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Showing results for 'Templot' in blog entries.
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Oh Dear! It was meant as a Christmas (2015) present to myself with the intention of a display case on the mantelpiece, but has "morphed" into another project - Plan "C" - an Edwardian KESR "might have been".... A couple of old baseboard frames in the garage and some doodling on Templot ..... watch this space
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Quick update on templot progress
martin_wynne commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
It has developed a lot since then, but as you say the maths is still much the same. It was a long time after the arrival of the IBM PC before I was persuaded to get one and port Templot onto it. When I discovered that accidentally pressing Ctrl+S could overwrite and lose hours of work, it very nearly went out of the window. You can read the history of the early years of Templot here: http://templot.com/martweb/templot_history.htm Martin. -
Quick update on templot progress
Richard Jones commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
Persevere - Templot is a great tool, but you have to put the effort in to learn how to use it - the trouble is that as we (in general) don't do many layouts, you forget by the time you come round to the next one! Anyway, I am absolutely certain I couldn't have planned and built all the point work for my layout without Templot. Now just to build the baseboards! -
Quick update on templot progress
Vistisen posted a blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
We are getting there. A quick concentrated burst of energy and the Easyrail design is now Templotized: Major differences between the Anyrail version and the Templot one is that the track centres are reduced fra the Tillig standard (59mm) to 50 mm. The whole of the main line section is now on a gentle curve of about 43' in radius :-) Which is still sharper than in reality. The main line curve was 70 chains, Which by my reckoning is about 60' in 4mm to a foot. The whole of the branch station is pushed back a bit as it was in reality compared to the original Anyrail version. Update I wasn't finished anyway. After playing with the dummy vehicles that Martin told me about, a bit I decided that 50mm was too close on the sharper curves. I might want to use rule one and run HST's with mark3 coaches. and they did not fit 80cm curves at 50mm distance. but they do now that I have stretched the curves to 59mm This plan is very simple with nothing other than turnouts and crossovers. so I know that I am only scratching the surface on Templot. Every time I want to do something new I find that there is always a way, it’s not just always, well to be honest its NEVER the way you’d think. But then I think of the age of the software. If it was written in the late 70’s, then it predates the IBM PC. What hardware was it written to run on? I would love to have seen in then It must have been cutting edge in its time. I suspect that the maths involved are still cutting edge. But the GUI… -
…and why not?
hayfield commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
Depending on whether you decide to build the turnouts in copperclad or chaired construction method, I would guess that after building the curved turnouts unless you are very time poor the straight ones will be a doddle. Buying components rather than kits is so much cheaper (often the price of a RTR product) and if you are designing the track plan in Templot then you can build then to fit the space available and follow the gentle curve of the prototype Will keep a look out for further posts as this project looks very interesting -
…and why not?
martin_wynne commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
Thanks. And as I pointed out CTRL+Z does in fact perform an Undo function in Templot. It undoes the most recent template deletion from the storage box / track plan. To roll back changes on the the control template asynchronously with that, use CTRL+U. But in fact the most convenient way to run to and fro on the rollback register is SHIFT+CTRL+MouseWheel, or click the blue arrow tool-buttons on the trackpad. There are 80 slots in the rollback register for the control template. regards, Martin. -
…and why not?
