West Highland Line V4, a 1980's West Highland Line layout

[BoD]

I'm really enjoying this topic, especially as I'm having a go at something Crianlarich (ish) myself. I wish I had a bit more space like you to do more of the line.

[young37215]

The point motorisation efforts are beginning to pay a dividend because it is so much easier running trains with the Crianlarich points motorised. Shunting the 2 yards is fun and trains on the running line that cross can all be prototypically controlled from a Megapoints Multipanel which effectively functions as a signal box.

 

I am starting to build up the scenery surrounding Crianlarich, the first step is to create the gradients at each end of the station. From the south, trains drop down a shallow gradient into Crianlarich and on departure both lines continue to fall. Given my preference for a flat baseboard, I have to create the gradients which I generally do by the use of 3mm cork sheets built up as required. This will all get hidden away when I get around to ballasting, for now I just want to ensure that I am not creating any derailment hotspots.

 

 

27105 reverses wagons into the west side yard from the headshunt

37014 arrives from the south with a northbound freight

37108 waits departure with the northbound sleeper

37039 arrives with the first Glasgow bound service from Oban.

The real thing, 37081 does the same as 37039 in 1984

LMS observation salon on the Oban train as ran in the mid 1980's during the summer months

Newly converted to provide ETH for the mark 3 sleepers, ex-works 37401 on test arrives with an observation salon

Edited January 3, 2018 by young37215

[young37215]

Running the 1982 WHL timetable through the 4 stations laid to date causes capacity constraints in the fiddle yard. This is because any train scheduled north of Crianlarich is currently held here. Depending on the time of day, the maximum number of trains in fiddle yard is 10 with only 9 through roads capable of holding full length trains hence the problem. There are no storage sidings for full length trains (nor is there any space for them), only the 9 through roads. The short sidings at either end of the fiddle yard can hold a couple of locos or just a few wagons.

 

From left to right in the picture below, 3 roads hold Oban services, the middle 4 roads hold services south of Garelochead and the final 4 for trains north of Crianlarich which cannot easily be expanded.

 

 

Oban trains have their own separate access point to the fiddle yard on leaving Crianlarich and have no capacity constraints.

 

 

By way of an upper level I intend adding Fort William and Glenfinnan stations plus Mallaig Junction and Fort William yards. This will reduce the number of trains in the fiddle yard at any time but I cannot work out if this will make the fiddle yard work. Ideally I would have an intermediate station such as Bridge of Orchy and/or another fiddle yard but I do not have the space unless I give up one of the planned locations. For now I will just have to keep scratching my head and try to work out a solution.

 

On a more positive note, Ardlui signal box has arrived.  

 

 

 

 

[young37215]

On review, my last post was not very clear and factually inaccurate which reflected my frazzled state of mind when I drafted it. To clarify, the fiddle yard has 11 through roads holding a maximum number of 11 trains at any one time. My problem was that when the yard is full I could not run locos round their train and trying to solve the conundrum frustrated me; I could not see a solution. 

 

The design of the fiddle yard had two main aims:

• provide the storage required to run the WHL WTT, 
• minimise shunting requirements to keep derailment risk as low as possible,

The fiddle yard delivers both although the northern exit point creates something of a bottleneck.   

 

 

Oban trains have their own entry/exit point which is linked to the rest of the yard.

 

 

The solution was simple enough, leave the layout alone for a day or so and the answer becomes clear. I extended 3 sidings at the northern end creating a store for freight stock away from the through roads.  

 

 

It all now works, a veritable feast of 37's line up in the fiddle yard all facing in the right direction for the start of a days operations. 

 

 

[Signaller69]

Nice to see some West Highland modelling, the Dawson Hall buildings look very good. You have certainly set some ambitious tasks in modelling so many stations, even with compromises in length etc.

 

Looking forward to further progress.

[scottystitch]

Well done on solving your fiddle yard conundrum. Sometimes that's all it takes, some time away from the problem, to reflect. Often the solution is nice and simple.

 

 

Keep up the good work and thanks for posting. This is one of my favourite threads on RMWeb.

[Jonsie66]

On review, my last post was not very clear and factually inaccurate which reflected my frazzled state of mind when I drafted it. To clarify, the fiddle yard has 11 through roads holding a maximum number of 11 trains at any one time. My problem was that when the yard is full I could not run locos round their train and trying to solve the conundrum frustrated me; I could not see a solution. 

 

The design of the fiddle yard had two main aims:

• provide the storage required to run the WHL WTT, 
• minimise shunting requirements to keep derailment risk as low as possible,

The fiddle yard delivers both although the northern exit point creates something of a bottleneck.   

