Heath Town and other signalling diversions

[5BarVT]

MOVEMENT

Two weeks on from Oh Dear (2) I have much more movement in the lower back.  Sufficient that over the past week the next corner board is almost ready for the paint shop.  One 1800x125 board is also complete and the aim on Monday is to complete the first 1800x125 ramp.  Almost identical to the earlier one except that it incorporates the circular curve for the gradient change.

Tuesday is paint shop day as Junior Management is attending an online conference and she is chairing the Tuesday morning session.  Sawing, hammering and other noisy activities have been banned.

Whilst I couldn’t do board construction, I built the next DCC cutout kit.  Went together well, static testing passed, but when I powered it up, nothing.  Dead as a dodo (or Norwegian Blue).

It was only a few days later that I realised that the track output was isolated on my power board . . .

Kit worked fine when power was actually applied.

Paul.

[Graham T]

Glad to hear of your progress Paul!  Your last couple of lines reminds me of when I spent ages cleaning and testing a section of track, tearing my hair out because I couldn't get anything to run on it.

 

That's when I noticed the trailing ends of the droppers hanging under the baseboards, swinging free and not connected to anything...

[5BarVT]

PAINT SHOP OPEN

Yesterday was undercoat day, today was top coat and tomorrow should be dry enough to bring back inside.

The final IKEA leg alteration took place too and after remedial action to correct a warped side piece that only became apparent when the top rail was cut away it is now in position.  That has allowed the station boards to move to their final resting place and revealed a problem when construction has moved on another 3 boards!  My normal method of getting under boards to wire up is to flip them up onto the backscene in situ.  The problem board sits partially under the station boards so won’t be able to turn on its back.  As it spans from the supports on one side of the room across the window to the supports on the other side I can’t easily make it shorter so that it could flip up.

I’ll leave the brain to contemplate that ‘off line’ as I have plenty to get on with in the interim.

Paul.

[Graham T]

Could you post a photo Paul?  A picture paints a thousand words and all that.  You might get some useful ideas out of us lot that way (or possibly not...)

[5BarVT]

3 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Could you post a photo Paul?  A picture paints a thousand words and all that.  You might get some useful ideas out of us lot that way (or possibly not...)

Thanks for the offer.  Not easy to photograph as the area is full of other stuff at present.  When I’m closer to needing to start some of the junk will have moved elsewhere and an assistance photo might be possible.

Paul.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

On 02/01/2020 at 12:38, 5BarVT said:

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all (delayed from yesterday!)

 

No physical modelling has happened for some time, however, lots of 'paper modelling' (thanks to St Enodoc for the term) has happened.  Once (if?) the move happens, Phase 1 is installing the existing Heath Town in the new room.  The entrance door being in it's own recess means that I can put railway to the edge of the main space without blocking emergency access.  Thank you Clive M for that design 'requirement'. 

It fits! - mainly because the spec for the house included a room at least 10'6" x 8'.  (Temporary) supports for the layout will be needed as the framework is currently supported by spur shelving and free standing supports have been defined as required in future.

 

The extra 3 feet in length gives the opportunity for an extended station area and I'm still dithering between bolting extra on at each end and the back or to start again with something 'new'.  One possible version of 'new' is an heavily rationalised (and slightly modified) Wolverhampton Low Level South: I would have liked to keep one of the flat crossings between the (former) Goods Lines and the Heath Town Jn branch (at x below), but the geometry just doesn't work.  I can get in two crossovers which gives the same (lack of) flexibility as a rationalised layout.  The dotted lines round the outside are a long route round to the 'rest of the world'.  One possibility is that they are on a viaduct to represent the High Level station (even though the trains will be LL services!) but that requires them to cross the LL station platforms, so they may stay 'below ground' as shown.

So, in my world, the fledgling WMPTE managed to prevent the closure of Snow Hill to Low Level and retained the local train service to a Low Level terminal station with stop blocks at the N end of the platforms.  Wolverhampton is an important destination in its own right and so the Paddington-Birmingham service was kept through to Wolverhampton (avoiding the slow route to New St and the generous lay over there means that no extra sets are required for this extension).  And being an important destination, Low Level kept its service to Stourbridge and also had an occasional Cardiff service.  Adding some parcels services (including DPU from Chester via High Level and the Heath Town Jn spur) means that this 'little' station will be quite crowded at times!

All of this has come about from joining the RW Carrol BRCS group and finding Paddington Station Working books, WR and LMR Carriage Working Notices plus buying some relevant WTTs to go with my 1970 LMR Section D.  The main area where I am short of information is on parcels workings but as I am keeping lines that actually closed I think I will just have to make up or 'divert' other services.

The main 'disadvantage' will be that some of my WR loco fleet will be less likely to have appeared at LL.  Rule 1 will intervene!

