srt11

Thanks @The Johnster! Ive been using this site for about 5 years now (since the bug bit hard and The Hobby appeared in my life again) and it is really useful. I should note all my points, apart from a pair of three ways in the lower long sidings, are electrofrog (I'm guessing you guessed otherwise due to the presence of some surface points- they're used due to the inevitable location of supports at just the position they shouldn't be - I swear that the struts move in the night to be under points!) The space thing is really important I think - to some extent I was forced to have a good gap by the geometry of the helix, but if I were to do it again I'd make it even bigger. Losing 3 stone over the last year or two has helped though in being able to squeeze in, though there was one bit where I did recently have to get the jigsaw out and manically cut out a chunk to access the far curve (the result of which is leaning on the far wall in the very first photo). I think if I were to do it all again I'd use open frame though I'm sure that would just swap one form of yogic contortion for another... Cleaning is a combination of track rubber, the gaugemaster track cleaner van, and the CMX cleaner (using IPA). I think I may need to make one of those hoover trucks like the Dapol cleaner though to pick up all the various couplings buffers and stuff that accumulate as a result of, um, bad driving....

@The Johnster Soo much to do.... ! But, my plan has always been to go in for the long run. The shed went up summer of 2020, with the first level done about this time last year. I've no particular timeframe in mind, and indeed there will probably be breaks (for one I absolutely will do a small model of Skewen Main 7 (which will have quite a nice wye junction from what the maps show), and I've also got a plan to do the wharf as well - but those will probably wait until Rimmer Junction is functioning correctly, as I think I will use the smaller models as practice for scenery things as I have never done any such stuff. Indeed, I've never even ballasted track, or done scatter or anything!) If I had the time, money and space, I would absolutely do a complete recreation of Neath (from Court Sart all along to the Lonlas tunnel). Whether I have the ability is, as this project shows, neither here nor there. I've never seen an image of a class 58 at Neath (the nearest I think was up in one of the valleys, but that's about it). Thinking about it, I've never actually seen a class 58 in the flesh either. I think when the model is "finished", I may just run the 58 around once, then start again! Attached are two terrible photos, but should show 1007 at the end of the lower level short sidings (underneath the station) going around the curve to begin the journey upwards. The diverting line off the main (it goes off to the lower level long sidings), which is in the foreground, was (as should be quite evident) a necessary alteration to the original plan. My initial trackplan had the diversion coming off a curved point just as the curve started (just by the 9V batter in photo two), which was very elegant looking. It worked perfectly, until I tried the 9F... (and the Westerns). I had done the original plan because there was a support in the way. It was only when trying to work out what I was going to do, that I realised that the intervening pillar actually was unnecessary to support the board!

D1007 Western Talisman on the charge along the middle of the helix run. Photo 2 shows the removable sections. This section will need work to make it properly user friendly, and it was "fun" making the different levels (two of which are gradients), but they work, just!

When we moved to the house, I found this copy of the Daily Mail in the attic.

Hi @DCB, Some useful points (for want of a better word...) there - thanks. I'll note that at the moment, track power is run through a booster for all levels. When I get to the point where I'm happy with it running around the main (almost there; it's basically the reverse loop issue), then I will add in another booster (so it will be booster 1 for top level, booster 2 for bottom level and helix, booster 3 for accessory bus, which is more than sufficient). As for faults: the gremlins appear to be solely concerned with my carpentry, track laying, and whenever I open a pot of glue - for some reason my electrics are gremlin-free (famous last words...). Live frogs - I get what you mean, and for most of my locos there's no real need for them. However, I do have a few lovely little locos (Pecketts, the Rocket, etc), which do get trapped by the smallest dead frog (adding stay alives will probably eventually happen, but I feel that is a secondary response to the underlying problem ie better to have a live frog (easily done with Cobalt IP digital points, which is what I use). Forgive my ignorance, but would you be able to explain '1 amp polyfuses to protect the droppers' - I'm really not sure what this means! And yes - I do run trains, probably more than I should relative to actually doing/improving things -- that's why things have taken me so long to get even to this stage! As for prototype, @5BarVT has got there before me. Neath only ever had two platforms, with the Up line to London being platform 2 (never understood that as a child, and still don't know). The thing to realise about Neath is that it is old, very old - it goes back to at least the mid1860s and has never been altered (other than rebuilding the station, and the post-Beeching rationalisation, the location and geography has remained the same since it was first there. [So, eg, the siding in the middle of tracks at the station is actually a consequence of the track having been originally Brunel's broad gauge: when they moved to standard gauge there was sufficient space to shove in a siding, so they did.] Important to note that the Down platform is only a platform for the main line (ie the lines on the other side were the sidings (in particular, there were two lines squeezed between platform and goods shed (with the third line being a run through the goods shed). I've drawn my version of Neath-as-it-might-have-been from the RA Cook (?) trackplans, along with the (rather quite limited) photos of the station area. Thanks all for the help so far - I will try and update this thread re the reverse loop issue when I get that done, but for now I think I will shift the general exposition/photos etc to the the Layout Topics forum, under the title "Rimmer Junction (Neath, as it might have been....)".