 

Fiddle yard 001.JPG

 

Oban trains have their own entry/exit point which is linked to the rest of the yard.

 

Fiddle yard 007.JPG

 

The solution was simple enough, leave the layout alone for a day or so and the answer becomes clear. I extended 3 sidings at the northern end creating a store for freight stock away from the through roads.  

 

Fiddle yard 011.JPG

 

It all now works, a veritable feast of 37's line up in the fiddle yard all facing in the right direction for the start of a days operations. 

 

Fiddle yard 003.JPG

Welcome to my job! I do the same on full scale, its a case of stepping back having a cuppa then trying again. 

[branchie]

This looks great. I'm following with interest.

 

How are you going to link the lower and upper levels?

[young37215]

This looks great. I'm following with interest.

 

How are you going to link the lower and upper levels?

 

The penultimate photo of my last post shows the northern end of the fiddle yard. The upper level line is the one on which the 37 is currently sat and which will rise up a 1 in 40 gradient about 100mm to the upper level. At present it is proving useful as a storage siding! 

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_01_2018/post-24755-0-38827400-1515741386_thumb.jpg

[young37215]

Several excellent looking WHL layouts have been putting in an appearance on RMWeb of late and the standards bar is clearly being raised!   

 

I managed a little more development at Crianlarich today with the bridge railing added and polystyrene laid out at the southern end as the first step to forming the surrounding hills. I also fixed down the baseboard and rails to both routes to the north of the station making the area much more stable. One or two more droppers are required and then I can start to weather the track prior to ballasting. In addition I am spending as much time running trains as practical to test that it all functions. To date my only problem is the protruding piano wire from my servo driven point motors which I have learnt needs to be kept as low as possible to avoid fouling rolling stock.

 

37022 takes the northbound bulk alumina hoppers out of Crianlarich and on to the bridge

37022 crossing the bridge

Pway are working today, the OWB arrives from the north into Crianlarich

The OWB stables in Crianlarich yard

37026 arrives and departs Arrochar with the 07.00 Mallaig to Glasgow

[meanach]

Those station buildings are spot on! Superb.

[andyram]

This project is really coming along well. I am really enjoying seeing the progress.

[young37215]

The last few weeks have been spent running to test the track combined with adding further droppers to the power BUS. Electrical work is something I endure rather than enjoy but it's a necessary evil and I am determined that running will not be compromised by scrimping on the electrical work which means 2 droppers connected to each and every piece of track. To maintain some interest and to test the recently re-profiled wheels of my ETHEL, the sleeper service is currently running with mark 3 and ETHEL.  

 

37026 arrives at Crianlarich with the London bound sleeper

 

37026 arrives at Arrochar with the same service

and awaits departure

[scottystitch]

Ah, an ETHEL!  A lovely ( and essential) touch.

 

I think there were three, and all had plates ETHEL 1, ETHEL 2 and ETHEL 3.

 

Looking good!

Edited February 7, 2018 by scottystitch

[young37215]

Running the 1982 WTT on WHL continues and it is pleasing to record that the track laid to date all seems fine. Derailments are minimal and there are no noticeable drops in power supply. The track on the two lines from the fiddle yard to the crossing at the north end of Crianlarich has been weathered. Next steps at Crianlarich are further track weathering, fine tuning of the platform edges to avoid contact with trains and the start of constructing the surrounding hillsides. I want these all sorted before I move onto ballasting.

 

Looking at several other WHL layouts with recent updates on RMWeb has caused me to review my plans for backscenes. I had intended hand painting mountains onto the walls but the standard of some of the printed backscenes are such that I am considering a similar approach.  

 

37014 arrives at Crianlarich with a Glasgow bound service from Oban

37049 approaches Crianlarich with the 1230 Corpach to Mossend

37049 arrives at Crianlarich and passes 37264 on a northbound freight working

37049 and 37264 await their respective departures from Crianlarich

 

 

 

[luke the train spotter]

Looks amazing! Cant wait to see this layout develop further.

[young37215]

Nothing tangible to show for the last few weeks efforts which have all been focused on layout control. Some months ago I installed a Megapoints system to drive servos for the pointwork at Crianlarich which has worked well. On the back of my experience I have 'invested' in additional Megapoints servo controllers for the pointwork at Garelochead, Arrochar and Ardlui. In time these will also operate the semaphores.

 

I want a central control point and having decided on Megapoints 'plug and play' multipanel, I need something to operate the multipanel. This will be a mimic panel to use Megapoints terminology, which I have not built before. First step was to construct a trial board for Crianlarich which are the only motorised points at this time.

