder to a Ready model that does not make it Fitted...

It does after you've mapped the outputs appropriately, which is of course the first thing you would do.

But you're right, that process can be difficult and it would help if manufacturers published the functions of their locos in a standardised format along with the "DCC Ready" moniker.

BTW: If you're going to do anything more than driving, setting loco addresses and setting accel/deceleration values then using something like JMRI is highly recommended. Otherwise, setting CVs by number is like performing keyhole surgery in the dark.

February 18

18 minutes ago, melmerby said:

But not my first choice as their speed linearity is not as good as Lenz, which is important for me.

That exactly illustrates the problem with built-in decoders - someone would always be unhappy with them.

February 18

1 minute ago, McC said:

Agree. Does that not place the argument back in favour of fitted a quality decoder that is good enough as standard?

Er, but everyone's definition of "good enough" is different.

For me, "Good enough" means Zimo. Could you get a licence to fit Zimo decoders as standard?

If some revolutionary new decoder came out that rapidly became the new minimum "good enough" standard then locos with built-in decoders could become albatrosses for their owners. (And any held in stock, too.)

A sensible approach that would cover all bases would be to build in a simple decoder but also provide a socket and a means of switching the built-in one out of circuit.

February 18

9 minutes ago, McC said:

Since decoders are ‘simple’ enough components with little real difference between them is it a little akin to having a preferred brand of hifi or similar? Does it really matter if the actual functionality is all ‘out of the box’ so the decoder maker is abstracted away? It’s feasible to ‘build in’ a decoder to the pcb or leave it pluggable for under £10 these days. Would DC only users object to paying £179 say rather than £169 to have a decoder come as standard

Decoders are not yet at the stage where they're all "good enough" for the average user. Some brands are definitely better at certain tasks than others (and some are unfortunately still rubbish).

There's also the question of the ability to change the decoder at home if it fails or if a newer better version is released. (For instance sound playback being upgraded from 8bit to 16bit.)

Can't speak for others about the price difference but some would surely see it as another unwanted and annoying technological overhead.

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