martin_wynne commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
Templot can do that, using the dummy vehicle tool. See this bit of video: https://flashbackconnect.com/Movie.aspx?id=r6BdZWxz5kk5ye1ek-P-Ag2 More notes about this: http://85a.co.uk/forum/view_topic.php?id=2872&forum_id=22#p20270 Click the dimensions... button to change the dummy vehicle size. p.s. CTRL-Z undoes a delete from the storage box. To roll back changes to the control template, use CTRL+U. p.p.s. Templot dates from 10 years before the late 80s. Martin. -
About five months since my last post. I am glad that I have waited. The new DCC concepts track is on the way. Indeed, the flex track has arrived and all the pictures I have seen make it look really good. I have been trying to find a copy of the book ‘main line to the west part 3’ which is like gold dust according to others on this forum, but there I was ‘panning away’ on google and lo and behold I found a gold nugget! It on sale for £30. It arrived yesterday and has more than doubled the number of pictures I have of Chard Junction. Not only that It has a couple of good track plans which I compared with the design I had made in Anyrail using the Tillig elite track. I was pleasantly surprised I had certainly captured the essence of the design. The main problem is that the whole station was on a gentle sweeping curve of about 70 chains. Which is about 18.5M in OO gauge radius. I looked at the photos and the curve is obvious, and that DCC stuff look gorgeous. But that means not using Tillig points and going back to handmade points for all the curved sections and as for the rest possibly DCC straight points when they arrive or something else. The family were away for a week, and I was ‘working’ from home on the day job. So I looked in the mirror and told myself that as a system administrator no programme had ever defeated me, and that Templot was not going to be the first. Knowing that no one would hear me swearing, I did what Martin says one should and saw all, well most, well a couple of the videos. I Took a deep breath and had a go. Having spent at a couple of hours playing at doing a simple point, I got the anyrail design imported as a background and started having a go at making the first crossover. I’m getting there. The shear bloody mindedness of some of the Templot controls still annoys me. For example, in ALL programs CTRL+Z is an undo command (it has been the standard since the late 80’s). Martin knows this as the program HAS code that handles this key combination, It pops up at dialog box that tells you that Yes he knows that you meant UNDO but that you need to press CTRL+U to do that in Templot. Look mate, if you have gone to the bother of creating the damm dialogue box for the key combination, just implement ctrl+z as undo like everyone else does! Having said that, Templot does magical things with track work. the maths behind it is very clever. Whether I will be able to build the points remains to be seen. One of the other benefits of using handbuilt pointwork is that I can choose a more prototypical distance between tracks. If anyone knows of a program that can tell you minimum distance between tracks for curves of a given radius, when using coaches with a known size and end overhang it would love to know about it. I’ll upload a few pictures as the plan progresses, but as you can see I’m almost finished!
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Just had a play with Templot using a Bing map as a rough guide Nothing in stone, may need compressing. Do I keep the 2 road shed or go for a single road shed. I have used B8's except for the curved turnout, though I may just vary the sizes just to be echonimical with the common crossing packs As I plan in in a preservation era, as I can use locos from both GWR and SR, also varied liveries and use locos which perhaps would never had been used. As for the slip (which is a diamond just for speed of design) do I have a single, double or perhaps a Barry slip ? or just build the turnout as is with 2 catch points in built. Still the idea will be to build the trackwork between the signal box and engine shed The plan is about 10' in length, this I may need to compress though
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I completed the trackwork for the junction at Lawrence Hill a couple of months ago and now that I have the legs for the curved board I decided itwas time to lay the track. The junction is constructed off the layout using a templot track plan and has been constructed from ply sleepers using a combination of exactoscale functional chairs and rivets. I like using the latter on pointwork as it enables adjustment to the track before adding the cosmetic chairs. Some re-alignment of the track on the adjacent board was required give a good flow to the curved track on the main line. Here are a few photos I couldn't resist adding the last photo. The Britannia is Flying Dutchman which is on a temporary transfer to Barrow Road and belongs to John [ Killybegs ]. For further information on John's build of this model see his Worseter posting http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82059-worseter-update-time-for-a-9f/page-17
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Track planning (with Templot), DCC and baseboards
Kelly posted a blog entry in Woolwich Dockyard - Working Title
