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Spital Bridge - Whitby MRCs 7mm Urban BLT


Boris
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Glad to see progress is being made, looks like this is going to shape up into a great layout so I will follow with interest. Interesting design and track layout in a fairly compact space. I understand the reticence regarding tinkering with 7mm scale turnouts mind given the cost!

 

I've always been a fan of those goods facilities at Seamer, should make a lovely little cameo.

 

Keep up the good work :)

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Glad to see progress is being made, looks like this is going to shape up into a great layout so I will follow with interest. Interesting design and track layout in a fairly compact space. I understand the reticence regarding tinkering with 7mm scale turnouts mind given the cost!

 

I've always been a fan of those goods facilities at Seamer, should make a lovely little cameo.

 

Keep up the good work :)

I'm glad you're enjoying our trials and tribulations with this layout.

 

We're still not 100% sure what form the goods facilities are going to take at the moment, but the building in the distance at Seamer (there's another at Danby) will probably form part of it along with some form of over the rail goods shed.  We don't have anything like a bridge or embankment to disguise the fiddle yard entrance so a couple of goods buildings will give us a bit of a scenic break.  The layout (unintenionally) just so happens to sit about the same height as a really good bar (as club boozehound I am probably to blame for that) so it would be nice to have the audience look through (kind of) a couple of buildings at that end of the layout to disguise the break.

 

End of August we should have the track laid, and then the wiring fun begins!

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Nice to see the recent pictures of the progress with track laying. It almost looks like we know what we are doing! Whilst rummaging in the shed I have just turned up a chassis and rods for a J27 so I may have to scratch build one this winter.

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Nice to see the recent pictures of the progress with track laying. It almost looks like we know what we are doing! Whilst rummaging in the shed I have just turned up a chassis and rods for a J27 so I may have to scratch build one this winter.

Well, it looks like you know what you are doing, I just turn up, take the credit and eat the biscuits!

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We were discussing Ian Kirk coach kits last time, here are a few photos of what you get, how to assemble them using a jig, and what they end up looking like.

 

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A bag of bits, including bogies, but no wheels buffers or couplings

 

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A simple wooden jig using a bit of ply and some 1" square section to hold the panels square. The loose bit of 1" is to tap the panels down so they are all level. Make sure you file off all the moulding sprue pips.

 

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The semi finished article running on my garden line.

 

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Some filling of the end panels still to do.

 

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The underside of the carriage. Ian says to glue the roof on and make the floor removable. I prefer to do it the other way around.

 

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A CCW J50 which irons the track out as it runs (solid whitemetal!).

 

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The LMS equivilent period II suburbans converted to a motor coach. I don't put much interior detail inside as I Iet the satin varnish cover the windowswhen finishing them off. They still need weathering.

 

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The old jinty was one of the first locos I scratch built out of bits of wood, plasticard, and even margarine tubs! It is showing its age now, but still runs perfectly.

 

 

 

 

 

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Those Kirk kits make up quite nicely, I may indeed need one or two of those, I see what you mean about the jig now, its fairly straightforward to make.  Have you come accross the technique of applying poly cement to both sides of your join (I'm thinking ends) so you get a nice seamless join?  All you then need is a little bit of a wipe over with a paper towel and a small bit of fine wet and dry and you should get a comletely seamless join.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As a quick update this evening we have now completed all the track laying and so all the boards were pulled out the cupboard and lined up for a photo to show what the finished product will look like.

 

The station from the platform ends, this is 12 of the 13 foot of track that was laid by us all this evening.

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Looking down the full length of the layout from the fiddle yard end

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An artistic view from a bit lower down

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Next weeks entertainment will be to put the board up on its legs to check rail height and gapping and work out how we're going to wire the layout as well as produce a shopping list of components for the treasurer!

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Is the present treasure just as miserable as past ones? If so, you will be lucky to get anything out of him.

Derek (a past treasurer)

This one is so tight he squeaks when he walks and we have to turn him upsidedown and shake him to get money out of him

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  • 3 weeks later...