 

[Just to give some background to the '(if)' right at the top, contract exchange is being delayed by uncertainty over the impact of Estate Rentcharges (a Victorian device recently discovered by major housebuilders which still exists in the 1925 Property Act and permits instant repossession of a property without warning under certain circumstances).  The impact on us is that mortgage providers have become very wary of properties where the title deeds don't rule this out so I am insisting that ours be amended to do so.]

 

Hopefully the next posting will bring news of successful resolution of these issues and a new railway room by Easter will be possible.

Paul.

Hi Paul, having seen some of your contributions as one of the ‘Top Posters’ on @St Enodoc’s Layout thread, I must admit I’d assumed you also lived down under, until I read a recent reference to the Wirral and realised my mistake !  Natural curiosity brought me here to see something local and I’ve had a look through the story so far - very impressed!

 

I can’t pretend to be anything other than at the very far end of the scale when it comes to layout complexity and / or electronics (even suggesting a comparison is probably an offence against using the term ‘scale’), but I am intrigued by the project: my family came from the Wolverhampton area and my Dad worked for WMPTE for many years - he was involved in the re-opening of Snow Hill, for example.  So I’ll be interested to see how the project develops: looks great so far, Keith.  

[5BarVT]

Thanks Keith.

I shan't ask if you live on the P.O.S.H. side of the Wirral or the one with decent train services . . .

:-)

Complexity indeed, as will be referred to soon, but there's a long way to go yet before movement worth watching is possible.

Watch this space . . . and be patient!

Paul.

[5BarVT]

"HOLIDAYS"

Not much has happened for a while as we have been away (for the first time since lockdown started) visiting family on the south coast.

Did manage some railway interest though - walking bits of the DN&S from Shawford Jn to Winchester Chesil.

 

Hockley Viaduct with new 'example' signal.

 

 

Base of original signal.  What excited me most was this was Evans O'Donnell not Westinghouse.  Need to brush up on my Chippenham history.

 

I did get a chance to do some paper modelling on the journey - the timetable is more complete and I have had some success in transcribing bits of it into Traincontroller (simulation only at present).

 

Little people are visiting for half term (with minder) so the spare bedroom has been cleared into the modelling room (my overflow 'junk' so self inflicted) so it will be paper modelling for the next week too.

 

Paul.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by 5BarVT
Photo reload.

[john dew]

Hi Paul

 

I would be interested to hear more about how you are handling Train Controllers timetable.  I find that while it operates very effectively it is difficult to get it to tell a “story”. The comments column doesnt work so I am trying  to develop a parallel spreadsheet which will enable me to add more detail without interfering with the  logic I use for naming schedules and macros.

 

I was born on the Wirral, where they had good train services, and spent the last 10 years of my life on the posh side before emigrating

 

Best wishes

Edited October 24, 2021 by john dew
Spelling!

[5BarVT]

TRAINCONTROLLER OPERATION
 

Hi John

 

I haven't really investigated the timetable as it doesn't do what I want!  A picture and a spreadsheet and then some explanation to follow. 

 

 

211025 HT CWP.xlsx

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I’ll begin . . .

On HT4 I had arranged schedules for each type of train and where it came and went. Each initiated by a push button.  That was in TC Silver so I didn’t have as many options as I do now.  It also led to rather a lot of schedules and buttons and required me to decide what to run and when.

 

This time on HT5 I want to be closer to a timetable, but . . .

Timings are all based on Heath Town arrival and departure times and until I have a physical layout largely complete I won’t know the running time from the storage sidings to select a suitable timetable entry time.

So I’m going for a St Enodoc Mid Cornwall sequence.  The CWP is a draft timetable based on a mixture of 1967 services, 1966 parcels,   what if Paddington services and what if Cardiff/Stourbridge. The format is unashamedly borrowed from John (St.E) and modified to fit my layout, including extra bits linked to TCG.

The trains are all driven off a sequence macro which I’m slowly constructing by transcribing data from the timetable spreadsheet.

I could put this all into timetables at some point, but as I’ll explain later, some of the stuff I want to do would mean a unique macro for every service in the timetable.  I also want to be able to select trains manually when testing, or not operating to sequence and at some point I’m hoping to drive it all by being a signalman with the trains being thrown at me from the storage yards automatically.

And . . . I prefer keyboard operation to using a mouse for starting trains if I can.  Variables added in Gold V9 is helping with quite a lot of this.  At the moment, all it does is deal with MU trains that don’t need shunting.  After that, I’ll add all the loco hauled trains for their main run, then get loco changes added and finally adding or removing vehicles (largely parcels trains but also strengthening and tail traffic on passenger).

