Hills of the North - The Last Great Project

[t-b-g]

35 minutes ago, queensquare said:

Looks good. I rather like bells, I intend having something similar on Bath. The first time Kim and I went up to operate Buckingham the bells had yet to be re-installed and we had to do the "ding ding" ourselves!

 

Jerry

 

Do you recall that from Buckingham to Grandborough was "ding" and from Grandborough to the fiddle yard was ""?

 

It all went very Leslie Phillips sometimes!

[LNER4479]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

I refer you to Heckmondwyke.. you could hear the bells.. but the trains never turned up! The Gibbon Brothers had bells on Ynysybwl Fach.. a big colliery layout in O gauge.... it was replaced by telephones at the request of the operators...something to do with the speed (either too fast or too slow) of the bell signals. Mike Cook used the phones system as well .

 

Baz

Well, I didn't expect 'bellgate'!

 

Let's unpick the above a little.

Heckmondwyke - gimickry (in the name of slavish authenticity?). Clearly not required to run the layout

Ynysybwl Fach - why on earth would you need bells for a colliery layout?!

 

Considerations of bells - or any other form of communication - on Hills of the North is strictly because something of this ilk will be needed, not because it's a 'nice to have'.

 

Telephones between (say) 12 operators? Hmm ... might give Clive something to do (operating the exchange) between making the tea?

 

I get the feeling this is going to be a case of 'horses for courses'. If two operators are 5 feet apart, in the same operating well then clearly bells are not required. However, if they're 25 feet apart and cannot physically see each other, then that's a different matter.

 

Operating elements of the layout as per the prototype - without it being just plain daft - has a certain appeal to me.

Edited May 3, 2021 by LNER4479

[Mallard60022]

1 hour ago, LNER4479 said:

Well, I didn't expect 'bellgate'!

Considerations of bells - or any other form of communication - on Hills of the North is strictly because something of this ilk will be needed, not because it's a 'nice to have'.

 

Telephones between (say) 12 operators? Hmm ... might give Clive something to do (operating the exchange) between making the tea?

Operating elements of the layout as per the prototype - without it being just plain daft - has a certain appeal to me.

The only Bells you may need are those that Summon. Mr John B (not the Sloop), had that sorted; one of my favourite bits of verse/prose/commentary. I can never hear, read  or even think about it without hearing his voice and seeing him trotting around the Metropolitan or some far western Branch Line.

So be Summoned by Bells and may those be for Eccles Cakes and lashings of Ginger Beer or the Tea made by Clive.

P

 

[Mallard60022]

Comms = Headsets (discreet) as plugged in to a wired system. Local Theatre (not Hospital) Technician will sell you that or some Muso Tech person.  Bells are bloody irritating, but could be used for effect from (say) the Shap boxes, as if hearing them on a visit to the area. I suppose you could rig the system so that if you wanted to Play Tubular Bells or a seasonal Jingle Bells and maybe even Hell's Bells, then the wannabee Bobbies can have fun.

With your layout I think an ambient  sound system is required, especially on Shap. Now that would be a great thing to have a Sound Engineer producing that for you. Not sound in the loco's if it becomes available but the sound of exhaust and associated train noise as per Transacord.

P

[mullie]

Morse Code?

[Chris M]

Did someone mention bells?

 

[LNER4479]

Yep - seen that. Now that WOULD drive the operators crazy ... you have been warned 

[LNER4479]

2 hours ago, mullie said:

Morse Code?

Like this, you mean?

 

 

[Clive Mortimore]

3 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Well, I didn't expect 'bellgate'!

 

Let's unpick the above a little.

Heckmondwyke - gimickry (in the name of slavish authenticity?). Clearly not required to run the layout

Ynysybwl Fach - why on earth would you need bells for a colliery layout?!

 

Considerations of bells - or any other form of communication - on Hills of the North is strictly because something of this ilk will be needed, not because it's a 'nice to have'.

 

Telephones between (say) 12 operators? Hmm ... might give Clive something to do (operating the exchange) between making the tea?

 

I get the feeling this is going to be a case of 'horses for courses'. If two operators are 5 feet apart, in the same operating well then clearly bells are not required. However, if they're 25 feet apart and cannot physically see each other, then that's a different matter.

 

Operating elements of the layout as per the prototype - without it being just plain daft - has a certain appeal to me.

Hello caller, number please.......Hello caller, the gentleman at the other end says "Bu88er off, he will not accept the reverse charges call", thank you caller. 

 

Serious head on, the block instruments for all "boxes" is a good idea. For those sections which would have to rely on VERY LOUD SHOUTING , a mixture of lowish volume bells, and buzzers each with is own distinctive sound. 

 

Headsets are a good idea providing everyone has one and there is strict usage of them.