After a quiet couple of weeks doing odd jobs to the layout, Kevin has made up the end boards so the layout can be stored properly and a start has been made on wiring.

 

Initially all of the droppers will be terminated into chocolate blocks and labelled whilst a wiring diagram is produced, or at least placed on the back of a fag packet.  This should keep us out of mschief until October.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Work is progressing on the layout - the fiddle yard traverser frames are modified and awaiting the drawer runners and hinges to arrive in the post. Bill has ordered the 25 way breakout connectors which are going to be used with standard 25D cables to connect the boards. By using identical fully wired cables we will always have interchangeable spares should the need arise. The traverser will have 5 tracks which can simultaneously align with the two lines onto the scenic areas, so two movements can take place at the same time.

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For those of you who aren't aware, this is a PCB breakout board:

 

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Effectively it's a set of chocolate blocks connected to a 25 pin connector, in this case we have gone for all female fittings on the boards because its the 21st century and women get equal rights that way there are no pins to get bent by clumsy fingers in the future.  Rather than laboriously soldering your own connectors together and then fighting with fault finding etc with these we can change wires really easily and trace faults.

 

Likewise we are using premade computer ribbon cables obtained from rs components as jumpers between the boards again to simplify wiring and fault finding, if we have a defective jumper at a show you change it for a fresh one and carry on!

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For those of you who aren't aware, this is a PCB breakout board:

 

attachicon.gifs-l1600.jpg

 

Effectively it's a set of chocolate blocks connected to a 25 pin connector, in this case we have gone for all female fittings on the boards because its the 21st century and women get equal rights that way there are no pins to get bent by clumsy fingers in the future.  Rather than laboriously soldering your own connectors together and then fighting with fault finding etc with these we can change wires really easily and trace faults.

 

Likewise we are using premade computer ribbon cables obtained from rs components as jumpers between the boards again to simplify wiring and fault finding, if we have a defective jumper at a show you change it for a fresh one and carry on!

Its much easier to use than soldering little wires into the solder buckets on the back of bare 25D connectors, male or female...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Last night saw Alistair deep in wiring the next board, whilst Kev and Dave laid the first track on the fiddle yard. The traverser has five roads, of which any two have to line up with the two incoming roads. Accuracy is therefore paramount. I have just made five angled receptacles, reamed to an accurate fit on the barrels of the sliding bolts which should increase the accuracy of alignment and allow electrical contact to be made. 

 

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The Bare traverser.

 

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Alistair busy adding wiring

 

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Some track down, much more to go!

 

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Trevor and Trevor discussing English Electric Lightnings!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Apologies if things have been a little quiet recently, we have been quite busy with AGMs etc, but progress has been made on the layout.  After fitting the Kobold point motor to the yard two weeks ago - this point controls access into the end-on dock, we decided to put boards A & B up, connect the wires and test everything. This was done properly using the 25 pin ribbon cables and a spare controller.

 

Aside from a dry joint on the platform 1 road (easily fixed) and a dead short on the yard (caused by the frog wires being the wrong way round in the motor - easily done and easily fixed) we managed to run a loco and wagon on all 4 roads, and over the points with the polarity shifts working correctly.

 

https://youtu.be/spMmWpopcx4

 

Meanwhile 2 other members finished the track laying in the fiddle yard, which is a lovely piece of woodwork and folds over itself to make storage easier:

 

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Finishing off, another member rewheeled a Grafar 101 into 2mm finescale and made up a little piece of track, using our wired layout to feed their EM gauge track, a slightly bizarre sight:

 

https://youtu.be/hHL0uM1Ihos

Edited by Boris
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  • RMweb Gold

Finishing off, another member rewheeled a Grafar 101 into EM and made up a little piece of track, using our wired layout to feed their EM gauge track, a slightly bizarre sight:

 

https://youtu.be/hHL0uM1Ihos

 

That would be to 2mm finescale...

 

EM really would be bizarre.

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