Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

I like the idea of working at my desk with with a train circulating slowly around me. I won't be able to sit back and enjoy that hypnotic pleasure on Castle Aching, as there is no continuous loop in the plan. It would give the photo-plank function of the set up more possibilities. Practically speaking, it would aid running-in. 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Edwardian

[nick_bastable]

Given out hosts engineering skills   this must be possible

 

 

 

 

 

Nick B

Edited May 21, 2020 by nick_bastable
Video added

[Regularity]

You only need a piece of wood about 2" wide, with something as simple as 2" deep hardboard sides, to create a removable trough |_| for the trains to cross the doorway. A short ledge with locating blocks to trap the trough at each end is all that you need to provide lateral stability, and you can arrange the electrical contact via bolts, rod sliding in tube, PCB pressing onto springy bits of metal etc.

The rest of the layout can be scenic or not, but a 3' or so piece of plain track running through deep safety fences will act as a view block, and has the added advantage of simplicity - as long as you lay the track after getting the levels and locators sorted out, it will be self aligning.

[Nearholmer]

Or, you can create a whopping-great hinged flap, about the size and shape of the lid of a baby grand piano, with curves and points on it, as I have.

 

This is not necessarily a good idea.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

Well in an issue of a rival British railway magazine a couple of years ago, there was an article from a chap who discovered that while he wanted to use his garage for his layout he also needed to have some place to store the car.

 

He then designed a massive engineering project which saw the entire layout being able to be raised and lowered on a wondrous system of pulleys and cables to allow storage of the car*. He got as far as the baseboard going up and down (marvellous feat - rivalled Brunel at his most imaginative) but since then not a word. Perhaps something broke and he wrecked the car or having everything ready to start the actual layout with minor things like tracks, electrics, scenery etc., he lost the will to live. Who knows ....  

 

* Apparently engineers are just as anal in retirement as when they are working.

[brack]

It'd make it easier to get underneath for wiring though.

 

Garages these days aren't really for cars though, are they?

In the days when only you and the other minor gentry had a horse less carriage and it was covered in polished brass bits I can understand building it a little house to live in, but now everyone has a couple of cars and they're somewhat more rust resistant it can live on the road.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

You only need a piece of wood about 2" wide, with something as simple as 2" deep hardboard sides, to create a removable trough |_| for the trains to cross the doorway. A short ledge with locating blocks to trap the trough at each end is all that you need to provide lateral stability, and you can arrange the electrical contact via bolts, rod sliding in tube, PCB pressing onto springy bits of metal etc.

The rest of the layout can be scenic or not, but a 3' or so piece of plain track running through deep safety fences will act as a view block, and has the added advantage of simplicity - as long as you lay the track after getting the levels and locators sorted out, it will be self aligning.

 

It will have to be curved track and an irregular shape.

 

To the right of my desk I could easily extend the embankment across the window.  Opposite my desk is another desk, that I am in the process of removing in order to have more room.  I will replace the desk with display cabinets and shelves that are about 11" less deep than the desk.  Above these I can house a shelf-layout up to 12" deep.  It would then only be necessary to vault across the access route from the door in order to complete the circuit.

 

The locus in quo:

 

 

My to do list already has "insert a screw at the end of the board to keep it flat on the cabinet".

 

I will probably have to start curving the track seen at right towards the front edge in order to make it round.  The  distance to the all is 28 3/4",

 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

1 hour ago, brack said:

It'd make it easier to get underneath for wiring though.

 

Garages these days aren't really for cars though, are they?

In the days when only you and the other minor gentry had a horse less carriage and it was covered in polished brass bits I can understand building it a little house to live in, but now everyone has a couple of cars and they're somewhat more rust resistant it can live on the road.

 

Well it was more difficult in the 19th century for this juxtaposition of one's toy train with one's transportation. Stables were pretty smelly and cold and who knows what havoc the horse would have unleashed if it decided to play trains in the middle of the night. Or just imagine working away while a horse was peering over your shoulder.  Oh and of course they hadn't invented electrics .... oh dear am I rambling again ....... 

[jcredfer]

1 hour ago, brack said:

 

Garages these days aren't really for cars though, are they?

In the days when only you and the other minor gentry had a horse less carriage and it was covered in polished brass bits I can understand building it a little house to live in, but now everyone has a couple of cars and they're somewhat more rust resistant it can live on the road.

 

They still make garages the same size as years ago, so I can get the car into the garage, but that's mot much use when their isn't enough to open the door won't far enough to exit the car.

 

Julian

An architect, who was making a presentation about some proposed further developments on the estate, did say there was a proposal from the Gov't that garages should be built larger.  How far that's got I don't know, after all, that was less than 10 years ago.

 

[St Enodoc]

9 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

 

They still make garages the same size as years ago, so I can get the car into the garage, but that's mot much use when their isn't enough to open the door won't far enough to exit the car.

 

Julian

An architect, who was making a presentation about some proposed further developments on the estate, did say there was a proposal from the Gov't that garages should be built larger.  How far that's got I don't know, after all, that was less than 10 years ago.