 

 

Basic but it seemed adequate for my trial purpose. I then drilled additional holes for the LEDS that will provide directional guidance for the points which trashed the test panel!

 

 

Clearly I needed a larger baseboard to accommodate the number of holes required for switches and LEDs. As a first step to determine the required size of test panel 2, I took a more scientific approach to decide on the spacing of switches and LED's. A useful learning exercise although it looks a bit like someone has machine gunned the panel!

 

 

In the light of this learning my next step is to build test mimic panel version 2. However the battery on the drill expired before I could start, it had been well used, and so in the spirit of engineering work I ran a few engineers trains.

 

20184 rests at Arrochar (it will be 20184 when I finally get around to re-numbering) with an train of discharged mermaids

 

 

27032 sits at Ardlui waiting to collect grampus loaded with spoil and plank wagons loaded with other waste

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

[meanach]

Sorry if you’ve already covered this but how many feet is the layout? Very curious as you’re covering a lot of locations ! I was going to do Bridge of Orchy myself but bottled it at the last minute !

[young37215]

Sorry if you’ve already covered this but how many feet is the layout? Very curious as you’re covering a lot of locations ! I was going to do Bridge of Orchy myself but bottled it at the last minute !

The room is about 14m by 3m with baseboards between 800mm and 1000mm wide running around the edge of the walls. In an effort to keep it all manageable in my mind, I break the layout up into sections with each section comprising a station or a yard typically joined by a fiddle yard type space. My full plan has 9 sections; I have started the 5 that make up the lower level and am determined (famous last words) to finish these before starting the 4 on the upper level. Crianlarich is about the largest individual section at just over 5m in length although at present Arrochar to Ardlui on the opposite side of the room is one long run from one end to the other. I have not got the scenery clear in my mind for these 2 sections yet, Whilst I like the longer run this allows, my desire to run the working timetables as best I can means it may be I need a hidden break between the two stations.  

 

I still plan to have 6 stations, Fort William and Glenfinnan along with Fort William depot and Mallaig junction yard will be on the upper level when it gets built. It may sound contrite given I have a great space already but again for operating purposes, I would like a further intermediate station between Crianlarich and Fort William (ideally Bridge of Orchy since it was one of the busier crossing points). The trouble with this is that I can not find the space to fit it in without losing any of the existing plan!  

 

Personally I am of the opinion that authentic backscenes are the single most important factor in creating the impression of the highlands. At this time I do not have a clear picture of how to achieve this on WHL4 which is a bit of a worry. However from what I have seen of Meanach I don't think you have any cause for concern about doing an actual WHL station should you choose.

[BigAndy]

A few of us were planning on modelling Crianlarich to scale, in Em, so we went up there in 2010, took a shedload of photos and measured the whole area up. It was only when we looked at an OS map and Google Earth, that we realised it was going to be something in the region of 36 feet in length......and this was planned on being an exhibition layout! That did incorporate half of the viaduct across the town though.

We also figured that in order to reduce the amount of operators, we needed to make it a roundy roundy. That however meant a flying junction and split level fiddle yards for the Oban lines and Fort Bill lines, so that they could join up again at the Glasgow end of the yard.....the layout would have needed to be at least 12 feet in width to facilitate that.

 

That's when we shelved it and Glasgow Queen St ( Em) was born.

 

Regardng your backscene connundrum, we took a load of panoramic digital shots of the surrounding country at Crianlarich, which involved a lot of hiking to find the best vantage points and where one of our number ( who shall remain nameless, stumbled into a bog - right up to his Trossachs....)

 

The intention was to create a photo realistic backscene ala Black Country Blues, however we never got as far as costing it out, so that may be prohibitive. I certainly agree though that backscenes can either make or break a layout - it might be something to look into. Andy Y may be able to help further as I think he had some dealings with the backscene on BCB's.

 

cheers

 

Andy

[meanach]

Wow that’s some size layout ! Certainly no problem with scale length trains. Many years of scenic work to keep you entertained there !

[young37215]

 

Regardng your backscene connundrum, we took a load of panoramic digital shots of the surrounding country at Crianlarich, which involved a lot of hiking to find the best vantage points and where one of our number ( who shall remain nameless, stumbled into a bog - right up to his Trossachs....)

 

The intention was to create a photo realistic backscene ala Black Country Blues, however we never got as far as costing it out, so that may be prohibitive. I certainly agree though that backscenes can either make or break a layout - it might be something to look into. Andy Y may be able to help further as I think he had some dealings with the backscene on BCB's.