Coming up to the top level.

I feel I should have started with this picture, for naming reasons....

Hi All, Rimmer Junction is currently in construction. It's based on Neath, as it perhaps may once might have been. It's location in time is rather fluid, running from GWR through to about 1980ish,* but with a focus on the 1970s. Trains run on the basis that Dr Beeching stayed playing with chemicals, and steam kept running long past its real-life demise. It is simple (I think; others will disagree) concept: a single loop, doubled over itself so to create a helix effect from lower level storage, up along the walls of the shed, on to the top layer. The attached (terrible) photo gives a rough idea: on the RHS (as you look at the photo) is the station; on the LHS will be a colliery set up (very loosely based on the Skewen Main Colliery 3+4).** In terms of travel, if you look at the photo with a big lump of lead in the bottom, a Western sitting in the middle siding and a GWR autocoach sitting on the platform, the cl37 is on the Up line (to London). The third photo shows the tracks that will be hidden behind the station - these tracks go on a spiral around the walls of the shed, and end on the bottom level. You can see part of the bottom level in photo 1: the diverting line goes of to another set of storage sidings; normal running trains go on and around the curve and then back around and up again.*** In the last photo, you can see a Western (1007) with some MK1s going down the "helix".**** You should be able to see the top part of the "helix" as well. The shed is 6mx3m, the helix goes around the walls, so with a gradient of just less than 1 in 100, it goes around twice and raises about 28cm or so. This gradient enables relatively realistic train lengths eg Abergavenny Castle will happily pull 9 MK1s up and down; the recent Bachman 9487 pulls 10 Accurascale PTA bogie waggons (visible in the first photo) up and down no problem. Curves are general R3 or R4, but there are some R2s. So far, no problems, other than my terrible track laying, awful carpentry, and cavalier approach to wiring. One issue is the need to put in a reverse loop module or two to enable the crossovers to work at the station, but that's not a major issue really. The only real problem is that some of the coaches (basically the Bachman MK1s attached the Blue Western) don't like one particular curve on the helix at any speed.***** Anyway, that will do for now: more to come....! *My very first train set was the Midnight Freight, with a cl58 (still alive, just). I decided to have the end point at the time when the cl58 came on track. ** For personal reasons, I wanted to do Skewen Main 7, but it wouldn't look quite right, and will actually be better a standalone model that I aim to do at some point in a million year's time... *** The best way I can describe the geometry of the whole layout is - imagine a slinky (those metal things that go down stairs). That is all the the layout is: one single line looped around itself. **** The blur is the fact the train is clearly "going" - I'm not that bad a photographer! ***** I added a lot of lead to the Triang MK1s the Cl37 is pulling and they are fine, but I think the length of the Bachman coaches is the issue (the Triangs have been brought up to around 155grams each, which is the same as the Bachmann coaches).

Hi @Harlequin. Thanks - I had noted that. I may have to actually do a youtube it seems (I've no idea how; should be fun). I tried to do some filming today but it's really hard running around a train holding a phone, whilst realising (more than once...) that there are obstructions on the line (as I said, I'm not a tidy worker), and the track had come apart at one point.... Nevertheless, here are some photos - the Western is blurry because it is moving! The "overhead" shot (which involved me nearly burning my hair on the light) shows on the left (as you look at it) part of loop 1 from the diagram, along with the Up and Down lines (UP is the line on the furthest left, and furthest right). The curve on the top right is the entrance to the station (which if you know Neath, is prototypical - eventually if I have the time and develop the skill, that entire section will be done up as if going over the river). The photo with the cl37 is coming into the station. You'll notice, on the rhs of the autocoach, the lines going down into the helix effect. I can put up more photos, but I will set up another thread elsewhere and link thereto.

HI @RobinofLoxley. I will admit the plan give the impression of complexity, but that's just it. The plan is actually very simple: a single oval, looped over itself (imagine a slinky - one of those things that's just a simply bit of wire curved to create a cylinder, that can go down stairs - that is in essence what I have done). And it does work perfectly fine all around (electrically speaking: the less said about my track laying the better...). The sole issue is simply that by a function of the geometry that there will be polarity issues at crossovers (of which, there are only two, on the upper level at the station as noted), and I think the solution is as simple. But simple solutions to simple problems are often the most difficult things to get right.... By some wonder, I have an hour or two free today: I will need to tidy up the track (I am not a tidy worker), so that it's visible as such, and I will get some photos up, and I'll try and get a (small due to upload limit) vid of trains going round.