 

As for telephones, who doesn't own a mobile these days? Texting is fairly quite.

 

Of course there could be one signal box with state of the art computers controlling the whole caboodle, located somewhere like York.

 

2 hours ago, mullie said:

Morse Code?

 

This is even quieter.

[t-b-g]

In this hobby we all have things we like and things we don't. It used to annoy when people would say "I don't like such and such therefore it is a bad thing" when they are really just giving their personal opinion. Nowadays I just accept that some people see things like that.

 

Block bells do tend to always bring the same "Marmite" reactions. Those who find them irritating and those who enjoy them. I am firmly in the second group, having operated several layouts with them and many without. A layout without them, where one operator has to ask the next one "Are you ready for the goods train" just seems to have missed out on an opportunity to recreate how it was done in real life.

 

As for texting and wearing headsets, not for me thanks. It is like when I see layouts operated from mobile phones or a laptop. It may be appropriate for a layout set in the present day but just wasn't how it was done 60 or 70 years ago.

 

If I was in a situation where the sound of the bells was causing problems for people I would just replace them with a push button and a light.

 

Many of my favourite memories of the real railways involve being near signalboxes, listening for the bells to try to work out what might be coming next. Being able to recreate that on a model is very nostalgic for me.

Edited May 3, 2021 by t-b-g
Spelling

[Jack P]

26 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

If I was in a situation where the sound of the bells was causing problems for people I would just replace them with a push button and a light.

 

That (to me) is the sort of approach I'd love to take with my own eventual layout. I will note this down in my book of 'useful ideas to explore'

Would make sense to rig this system up to run both, and then you can unplug the bells when SWMBO has had enough/trying to sleep/etc. 

[Chris M]

I am giving serious consideration to quietly playing bell codes on my layout even though I operate it all by myself. For me the gentle tinging of the bell in the distance and then the signals going down (in the correct GW manner) was all part of the anticipation of a train coming. In fact it is still something I love when I visit the Severn Valley Railway. I think playing the bell codes will add to the real railway feel when running my layout. The time between the signal going down and the train arriving will of course be unrealistically short. I think the key to using bell codes is that they should be quiet and feel distant rather than right in your ears. 

 

[St Enodoc]

 

6 hours ago, t-b-g said:

If I was in a situation where the sound of the bells was causing problems for people I would just replace them with a push button and a light.

Me too, Tony. For me, bells are great when you can only hear the set that you would hear if you were at the signal box concerned. Hearing more than that set destroys the illusion as far as I'm concerned. Headsets would work but like you say they're rather inauthentic.

 

6 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Many of my favourite memories of the real railways involve being near signalboxes, listening for the bells to try to work out what might be coming next. Being able to recreate that on a model is very nostalgic for me.

Absolutely, but as above only the bells at the signal box that you are near to!

 

It's definitely a conundrum and we haven't quite got it right on the Mid- Cornwall Lines yet but I think we're close. The issue we've found is the lack of the intermediate state (Line Closed/Line Blocked/Normal, according to taste) between Line Clear and Train On Line, which means I might have to replace my changeover switches with centre-off versions and change the operating instructions slightly. As and when I do that I'll report it on my own topic so as not to hijack Graham's any further.

[Chamby]

Having multiple bell codes ringing across a single room during a full operating session would probably do my head in after a while.  

 

Other senses are available.  My personal preference would be for a more silent, visual indicator, but perhaps augmented with the ability to transmit a mild electric shock to wake up those operators whose attention is wandering...

[5BarVT]

26 minutes ago, Chamby said:

to wake up those operators whose attention is wandering...

That’s why the sequence starts with Call Attention.

;-)

A suggestion for Hills of the North is to make the Call Attention audible and all following just visual.  Therein lies the challenge!

Paul.

[t-b-g]

18 minutes ago, Chamby said:

Having multiple bell codes ringing across a single room during a full operating session would probably do my head in after a while.  

 

Other senses are available.  My personal preference would be for a more silent, visual indicator, but perhaps augmented with the ability to transmit a mild electric shock to wake up those operators whose attention is wandering...

 

One of the layouts I have operated had 12 operating positions. 2 fiddle yards and 10 scenic areas. There were various junctions and routes that joined and split and some stations had 4 sets of block instruments and bells. It was on 3 levels, so at an operating position you were surrounded by bells coming from above, below and behind you as well as your own.

 

It was where I learned to operate such things and I thought it was wonderful. Others visited and thought it was a nightmare.

 

The whole hobby is about compromise and I never had a problem hearing the bell at the "other end". It was reassuring to know that it had worked and that you had sent the right beats.

 

On Buckingham, the bells are quite loud because Peter Denny was very hard of hearing and needed them that way. I have got used to them now and don't find them at all intrusive or annoying. In fact, I have grown to really enjoy hearing them.

