Waddlemarsh - somewhere southwest of London sometime before today

[johnhutnick]

If you are careful, you can put pieces of black heat-shrink tubing over your white levers.

[Gwiwer]

Tiny platform lights being assembled. Ratio kits with presoldered LEDs fitted with wires fed through 0.8mm holes bored in the shades. 
 

 

[Gwiwer]

Let’s do the time-warp again ..... 

 

Newly-arrived Kernow MRC / Revolution Trains Cargowaggon is tested on the tramway-radius corners of Waddlemarsh using an 07 as traction. 
 

These are superb wagons. Well out of my themed era but one was purchased anyway.  I am pleased to report it rolls freely through even my tightest curves. 
 

 

[Gwiwer]

Uh-oh. There are wires everywhere. 
 

 

[Gwiwer]

Waddlemarsh Halt in the sun. Test-fitting of the first platform lamp (wired but not yet tested for working) and a couple of trains passing. 
 

One short remains on the track which should be eliminated when I connect a point motor abd frog switch to the panel. The crossover unit which gave me so much trouble is finally working well. 
 

 

[PeterBB]

Pleased to hear that the double slip is now functional.

[Gwiwer]

54 minutes ago, PeterBB said:

Pleased to hear that the double slip is now functional.

Thank you. Me too!!!  
 

It has required isolating switches on each of the sidings and a slight re-wire to have both passenger lines running on a single circuit.

 

One more step will see the points to the hidden sidings, into which passenger trains vanish, wired and frog-switched which will allow me to run two trains in opposite directions albeit one after the other rather than having simultaneous arrivals and departures. 
 

Some things have to be put down to the limits of DC operation. 
 

 

[Gwiwer]

When needs must. 
 

I cannot solder indoors. The puff of smoke may trigger the alarm. Any spill may harm the carpet. 
 

But there is always modelling space. In this case on the potting bench outside the back door. 
 

 

[Gwiwer]

Another day another little piece of the jigsaw conplete. 

 

The “off-scene” view through the footbridge requires scenic decoration for some distance.  The curve of the track, necessary to accommodate the sharp bend, takes it almost to the edge of the baseboard. 

 

The photographic backscene is therefore curved to match the track and has required a small piece of card to be glued as an outrigger to the baseboard to avoid a gap. 

 

This has now been fitted and the area ballasted / greened so that the view through the bridge appears to be a continuation of the main scene. 

[Gwiwer]

[Bogie]

Very clever!

[Gwiwer]

Progress on the panel. 

 

Switch banks now glued and screwed down; controller placed. 

 

I am not happy with the position of the controller. It blocks too much of the view.  My thinking is to cut the angled panel such that it only holds the switches and mount the controller flat on the baseboard. 

[Gwiwer]

It’s a hobby, they tell me 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

It looks a mess for now but .....

 

..... the panel is wired and cut down as I discussed above. The brick abutments and retaining wall for the road and the girders for the bridge are under construction 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

More work on the girder bridge today. 
 

The feet or “pads” are from an old Dapol (Airfix) girder bridge kit but as that in its entirety builds into something over-scale and under-width for my purposes it has only ever been a “bits bag”. The girders themselves are Peco.  The pads are cut in half for this build. 

The rest is foamboard, card and a Scalescenes brown brick download. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

More work on the girder bridge. The brickwork is almost complete.  The girders are placed as a guide. The signalbox has been placed where it belongs and with the view checked for the signalman in all directions.  The signal right by the box is required because this track is an exit from the goods yard so bi-directional through the platform
 

The roadway will not be straight but include a slight angle over the centre pier.  Once the structure is complete and has a deck the ground levels will be adjusted for the entire structure to become fixed down. 
 

I cannot promise that a bus wll not appear on the bridge at times!  

 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

Easter being a time when the railway traditionally engages in major engineering works I have followed suit.  Today has been spent untangling things and joining the ends of the spaghetti.

 

Thus far the isolation switches for the fiddle yard are wired and working.  The first crossover I wired - one of several where the motors are wired to fire in pairs - is wired back to the wrong switch but that is simply a case of swapping the wires at the choc-block.  

 

The second crossover works perfectly.  I have to admit a degree of delight at that because this was one of those I fitted and part-wired many years ago for a project which never got going.  The wiring, points and all sat outdoors (in Australia) with the baseboard being used as a storage shelf.  The motors fired perfectly first click after all that time.  

 

The rest of the weekend should see a bit more of the wiring done and - if all goes well - some test running controlled from the panel by the end of Monday.  