 

 

Thanks for the thoughts Andy, as yet I am still uncertain on backscenes. Whilst I would love a customised and screen printed copy of the real thing, there are a number of challenges to be addressed to make this work. My model is not to scale size and I am not familiar with Photoshop or any other similar software that would be required to re-size. I think I will first try and paint something and see how it turns out. If this is unsatisfactory then I might well approach Andy York to see what digital pictures he has. 

 

regards Rob

[young37215]

I have already posted my experiences using Megapoints under the ‘Megapoints Controllers’ thread. This is about the first of 2 Control Panel’s I will use to operate WHL4. The Control Panel is a 1210mm x 200mm piece of 3mm plywood that I had lying around which will be used to control a network of 44 points and semaphores at 4 stations where the distance between the two furthest points is over 20m. A further 30 or so solenoids in the fiddle yard will be controlled from the panel independently of the Megapoints network. I sketched out each of the stations on paper in a way that created sufficient space for the holes for switches and directional LED’s. Using a pencil I divided the plywood into individual sections and transposed the drawings onto the plywood.

 

 

Initially I drilled 2mm pilot holes everywhere, these were expanded to 3mm for LED’s and 8mm for switches. The plywood held up pretty well to the drilling of over 120 holes although there are several splits on the underside that needed cleaning up with sandpaper. Crianlarich drilled out:

 

 

Crianlarich with switches and partially wired

 

 

Next up was locating the Multipanel and extension boards which were screwed into off cuts of plywood glued to the underside of the Panel. Switches were located and screwed into place to secure them. This was followed by a lengthy period of attaching the ‘Plug and Play’ wires for both LED’s and switches. By way of reference and to aid fault finding in the future, each switch is individually numbered to reflect the Multipanel connection it is attached to. All routine, just time consuming.

 

 

I ran out of switches (which is why there are some gaps in the pictures) but when connected to power the LED's all worked. Crianlarich looks like 

 

Unfortunately I then managed to connect power to the wrong connection causing a short causing everything to stop working! Despite this, I am well on the way to completing the Control Panel and hope to have this up and running once Dave Fenton of Megapoints sorts out whatever I have broken. 

 

[young37215]

The test/trial control panel is now working and in its intended final position alongside the fiddle yard. The panel is still short of a number of wires and LED's which are on order but this does not stop me using the panel to control the pointwork at Crianlarich which is the only motorised section at this time. The Megapoints multipanel network works perfectly over the 5m range between the panel and Crianlarich's 2 servo controllers

 

Panel with legs attached.

 

 

Panel fitted 

 

 

I also decided to upgrade the servo brackets under the crossover at the northern end of Crianlarich to the excellent Alurailtech brackets. The servos were not stable in the previous brackets of 15mm aluminium conduit despite my having attempted to super glue them. Whilst this adds to the expense of point motorisation, I feel the risk of the servos causing operational problems in the future is much reduced.

 

 

I also took the opportunity to weather the crossover track whilst the board was on the work bench.

 

 

 

Changing to Megapoints 'plug and play' meant that my temporary attaching of their switch to the multipanel to operate the 2 Crianlarich servo controllers no longer worked resulting in an inability to change points at Crianlarich. This effectively rendered the layout unusable because the servo driven pointwork will not move easily unless the servos are under power. A working control panel allows me to run trains again and to escape from further electrical work for the time being! That said, I am that chuffed with the control panel that I am tempted to motorise the points at Garelochaed, Arrochar and Ardlui as my next development step. First however, a little running is in order.

 

27032 trundles into Garelochead with an engineers train of grampus and other assorted wagons

 

 

37026 arrives at Ardlui with the morning sleeper service

 

[young37215]

With a fully functional layout again, I have been back to running as much as I can to test my track laying. There are a couple of issues, most notably at Crianlarich where I need to reduce the incline from the bridge on the station approach to stop coaches derailing.

 

37022 on said incline awaits entry to the station with 1T24.

 

 

37108 with southbound 7B02 passes northbound 37014 with 6S56 at Arrochar

 

 

6S56 is the Alcan hoppers transporting bulk alumina from Blyth to Fort William. The rake of stock is made up of old Lima grain wagons which have had their original wheels replaced with Bachmann ones. I picked up a couple more wagons on Ebay recently to make the rake up to load 10, these need re-spraying and weathering.   

 

 

37014 again earlier in its journey as it passes light engine 37192 at Garelochead

 

 

37049 with 1B10 has the Fort William road at Crianlarich. 37108 heads south with 7B02

 

 

37264 arrives at Garelochead with 1B08. Must finish the platform here.