 

It is one of those things, like DCC sound that you either like or you don't. If you like it, then have it but don't try to tell everybody else that just because you like it everybody should. You will never please everybody so you should just go with whatever pleases you.

[t-b-g]

10 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

That’s why the sequence starts with Call Attention.

;-)

A suggestion for Hills of the North is to make the Call Attention audible and all following just visual.  Therein lies the challenge!

Paul.

 

Easy. Two buttons. Call attention rings a bell. When it is acknowledged, a second button flashes the lights. Or a two way switch marked bell/lights that allows one or the other to be activated. The same electricity could ring a bell or flash a light depending on which way it is set.

 

If you have a bunch of operators who all like bells, you just use them but you have the option to make most of them silent if you want to.

Edited May 4, 2021 by t-b-g
To add content

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Get rid of the bells and wire tasers in, that will call attention!

 

Mike.

[jwealleans]

Has anyone else been to Gainsborough?   The bells there aren't distracting - in fact they just fade out after a while as you get used to them.

[New Haven Neil]

I don't mind bells where appropriate and useful (not that branch terminus to fiddle yard!) but another method I haven't seen here yet was that used on my old club's large layout, Lazenby and Idledale - illuminated train describers. 

 

An operator always drove towards themselves (this was a very large 4 track mainline layout, required 7 operators) so when the describer on your panel lit, with say a 1 (express passenger) you knew a train was ready for you to take, when you were ready.  Upon pressing a button to energise the dead section it was standing on, you could then drive it towards yourself and the describer cancelled.  In turn when it reached the limit of your section, (usually a station or a hidden section) you sent the 1 code to the next box/operator, and so on.  Worked really well, this was all relays and gubbins (signals automatically worked in conjunction) back in the 70s and 80's, it would all be logic by computer now. 

 

All designed and made by the club electrical guru Tony Lambert, a good friend, who you will see takes photos for the Consett South Pelaw thread.  Or if you have seen Alwinton at a show or in the comics - that has linked signal box sound, levers etc - all his electronic work also.

[LNER4479]

Just to say, am listening and noting carefully - but I'm in an all day Teams meeting (audit) today until approx 4 o'clock, following which I'll provide some comments of my own in response to the many, interesting posts on here. Keep 'em coming - all ideas / suggestions welcome at this stage.

 

To (maybe?) stimulate further thoughts, the attached is my depiction of the communications links (telepgraph runs!) required for the full layout. I've only installed one of them at the moment!

 

Carlisle comms diagram.pdf

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Here are some bells for you:

 

 

Gibbo.

[Compound2632]

Hearing the bells of more than one box is inauthentic. I like the suggestion of bells through headphones - so each operator only hears the bells in their own box and experiences the isolation of the lone signalman - except at one key box on the layout where viewers hearing the bells will experience that sense of heightened anticipation mentioned re. Heckmondwyke, though with final gratification.

 

Also, over much of the area covered by the layout, any noises need to be heard under the overall howl of a roaring gale. Either that, or curlews.

[5BarVT]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

Easy. Two buttons. Call attention rings a bell. When it is acknowledged, a second button flashes the lights. Or a two way switch marked bell/lights that allows one or the other to be activated. The same electricity could ring a bell or flash a light depending on which way it is set.

 

If you have a bunch of operators who all like bells, you just use them but you have the option to make most of them silent if you want to.

Agreed, that’s the KISS solution.  I’m wondering how easy (or not) it would be to ‘detect’ the first call attention to ring the bell and then suppress the rest so that the operator didn’t need to use the right button.  
Paul.

[t-b-g]

On the big layout I used to operate regularly, I found that being able to hear the bells at other stations was a big help.

 

If I was at station C and I heard station A offering an express to station B, I got a little bit of advance notice to clear my main lines as I was going to be offered something with 4 bells very soon.

 

It would also tell me if the next operator was busy. For example, if I was at station C and had a train ready to send to station B but station B was exchanging bells with station A, I would wait until I heard 2-1 for train out of section before I called attention.

 

It may not be realistic but then again, neither are the distances between our stations and the time it takes a train to get from one to the next.

 

Other "clever sods" would deliberately call attention right when you were in the middle of another move. They would work with no consideration for the situation at other places. If you were not able to give 2-1 immediately, perhaps because you were having to hold a train at an outer home signal, they would send 6-2 (train a long time in section). So you had some people who used the system well and others who just liked winding other people up. I much preferred running it with the first lot! 

 

It is what I would call fairly advanced operating, as you really need to be aware of what is happening in several places at once, rather than just your own station. Having a whole layout run by people who work like that is about as good as operating a layout gets.