The sequence macro is started by a push button and stepped for each train by a switch (using a hot key). Because I want to know where I am in the sequence (so that I don’t press the Go button when there isn’t a train ready to go) I want the next train displayed on the screen.  (This is the yellow box under REDRAWN.)

 

The macro displayed is showing the bits that generated the Next and Current displays (it would have been running the DMU Step macro half way down).  So for each train there is a label with arrival or departure time; followed by filling the variable Next with the description of the train;  DMU Step is waiting for the Go switch to be operated (look once each second) and if it is, operates the red indicator to green, resets the switch ready for next time, copies Next into Current, delays 1s to prevent multiple operations in error, and finally turns the indicator back to red; back in the sequence macro, the train is started using a variable operation; and the next Next train is displayed.

Up (departing) trains don’t need any further data as they each have an allocated sidling in the storage yards.  Down (arriving) trains need a destination block specified as this varies and I want to use a single schedule for all trains.  In the fullness of time this will be used when running automatically but determined by the signalling when “switched in”.  All done in conditions in the individual block settings within the schedule.

Up trains also have a train description defined - eventually to be used to simulate a Fringe Train Describer.

 

The bit you may find useful is the Next train display.  You might be able to drive that out of a start list in each schedule.  Prerequisites based on train could make it change depending on the train if you have multiple trains using the same schedule.

 

If you’ve taken all that in, your doing well!!!

 

Paul.

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by 5BarVT
Photo reload.

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

Hi John

 

I haven't really investigated the timetable as it doesn't do what I want!  Some pictures and a spreadsheet and then some explanation to follow. 

 

211025 HT CWP.xlsx 91.77 kB · 1 download

 

More words in an edit from my ipad soon!

 

 

Ooooo Errrrr

 

I just run what I want at times.

 

Other times I drive the two trains on the outer two fuddle yard sidings to the station, followed by two trains to the fuddle yards from the station, then the two on the next tracks from the fuddle yards to the station, when they arrive two others are departed. This continues moving one track over until the two trains reach the inner most fuddle yard tracks. Time to start over again. I am lucky that my trains run on the mainline (around the room) for six or more laps before I put them into the station or fuddle yards. While they circulate I do my loco changes in the station area and rearrange the locos in the two loco yards or just sit back and watch the trains go round and round and round.

 

One day a time table might be conceived.

[5BarVT]

9 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

I just run what I want at times.

I will too!

This is just “computer programming with a purpose” because I enjoy it! (And ‘cos I’m frightened to go chopping up trains or to use a paintbrush!)

Paul.

[Clive Mortimore]

3 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

I will too!

This is just “computer programming with a purpose” because I enjoy it! (And ‘cos I’m frightened to go chopping up trains or to use a paintbrush!)

Paul.

Thankfully we all have different things we enjoy doing. One day I might understand what is going on, but then my Luddite brain will ignore it.

[john dew]

Hi Paul

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed reply. I cannot honestly say I grasped everything but I think I follow the broad concepts. I found the entire explanation really interesting.

 

It is always a revelation to see someone else's TC switchboard..........so many ways to skin a cat! Leaving the variables aside for a moment, there were some other symbols that were new to me. I assume the inverted black triangles are virtual contacts? I hadnt realised you could change the orientation of switches.......that was a real "doh!!" moment ......what a simple but elegant way to differentiate push buttons from on/off....thank you!  Are the red/black circles an imported icon used for key switches?

 

I use pre-requisites and labels frequently but I have never attempted to use variables.......I suspect I should. Hopefully I can call on your expertise when I do. The current and next train system looks intriguing and it should be possible to incorporate it into the system of macros I use

 

The master spreadsheet was amazing. It covers just about every conceivable item of information, other than the names of the crew! Plenty of ideas to there for me to plagiarise

 

Thank you again for such a useful response.

 

Best wishes

[5BarVT]

55 minutes ago, john dew said:

The master spreadsheet was amazing. It covers just about every conceivable item of information, other than the names of the crew! Plenty of ideas to there for me to plagiarise

It does indeed, and the credit should go to St Enodoc.  I’ve borrowed it, as has 61656, each of us modifying it to suit.  It takes a lot of (cumulative) effort to complete, but has become my ‘go to’ document for train services.

55 minutes ago, john dew said:

It is always a revelation to see someone else's TC switchboard..........so many ways to skin a cat!

Agree absolutely!

55 minutes ago, john dew said:

I assume the inverted black triangles are virtual contacts?

They are.  Apparently only kept for backwards compatibility, but I’m glad they have been.