 

Years ago, in one of the Peco plan books, CJF pointed out that cars were designed to be out in all weathers whereas model railways were not, so it made sense to build the layout in the garage and park the car on the drive. That's what I've done, although to be fair the car does sit in a carport to protect it - from hailstones more than anything else.

[Nearholmer]

32 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

They still make garages the same size as years ago

I‘m not sure what, if anything, building standards have to say about this, but practice seems to vary. Our house is now ten years old, and the garage was built with internal clear dimensions 3m x 6m, so that even lined, and with a c1.2m section at the front for general storage, it makes quite a decent utility/layout room. And, you could get in and out of a car inside it, although only on one side.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

It will have to be curved track and an irregular shape.

 

To the right of my desk I could easily extend the embankment across the window.  Opposite my desk is another desk, that I am in the process of removing in order to have more room.  I will replace the desk with display cabinets and shelves that are about 11" less deep than the desk.  Above these I can house a shelf-layout up to 12" deep.  It would then only be necessary to vault across the access route from the door in order to complete the circuit.

 

The locus in quo:

 

 

My to do list already has "insert a screw at the end of the board to keep it flat on the cabinet".

 

I will probably have to start curving the track seen at right towards the front edge in order to make it round.  The  distance to the all is 28 3/4",

 

 

What yo do need to do is install a RED LIGHT outside the door to warn people that the flap is down and not to fling the door open and send your Dean Goods prized locomotive plumetting to the floor...

 

While a simple bolt inside might be more low-tech and easily arranged, locking yourself inside your study might give rise to ill-informed speculation.  I wouldn't suggest anything mains powered, just something with a battery.  You could even arrange things so that it only comes on when the flap is down!

 

Otherwise its a good idea, first one, then two layouts.

Splendid!!!

 

[jcredfer]

16 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I‘m not sure what, if anything, building standards have to say about this, but practice seems to vary. Our house is now ten years old, and the garage was built with internal clear dimensions 3m x 5.25m, so that even lined, and with a c1.2m section at the front for general storage, it makes quite a decent utility/layout room. And, you could get in and out of a car inside it, although only on one side.

 

To be fair, I have a medium size 4x4, but there are a large number of saloons around, which seem to be at least as wide, let alone the big limos that many also have.  Just thinking about the sort of family vehicles of yesteryear Morris Oxford. Cortina, Hunter and the like, even the old Rover 90/100 were quite significantly narrower.

 

Our garage will get lined and cupboard units placed at one end and a central block of 8 more, to put the layout on.  All I need now is a huge Skip to fill with the unused contents, which have aculmulated.  

 

Julian

 

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

It will have to be curved track and an irregular shape.

Still possible - that's what jigsaws are for!

[Edwardian]

8 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Still possible - that's what jigsaws are for!

 

As in ....

 

I gave my little nephew a jigsaw for Christmas.

 

He'd managed to lose three fingers before I could get it off him again.

 

Very dead-pan bomb-disposal NCO told me that a long, long time ago.  His sense of humour was necessarily quite bleak.

[runs as required]

On 19/05/2020 at 07:49, Hroth said:

 

Would any sailor be willing to admit they were on HMS Petunia?  Or Buttercup? Or ....

 

This slow OF has only just caught up with CA's brief mention of the cheapskate 'Flower class' .

 

Wife's father was a proudly flamboyant (and notoriously difficult) director of a Manchester cotton shirting firm.  He suffered from what must clearly have been severe PTSD after serving as a seaman on Murmansk convoy duties aboard HMS Honeysuckle, (never ever referred to by name - we only found his ship's plaque in his wardrobe after his death) .  The only recollection his daughters ever prised out of him was being under strict orders to leave men to die. They were calling out at night to be picked up from icy, oil coated waters and could easily have been rescued.

 

The latter part of his war after 1944 was far more pleasurable aboard a cruiser, passing through Malta and on, crossing the line in the Indian Ocean off Mombasa, down to Durban.  He apparently had a shoreside fling here with a girl with a most unusual name, is still carried today by his second daughter, born in 1946!

 

Luckily for me his death was timely: he clearly had more more ambitious plans for his daughters. He drank regularly at the "Chimes of Taxal" on best mate terms with the landlord  Albert Pierrepoint.

[This post lacks  a railway reference I hear you say: He had a ' First Class Contract' on the Businessman's train, regularly Crab hauled from Buxton's North Western station down to London Road each day]

 

 

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, jcredfer said:

They still make garages the same size as years ago, so I can get the car into the garage, but that's mot much use when their isn't enough to open the door won't far enough to exit the car.

 

Its not just garages, the "statutory" width of parking bays for supermarkets, hospitals, etc seems to have been set in stone in about the mid-1970s.  Ideal for an Allegro, or a Morris Ital or similar, absolutly unsuited to the modern "retro" style car that apes the Mini, the Fiat 500 and so on.  Its actually possible to assemble a genuine Mini bodyshell INSIDE the cabin of a BMW Mini, which indicates how obese modern cars are.