Trains go around perfectly well. There's no short circuits, other than those caused by the noted reverse loops. Hopefully I'll get a little video of it soon.

Thanks both. First, I've just noticed that in the diagram the bottom set of blue directional arrows are wrong! [It must be a subconscious attempt at the BR double arrow.....!] Obviously they need to be the other way around. But that doesn't change the substantive problem. Second, I think Michael Hodgson's suggestion is the one I will go with ie just isolate the whole station area and then just put RLMs in either side. The rewiring is not a problem really as most of the track has droppers but theyve not yet been permanently attached (so straights will just be flipped over). Also, given my usual hasty approach to such things I'm used to having to recolour-code wires as it were (I use quite a bit of red and black insulation tape ...), so that's not too problematic either. Unfortunately given time etc it may be a while before I get round to doing this (as the trains happily go round and round, even over my hilariously bad removable sections and terrible track work, improvements naturally take second place over running the trains) but I will try to see how it works ASAP. [I really do wish I was even vaguely competent at drawing. I've got this great image in my mind but I'm so "dysgraphic", if that's a word, I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler.]

Hi All, Another question on this perennial problem... System: OO gauge; DDC - Gaugemaster Prodigy Advanced2, fed through a DCC concepts Alpha Box. The attached image is a simplification. Essentially, the layout is a single loop doubled up on itself, creating a helix from the lower level to the upper level (I hope that makes sense!). The blue arrows show the direction of travel (top arrow, pointing to the right as you're looking at it, is the up line (to London, for those who care...). Because the track is in essence a single track, I (stupidly, it turns out) wired it so that on the Up line has +ve on the top rail and -ve on the bottom rail [yes, yes, it's DCC, but you know what I mean!], whilst for the Down line, the +ve is on the bottom rail and the -ve is on the top rail. In terms of the attached diagram, the bottom loop (marked 2) is the lower level including the helix-ed track. The upper level is the top half. As per the Anyrail system's reverse loop identification, there are potentially two positions where a train can reverse (in this diagram, only the second reverse loop is highlighted, but it should be clear enough). First is at the crossing on the right (marked with a green arrow), creating a balloon loop (marked 1). Second is if the train goes off the main through the double slip (marked with a red arrow), through the sidings (there are many, which I've left out of the diagram), and then up through the diamond (marked with a yellow arrow) on the left. My feeling is simply that if I put a Reverse Loop Module (RLM) at the midpoint of the balloon loop (marked with a green cross), and then rewire so that +ve and -ve flip over at the RLM point in the balloon loop. I think this will solve most of the issues, but I am unsure whether I need another RLM at the left hand end of the station (after the points) (marked with a purple cross - I'm not sure whether I would need it on the up or down line). This, I think, would be the simplest option (there is no need to do anything then with the lower level), because instead of treating the problem as one of a reverse loop, it is really a problem simply of mismatched "polarity". (FWIW the loop marked 2 is approximately 8m of track in total so more than enough for two whole trains either side of the RLM, assuming it is placed at the apex of the curve) The reason for this is that (a) I'm not actually aiming to create a reverse loop, but it's merely a consequence of the overall trackplan being a folded loop, with crossovers, and (b) I obviously actually do want the capacity to use the crossovers and slips and whatnot in a (pseudo)realistic way, without shorting. Finally, for what it's worth, the top level is a (simplified, obviously: I don't own a 50m long shed...!) version of Neath General (in a non-Beeching world). Thanks! Sean.

Hi Paul, In a very strange coincidence, I have logged in in order to ask a question, to find your query here. Unfortunately, I can only say: I don't know yet! Since I posted, the original model has been taken apart, removed from loft, new shed acquired, and new model built (or more accurately, being built....!), which has led to a rather amusing reverse loop problem (which I am going to have to post about, for advice, hence the log in). From what I can vaguely remember, it worked in principle - I basically wired it all up (the widget, power, point), and in principle it seemed to work. Never got round to actually putting on the track (as it were) before the big move unfortunately, so I can't say any more. Fortunately I may have some time over the next day or two so I shall endeavour to see if I can get it working again (I actually know what box it is in, and there'll definitely be a use for it on the new set) and get back to you.

cheers. It looks rather good (thou g h I didn't realise the crane height would be hilariously out place with me idea). Langley Models seems to have nice kits though.