I've been trying to get my head around using the various software available for planning and controlling layouts, namely Templot and JMRI. I've mostly figured out Templot now I think. A rough plan has been drawn as below: I've been trying to figure out making it a bit more condensed (due to space restrictions) by using a crossing/slip, but haven't quite gotten it as one bit is misaligned. Being full of cold I'm not able to concentrate now to fix it,but I'm getting there at least! I'm not 100% sure which works best at present though. Seeing as I'm going with EM Gauge, I wish to keep the number of points as low as possible as I've yet to attempt to build any, so the double slip/crossing might be more complex than i can manage to build. We'll see though. I have been looking into affordable ways to go DCC and have found the possibility of a SPROG 3 + Raspberry Pi + JMRI. I already have a spare Raspberry Pi left over from when I upgraded to a Pi 2 for my media centre, and JMRI is free. So only the SPROG 3 (and possibly a wifi dongle and power booster) to buy at around £60, which is about affordable if I scrimp for a couple of weeks. The SPROG will also be useful as a programmer at a later date when I hope to get an NCE PowerCab. Figuring out JMRI will take a bit more time I think, but I think I've partly gotten the hang of how bits of it work, but until I have some kind of controller to go with it I can't make much more progress. Finally I've made the decision that getting the boards laser cut by Tim Horn feels the best bet as I'm not really that confident of my woodworking skills, and haven't really the space for that sort of working to some extend. The prices Tim's quoted are affordable if I spread a module out over a few months or so at least, so I can get one board started then order another later, knowing they'll interlink. The plan is still to keep the boards plain with all buildings and signals etc removable for safer storage. I'm thinking of getting the boards double depth to allow storage when in use for setting up items for the fiddle yard. The plan is to use cassettes rather than have a dedicated fiddle yard board made up, thus saving cost of some track. UPDATE: It seems that a new Rapsberry Pi Model B 3 has been released, featuring same chip and graphics as the Pi 2, but with built in wifi n and bluetooth 4.0. That could well be just the ticket with JMRI and mean no need for a seperate dongle for the wifi. A bargain at £35 too! UPDATE 2: there is now a layout thread for this layout here. There is also a thread for what I'm working on atm here. -
... on the other hand
Vistisen commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
A fellow Oracle man prehaps? I must give Templot another go. If I can code webservices against Oracle databases, I must be able to make a design for a point of some sort. the problem is almost certainly that being an IT professional I must swallow my pride and RTFM. -
Hmm. Since I wrote my last post, there has been exciting news in the world of OO gauge. The sleeping giant from Devon has announced ‘proper’ OO gauge track, possibly with points, and both Joseph Pestell and DCC concepts seem to be about to produce some points as well. This plus that I saw my friend’s newest hand built points again, and I weakened. He is even tempting me by doing the offering to do the Templot work for me! So having made up my mind, I am going to claim the prerogative normally used by my better half and unmake it again. It was a good decision, so it should be taken several times. I now have decided that I have not decided and need to wait and see what happens over the next few months. I will not waste my time though. I do need to build that signal box for Hatch. I will do this first, this means that by about 2019 I’ll be finished with that and ready to do something else.
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... on the other hand
Campaman commented on Vistisen's blog entry in Chard Junction and Hatch (trial and error)
I also work in IT, coding and databases and now handbuild track using templot templates. I started with playing with a simple left or right hand turnout template and moved on from there, I think far too many people try to run with templot before they can walk. Its not hard to print out a simple turnout, after that run through the videos, and a good trawl round Martins forum taught me loads. -
I have just come back from driving 200 miles in the snow from Copenhagen, where I stayed with my friend who has started building track in OO-SF. I am frankly staggered by how good it looks and how smooooooth the points feel when running wagons through them. I like Tillig track, but his third attempt at a point is in a completely different league. It’s like comparing a BMW 3 series to a Bentley. He reckons that I could do the same, but I don’t know, My normal measurement system when doing anything practical is +/- a bodge job or two. I'd really like to build track using a nail gun. He was talking about the points being 16.2 mm at the frog, but 16.5 at the end to match the SMP track. I have the distinct feeling that mine would be somewhere between TT and O gauge along their length. I work in IT and am used to using nasty command line complicated databases, I can work with very complicated security protocols and code in PL/SQL, and Perl and regular expressions, but I spent an hour with Templot and could not either import a jpg file of a track plan as a background or change radius of a curve to start my intended first point. What to do?
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Happy new year everyone. Richard my friend from Copenhagen was here for new year’s eve as usual. In Denmark it's a big thing to celebrate it with friends, Lots of food, drink, and fireworks until about 3.30 in the morning, and after a couple of Irish coffees, he was persuading me to change from Tillig track to hand built track. He’s just built his couple of points in OO 4-SF or something like that. They look brilliant, and I do like the proper sleeper spacing. To quote a certain TV presenter ”How hard can it be”? Now I’ve already installed Templot. But do I really want to solder 90 meters of track (he says it’s cheaper) including over 20 points I normally burn my fingers, melt things and get dry joints when using a soldering iron…