 

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Years ago, in one of the Peco plan books, CJF pointed out that cars were designed to be out in all weathers whereas model railways were not, so it made sense to build the layout in the garage and park the car on the drive.

 

Nowadays, your insurance premium will be a little higher if you park the car outside, even on a driveway.  Of course, you declare that the car is garaged overnight and hope nothing untoward happens and a nosy Assessor turns up and peeks through the garage window...

 

 

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

15 minutes ago, runs as required said:

 The only recollection his daughters ever prised out of him was being under strict orders to leave men to die. They were calling out at night to be picked up from icy, oil coated waters and could easily have been rescued.

 

 

 

Only by taking a very high risk of losing more men. You can only pick people out of the sea by stopping your own ship and making it a sitting duck for another torpedo.

 

My father also served on Flower class corvettes but was lucky enough to have a quiet time as he only enrolled in 1943. The only U-boats he got to see were the ones they escorted to Northern Ireland in May 1945.

[runs as required]

I've only just found the much more pleasurable prob of how to deal with 'the Rokeby Venus's Game Keeper's cottage doorway'.

(How's about that for the title of a bawdy barrack-room ballad?).

 

Our downstairs loo (at the other end of our 'orangery' from the kitchen) has a red light over it that illuminates Boeing style when it is occupied. It usefully saves many a drunken stumble in the semi dark along the back of the house over cast-off wellies, dead plant pots, and items of gardening kit.

However, I would have thought the Rokeby Venus's door panelled could be more effectively protected by a rubber door-stop mounted in such a way as to restrain the the door from opening past 'just ajar' whenever the bridge is lowered into the locked down position. 

Can anyone recall examples of curved opening bridge sections from Victorian dock engineering that might  

offer precedent?

[Donw]

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Well it was more difficult in the 19th century for this juxtaposition of one's toy train with one's transportation. Stables were pretty smelly and cold and who knows what havoc the horse would have unleashed if it decided to play trains in the middle of the night. Or just imagine working away while a horse was peering over your shoulder.  Oh and of course they hadn't invented electrics .... oh dear am I rambling again ....... 

 

USE LIVE STEAM THEN.

 

I think the garage size may relate to the house size. Four bed detached  double garage, three bed detached 18x9ft min, semis and small bungalows 16x8ft. I hate the pillars in the middle of the long walls, i know it is building regs but the pillars could be on the outside. 

 

I do like the idea James.  A hinged flap is fine just remember what happens to your beer if left on the bar flap when it is lifted. So no sidings or anything. A bit of plain track is best. A lift out is as good as a flap it you have somewhere to put it down. Ideally the door should open enough for someone to poke their head round. If not fix a dogs sueaky toy to the end of the sectionso the door will connect with it when opened. Personally I would try to allow the door to open enough for someone to place a cup of tea on a conveniently placed shelf or piece of baseboard should I be lucky enough to be offered one. The hinged section that itself swings out of the way can be a more eleaborate affair but needs a fair bit of skill. Mike Stanley had one that swung out with ten tracks on two levels crossing it on his 0 gauge layout best to start simple through

 

Don

[Joseph_Pestell]

4 minutes ago, Donw said:

 

I hate the pillars in the middle of the long walls, i know it is building regs but the pillars could be on the outside. 

 

 

 

Daft design! Putting the pillars in the middle results in the pillar narrowing the garage just where you need it at its widest - to open the car door. Two pillars would not cost so much more.

[brack]

Connect an old transformer between the rails and the door handle. That way, whenever the layout is operational, there will be an automatic warning should someone attempt to enter.

[Edwardian]

OK, just to be clear, the door can open without conflicting with the proposed circuit. Further, I think it is far enough clear from the door that people, assuming any people come, would see the closed flap in time.

 

The purpose of the lifting section is to allow admittance to the inside of the circuit where I work.  I am content to duck, I think, but it could become eventually annoying.

 

16 minutes ago, Donw said:

 

Personally I would try to allow the door to open enough for someone to place a cup of tea on a conveniently placed shelf or piece of baseboard should I be lucky enough to be offered one.

 

  

Applications from potential tea and sympathy providers are always welcome.

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Edwardian
F-ong i and o thing!

[sem34090]

18 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Applications from potential tea and sympathy providers are always welcome.

O can privode the latter, but the firmer is simewhat mire cimplocated by dostance.

 

Os that ginong tii far? Defonotely takong the poss.

 

I think I've now learnt how they wrote Crabtree's lines in 'Allo 'Allo... Nit quote...

Edited May 21, 2020 by sem34090
Cirrected ti reflect the fact that O cannit privode tea.

[Hroth]

39 minutes ago, sem34090 said:

O can privode the latter, but the firmer is simewhat mire cimplocated by dostance.

 

You're beginning to sound disconcertingly like Stanley Unwin...

 

How about tea in a tin?

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Hroth
Worrying Ready To Drink "Tea"