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Pete the Elaner

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Blog Comments posted by Pete the Elaner

  1. I like the Y shaped plan because of the way the track flows. 2 fiddle yards at one end is a compromise to make this work.

    You mention exhibiting. If you mean exhibit this, it raises some issues:

    A Y shaped layout is awkward to fit into an exhibition. A curved layout such as your second alternative would also need careful planning & some understanding from the exhibition manager to fit it in.

    Your boards are different sizes & 1 of them is 5' long. This is manageable but not a convenient arrangement & I have heard many state that their boards are too big & cumbersome. Boards of the same size can be stored together in some form of frame to save space & keep them protected during transport. Curved boards are also much harder to build nicely. It is nice to see something different but straight edged boards are common because they don't present this challenge.

  2. 16 minutes ago, PaternosterRow said:

    Cheers.  My wife got a smart phone a couple of years ago and the snaps she takes on our walks are amazing.  I saw an advert for the new Huawei phone and its camera capability is unbelievable.  I’d wager that smart phones will make most traditional cameras obsolete within a few more years. 

     

    Maybe. Maybe not.

    The reason phone cameras are so good for getting lots in focus (a large depth of field) is that their sensors is so small. This makes them excellent for most situations, including close-ups & landscapes.

    Sometimes it is desirable to take photos with very long exposures, like 2-4 minutes. I am not sure any phones will do this. It is often desirable to open the aperture to blur out anything in front of behind the subject, thereby drawing attention to it. This does not really a small sensor like that found in a phone.

    • Like 2
  3. The corners are very, very tight. Even with 40cm boards, getting 4 tracks around each corner will be very difficult. You certainly won't get away with Peco streamline spacing between each line because you will have stock fouling each other. Peco settrack spacing does not look very good & will look far too spread out on the straights.

    When I first saw your dimentions, I read through the text thinking "I hope this plan is for N gauge because it is way too tight for OO".

     

    Be very wary of superelevation. I tried it on a club layout once but found that the transition from straight (flat) to curved (canted) needs to be very gradual or else derailments will occur. The problem was as trains went from canted to flat & the track had continued to turn away, leaving the train to derail by carrying on in a straight line. Your tight curves will be a big issue for this.

    I know Richard has used this on Everard Jcn, but he has learned a huge amount from his previous Everard Jcn. On this layout, straights transition into curves very gradually which makes superelevation possible.

    • Like 1
  4. It is not actually NCE who call them a consist. On the real railway, any train made up of individual vehicles is called a consist. For some reason, modellers have never used the term before.

     

    What type of consist are you using? Standard or advanced?

    Standard is managed by your PowerCab. You define an address & the system sends a command individually to each loco.

    Advanced adds a second address to the decoders. They should both respond to this address but it seems to be a little more complicated than that.

    The system knows about the consist so you can make them move by addressing one of the individual locos. Some sounds are activated from both & some from the leading one.

     

    Example: This is from memory so may not be 100% accurate but will hopefully be good enough to get you started.

     

    I want to run Black 5s 5000 & 5020 together. Their addresses are 5000 & 5020. When creating an advanced consist, I give it the address of 120.

    In order to drive them, I just communicate with 1 (usually the 'leading' one, which is the first defined in the consist). So they should both respond to 1240. I think both respond to turning on their sounds individually but once running, they respond together. Playing the horn only plays on the loco you are talking to.

     

    Hornby standard chips do not support advanced consisting. TTS chips are effectively standard Hornby chips with added sound, so these do not support advanced consisting either.

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