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My butterfly personality means I like to switch from subject to subject, at times without always fully finishing a previous project. For that reason I have a siding full of wagons awaiting weathering, but heck I've done that and got the 'T' shirt. My two little Roxey yard locos are done .... to a level where they work fine doing what I want, weathering ? that can wait. I've plans for a local yard layout, this will need tight dock & factory yard turnouts. They must however be live-frog and I'm finding even short streamline longer than I want and I want irregular turnout angles. That leaves one answer, make my own. Ahhh not for the faint hearted. So with a minimum of tools, some old re-claimed track from which I could strip rails, and a mixture of 3 & 4 mm copperclad PCB why not just try. No Templot, No template even, just an opposite side Peco curved set-track point and a minimum of tools. Oh and a piece of cardboard where I did have a rough plan I'd drawn. This was the tools and my working desk !! Here is the part finished point. It still needs a tie bar and my hinged attachments for the switch rails. It works as can be seen at Now I have to try again to do it better !! Dad-1
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Bristol Barrow Road - Days Road Bridge - New baseboard
barrowroad posted a blog entry in barrowroad's Blog
I have recently received delivery of the first of a new set of baseboards which will extend the layout into a continuous circuit with a long fiddle yard down the opposite side of the shed. This first board is at the rear of the shed and workshop and will allow trackwork extensions to the roads off the 20ft loco turntables outside the workshop; the sidings alongside the shed and workshop and an extension to the main line under Days Road Bridge towards Bristol Temple Meads. All the new boards are being built by Chris Yates who made all the original seven. I have made a start on the single slip which forms the southern exit to the shed and joins the down main under Days Road Bridge. My trackwork is being made on a templot plan - thanks Morgan - using my usual ply and rivet method with exactoscale functional chairs in appropriate positions. Once fully assembled and tested cosmetic chairs will be added over the rivets. Slide chairs are Bill Bedford etchings which fit over and are soldered to their rivet. My other layout - Sheep Pasture - is in the background but will need to be moved in order to accommodate the extended Barrow Road. Views of the shed from Days Road Bridge which show the rear of the shed and the sidings are to be found in my previous posting The next board due for delivery will be a curved scenic board at the opposite end of the layout which will accommodate Lawrence Hill Junction and the associated road overbridge. I wish all my readers a Happy Christmas and New Year.- 8 comments
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Last weekend I got Newport back to "bare baseboard" state. The job took less than 12 hours and I was ready to start again with tracklaying. Having read as much as I could find on the subject I resolved on a process which involves positioning (lightly pinning) the track to a printed template (I used "Trax" but realise it would have been better if I had bothered to learn Templot and drawn it with that). My local printer printed the pdf onto three sheets of A0 paper. During this process every track joint is fettled, turnouts checked for smooth running, dog legs ironed out, etc. etc. The sleeperless gaps you can see in the photos are a short term expedient and allow rail joiners to be slid back easily so that turnouts can be removed for "fine-tuning", they will be filled in with sleepers prior to the final sticking down. When the track is all down and signed off as being as good as it should be, the paper templates will be removed by cutting and tearing. Then I can proceed to the next stage of fitting turnout motors, putting in dropper wires etc, before finally gluing the track down with Copydex (recommended in many places for noise reduction). Then electrical testing, and when that's done, then, and only then, painting and ballasting. I've been at it a week and have just run out of track. Pete Llewellyn (of C&L Finescale) had to pull out of the South Hants show at the last minute on Friday, and so I was unable to collect the track I had ordered from him :-( So far so good, feeling a lot better about it than the first time around. Chris
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Having settled into the new large shed I have given some thought to extending the layout into a continuous run with a long fiddle yard down one side of the building with the layout along the other. With this in mind I need scenic breaks at each end of the layout. At the north end the break will be the road bridge at Lawrence Hill north of the Junction signal box, whilst at the south - Temple Meads - end it will be Days Road Bridge. For those of a certain age this will evoke memories of climbing the wall to gain access into the back of the shed and the roundhouse. Photo courtesy of Donald Flook I already have Templot track plans for both ends and the Days Road end will be tackled first. As you can see Days Road Bridge is an interesting subject in itself and I was fortunate to be able to take some photographs prior to it's demolition in around 1981. Days Road Bridge - north elevation Days Road Bridge - South Elevation The shed building for Barrow Road was produced for me as a laser cut kit by Chris Dening who now runs his own business 3DCD http://www.cd3dmodelmaking.co.uk I decided to contact Chris about making a model of Days Road Bridge with it's curved brickwork walls and he accepted the challenge. Chris is not producing a kit of parts this time and will produce the model as an assembled and primed unit. Chris has given me permission to post some work in progress photos of the bridge so here they are........ The photos show the build sequence of the shell of the bridge including the curved section of the bridge walls. The wing walls are yet to be added. Chris's next task is to make up the templates for the brickwork especially the curved walling. South Elevation North Elevation I'm pleased with the results so far and am looking forward to receiving the finished product.