Those up in the station aren’t used - they were part of an experiment that didn’t work and I haven’t deleted them yet.  Those beside blocks D2 and D3 save me two train detection sections.  
A E B C D U (I never was good at the alphabet!) are actually once round the room and D U are a set of double crossovers for continuous running.  I treat the circuit as one (signalling) block section but need three TC blocks so that a train isn’t delayed by itself!  Virtual contacts are fine as trains should not stop at intermediate blocks.  If stopping tolerance at the exit section is too sloppy I will add a LDR detector.

 

55 minutes ago, john dew said:

Are the red/black circles an imported icon used for key switches?

Not quite sure which red black circles you mean.  Those sitting on the track are just contact indicators.  I prefer to create separate contact indicators on the switchboard rather than from within the blocks as that means I can operate them off during offline testing if I move a train to a different block by dragging.  If you mean the two with thick black outlines in the area of the N switch, they are just one of the inbuilt signal symbols.  I tend to include such things in macros to begin with so that I can see them operating.

55 minutes ago, john dew said:

Leaving the variables aside for a moment,

A wise decision!  They are very clever at times, but can be difficult to use.  For example, they can be changed, but only by operations.  I had wondered about using them to allocate locos to diagrams before the start of a session but they can’t be set ‘manually’.  I can’t pick 5 random locos and allocate them to ‘diagrams’ at the start of a session - I would have to go into edit mode and create a new push button with 5 individual operations to do that.  Possible, but messy.

The DMUs operate on three cyclic diagrams so I created a push button that gave them their initial allocation and in the sequence macro the last operations will be to rotate D2->D3->D4 (using a dummy D5 to hold one during the shuffle).  
The other thing about variables is that it is difficult to see what they are set to.  OK for text or numbers as they can be displayed in text boxes.  Some are attached to trains but as they pass a particular block they are copied into a global variable which can be displayed.  But for those that have the scope of an object, I haven’t found a way of knowing what they contain.  Not a problem if everything works, but not good when testing a new way of using them and it doesn’t work as expected.  I regard them as a work in progress with some useful possibilities.

Paul.

P.S. Apologies to all those who haven’t got a clue what John and I are talking about.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

It does indeed, and the credit should go to St Enodoc.  I’ve borrowed it

Glad it was of use! I see you've kept the far right column for clay trains - the shape of things to come?

[john dew]

Thanks Paul for the detailed reply

 

Apologies for being ambiguous about the red and black circles. I thought, at the time, you may think I was referring to the contact indicators then forgot to clarify things. I thought the red circle within a black circle might have been an alternative push button option..

 

If you want to save on occupancy detectors you could use flagman indicators in dead end sidings. Triggered by the CI in the preceding block . I use them quite a bit. They are better than virtual contacts because they are more flexible and typically there is less distance between trigger and action.

Did clay trains run to Birmingham?

 

Best wishes

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, john dew said:

Did clay trains run to Birmingham?

Seems as though they do now.

[5BarVT]

21 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Glad it was of use! I see you've kept the far right column for clay trains - the shape of things to come?

A leftover nor replaced or overwritten.

As I'm sure you knew already!!!

Paul.

[5BarVT]

17 hours ago, john dew said:

Did clay trains run to Birmingham?

 

9 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Seems as though they do now.

They ran to Stoke, though which way they went I don't know.

Paul.

[5BarVT]

TIMETABLE UPDATE

 

To whom it may concern:

There is no longer a "Clay" entry in the timetable.

 

 

 

:-)

Paul.

[St. Simon]

18 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

TIMETABLE UPDATE

 

To whom it may concern:

There is no longer a "Clay" entry in the timetable.

 

 

 

:-)

Paul.

Do you mean you have ‘fired’ the Clay entry?

 

Therefore is there now a ‘Ceramic’ Timetable entry 

 

Simon

[5BarVT]

Still not much happening because I keep going away!  Two nights by the M6 but with a better view the other way.  Went for a walk on the day between and saw these.

 

 

 

Paul.

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by 5BarVT
Photo reload.

[Andy Keane]

On 13/08/2021 at 09:58, 5BarVT said:

STEADY PROGRESS IN PICTURES

 

Apologies for the quality, not really enough light on the subject!

Kickback DMU/Loco sidings in view, long sidings (2.2m) off to the left on boards shewn previously.  All access is via the rails that will pass between the two blue dowels.

 

"Move along, nothing to see here." (Yet!)

 

Paul.

Paul

Is there any particular reason for the grey tops/sides and white underside? Also is this primer and second coat or just one coat? I am about to reach for the paint and wondered what you think best.

regards

Andy

[5BarVT]

Grey sides because I find that isn’t as intrusive as black but doesn’t give a colour bias/clash with any scenery that might one day appear.  White underneath so that it is easier to see wiring etc.  I use combined undercoat primer to seal then top coat grey where it will be seen.  Underneath, I use a top coat because I prefer the semi gloss finish but undercoat only would work.

Paul.