 

That will be progress indeed.  

[Gwiwer]

Well the best laid plans of mice and men ....... 

 

As fast as I did one thing another problem popped up.  Wiring up the panel has produced some unexpected quirks.  The wrong points firing (easy - swap the wires at the choc-block), an expensive oops when the wire pair labelled "Points 7" proved to be "Track 1" and upset the CDU, a persistent buzzing from point motors which turned out to be constant operation possibly due to a short somewhere.  Replacement of a pair of electrofrog points with insulfrogs in order to remove another short and separate track circuits completely (not too taxing - a bit of rewiring and a swap-out of track pieces) and then more buzzing from more motors.  

 

Swapping of wires between motors and levers apparently traced the fault back to the levers (everything else works fine) so a small number of spares is on order to see what happens.  It is possible that some were damaged or an internal short has arisen during the soldering of wires to tags; it shouldn't happen but a there's a lot that occurs in the world that shouldn't happen.  

 

The state of play as of Easter Monday night is this:-

 

Four electrical circuits for track power have been partially re-wired to avoid overlaps and to account for the replacement of the tricksy electrofrog crossovers by insulfrog units which allow for simpler wiring and easier isolation.

 

Circuits 1 and 4 work as they should.  Circuit 2 requires a slight re-wire.  Circuit 3 requires more work including some switched isolation.  We're getting there.  Half the point motors are wired and working.  None of the lights or signals are yet wired up.  The platform lamps are not yet in place as they require further detailing before installation.  

 

I am awaiting some lever switches and point motors mostly as spares but a few are required to complete the wiring.  The package is due on Wednesday.  Onwards and upwards.   

[Gwiwer]

The panel looks a little more tidy. I measured (twice!) before cutting holes for the push-to-makes and was a lot less than pleased when they were unevenly spaced at fitting 

 

 

The power supply is being progressively rejigged so as to have four not five circuits. A couple of IRJs have been moved. The double-slip in the goods yard now has power fed to the outer curved rails instead of the toe ends. To its left a new IRJ has been fitted with wires leading back to a switch on the panel. Most sidings isolate via frog switches but this one stayed alive until today. 
 

 

A view across a busy goods yard

 

[brushman47544]

Looking very good now Rick. Going back to your first posts, the layout looks remarkably similar to your original design. Mine never did...

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

I measured (twice!) before cutting holes for the push-to-makes and was a lot less than pleased when they were unevenly spaced at fitting 

Measure twice, cut once, throw away, measure again...

[5BarVT]

Too late now (as hindsight always is) and possibly teaching Granny to suck eggs: I use a smaller drill first as it helps the larger drill to centre properly.  So my long winded approach is measure; mark; sometimes measure again (!);  mark with point; small drill (whatever happens to be in my mini drill at the time) then finally drill the full size hole.

Paul.

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Too late now (as hindsight always is) and possibly teaching Granny to suck eggs: I use a smaller drill first as it helps the larger drill to centre properly.  So my long winded approach is measure; mark; sometimes measure again (!);  mark with point; small drill (whatever happens to be in my mini drill at the time) then finally drill the full size hole.

Paul.

Exactly as I did.  Pilot hole first.  Pilot holes were equidistant.  Somehow the full size holes were not.  Apart from the fact that I am solely responsible as builder and mistake-maker I have no idea why.  Hey ho.  Onwards and upwards.  Today I am crawling about beneath the boards wiring points and power inputs.  Some of these use the original wiring fitted many years ago for a different project, some use a mix of old and new and some use all-new wiring runs.  At least I can also strip out some redundant kit - wires (for the bin), choc-blocks and a couple of point motors (which can be re-used at some future time).

[Gwiwer]

Some natural sunlight on Waddlemarsh this morning.  A second Standard tank has recently been located and will join the fleet shortly.   The water tower here is newly fitted. 
 

 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

Today’s task

 

Take one Wills Kit and convert to yard shed and staff pissoir. 
 

The latter first because it seemed easier that way. 
 

Colours are mixes of Jo Sonja acrylics overbrushed with weathering powders. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then a start was made on the main building though this was not completed. 
 

External colours are Jo Sonja Forest Green with a 2:1 mix of Railmatch Stock Cream and Concrete for the woodwork. Interior walls are Jo Sonja Smoked Pearl distressed with Fawn from the same brand. Flooring is Fawn overbrushed with weathering powders. 
 

 

 

 

 

And that was the state of play at stumps tonight. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Gwiwer