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Evening all Time for an update, even if it's not all that interesting. Modelling does slow down in the summer. Must be all those long sunny evenings (looks out window at rain and damp seagulls flying backwards in the wind)... Inbetween the golf and the odd walk or two, I've found a little time to make a bit of progress on Cheddar. We're on to board 5 which is where things start to get interesting track wise. This is bar far the 'busiest' board, as the tracks fan out into the up and down sidings. The sequence is the same though. The boards have the combination of ply track base and foam every where else. Tonight I've been sticking the foam laminate floor underlay down onto the ply track bed. The Templot track plans have been laid temporarily just so you can get an idea. The track has been laid across the board 7 to 6 join including the up sidings. I'm rather pleased to have acquired some of the LMS models short GWR buffer stops which will be perfect here. These were the sidings that housed a camping coach and the old Perry coal yard. I got distracted for a week or so, playing around with the station drawings on Coreldraw. Don't think I'm too far away from the finished plan and being ready to cut some mdf. Still pondering the best method of doing the stonework though. Modelling wise, I've managed to paint a couple of wagons but that's been about it.
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A good few months back I was working on a Rumney models chassis and tried to fit a Parkside Shocvan onto it before realizing that it was planked and it should have been plywood to match the chassis type. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/186/entry-15555-a-little-bit-of-suffolk-or-learning-to-love-templot/ it was helpfully pointed out that Red Panda actually did a kit of the plywood version and so I purchased one of these from a trader at the Ely show. An offer over the weekend from Modelmaster transfers allowed me to finish it off. The transfers have a coat of vanish so look a little shiny at the moment but it will make a nice difference in the middle of a train load of vans. Can I also recommend you take a look at the comments on my previous blog entry, Don sent me a fascinating picture of a grain wagon unloading facility from an old trade paper. It is worth a look.. David
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Hi all, Well as Pugsley has mentioned on his layout blog, I have been intrusted with the task of building the track and the wiring. When we were waiting for the Taunton Members day to open (CK, its your fault!! ) Martin and I where chatting and the subject of what i do work wise came up and as I was recalling the list, Martin happened to ask if i did layout work and would i be interested in taking on the track and wiring for his layout. It has to be said at this point this idea was met with great enthusiasm by Mrs Pugsley who had not had the use of her Kitchen table for a few years so after a quick clean up at the hall, it was a short trip to collect the layout and whilst Martin was looking for bits to put in a box Mrs P and i set about collecting sleepers that had come loose. So half an hour later the said boards and bits started the journey north to the point you see them now, propping the wall up in the front room of my house. There is now a daily ritual of picking up the sleepers that have fallen off during the night to be placed in the bag with the others. So thats the story so far and now i have the Templot track plan, the count down has begun to Taunton next year when it will be taken back to its home (hopefully not the Kitchen table )
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A quick update to say that my brief stay in England has allowed me to progress the track building and most of its is at least soldered if not gapped and primed. This coming week I return to France and will start on module 3 so that track laying can begin on the scenic part of the layout. I quick word of thanks to Martin Wynne and Templot for providing his software to take the strain out of track planning and building. That it even works on my Mac (with Crossover) makes this all the more satisfying (I have been a Mac user for 23 years and have a total and irrational fear of using Windows, even one of those virtual Windows programs on my Mac).
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Well there's a shocker its almost a year since my last post here and there wasn't much to report then. Life moves slowly, very slowly on but move it does. After a break I have come back to tinkering in the workshop well I say workshop more like a space with bench that I managed to build out of pallet wood scavenged from a skip but ceiling is a bit restrictive, however better than nowt. Over the last year I have accumulated some tools that have helped but its not really until the weather started improving that I felt like going out and doing.. This is not going to be a huge long post as I am trying to do rather than talk so without further ado I have decided to build a small portable layout so that when the time comes I can move it easily. Having had a couple of abortive attempts hopefully this will get a further. I have been inspired by Anthony Yeates micro box file layout and have often thought about "doing a copy". I have rather openly nicked his design but enlarged it some what for my needs which will be two folded out sections of 3ft measuring 15" at one end and 9" at the other. It will have a passing loop although the western end will be closed off but with potential to open out at a later date if required and some sidings for coal, cattle and goods and am yet to decide on whether the fiddle yard will be incorporated or a separate cassette system. The track plan is a templot design and I am planning to use a mix of Easitrac and PCB points. Location; purely fictitious but based on the NER Wensleydale Branch. Period; depends on the stock and at the moment I only have a DB 66 fine-scaled but ideally it would be around wartime years when there was the most variety. For the moment I will leave you with some basic pics of progress on the board tops made out of 6mm ply and the base is going to be out of 9mm. Once folded it will measure 3ftx1'3"x1ft and fit into a storage box to be made later. More to come, probably slowly, with track plan and more wood work, as I continue the build. Mockup 1 Mockup 2 Track bed 1, with beginnings of track and scenery Both boards, but a weird persective.
