Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Nearholmer]

One of the issues when spanning a gap with flap is not the expansion of the flap, but movement of the "take off" and "landing" places.

 

That's the main problem I have with the grand-piano-lid of a flap across the door on my layout. Everything expands and contracts subtly, even the lining of the walls, and tiny changes, 1mm in 5000mm, can throw rail alignment out by just enough to cause annoyance. and, its changes of humidity, much more than temperature, which cause it.

 

Probably the ultimate, super-accurate, flap would involve firmly registering both sides of the gap to a very solid datum, a concrete floor, or a brick wall, as well as using a flap made from material that is humidity-proof.

 

Bar-flaps, piano-lids, cabinet doors, made carefully by skilled craftsmen with the best materials; they all look super-well aligned, and work wonderfully, but none of them has to maintain the degree of precision that we ask of layout-flaps that we knock-up at home out a  few bits of  2x1.

[St Enodoc]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Probably the ultimate, super-accurate, flap would involve firmly registering both sides of the gap to a very solid datum

The alternative is to use decent dowels. They will keep the mating edges well-aligned even if both move relative to the datum. I've done this on my own lifting flap, which has been installed for over five years now with no problems - and none of the timber has been sealed (if you do seal it, then as soon as you drill a hole through it you've created a new moisture path).

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

The alternative is to use decent dowels.

 

Diagram please.

 

Do you have the dowels vertical, so that they plug-in like fangs, as the flap descends?

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

The alternative is to use decent dowels. They will keep the mating edges well-aligned even if both move relative to the datum. I've done this on my own lifting flap, which has been installed for over five years now with no problems - and none of the timber has been sealed (if you do seal it, then as soon as you drill a hole through it you've created a new moisture path).

 

24 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Diagram please.

 

Do you have the dowels vertical, so that they plug-in like fangs, as the flap descends?

To which I refer you both to DCCConcepts new power dowels - alignment and power in one neat little metal plug.

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Diagram please.

 

Do you have the dowels vertical, so that they plug-in like fangs, as the flap descends?

 

10 hours ago, woodenhead said:

 

To which I refer you both to DCCConcepts new power dowels - alignment and power in one neat little metal plug.

I use the standard DCC Concepts dowels (usual disclaimer), not the powered ones just announced, one at each corner of the lifting flap:

 

 

[Martin S-C]

Had a doodle about with the branch terminus yesterday. I feel something isn't quite right and that I can do more with it but the tight approach curve is the limiting factor. It determines what angle the station throat sprouts from and therefore how far sidings can spread. I want to keep the board to no more than 20" deep, though a little less would be better so that the gangway to the door isn't reduced nor is the fiddle yard operating well.

The small platform face at an angle will accept push-pull units or rail buses. It will also be the unloading area for milk churns and dry goods, that is vans and parcels, etc. I plan to model a set of removable fence sections that will be stored at the side of the station building so that on market days it can be pressed into use as a livestock dock. Taking a leaf from my wargame scenery ideas a second model of these fences on their own base will be depicted deployed with animals in the pens to be placed on the platform when cattle trucks are adjacent.

There will be a small lock-up goods shed incorporated into the station building.

Heavier loads, crates, etc will be craned on/off at the entrance to the coal siding.

Green line is backscene.

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Martin S-C
Last minute plan tweaking continues...

[Martin S-C]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I use the standard DCC Concepts dowels (usual disclaimer), not the powered ones just announced, one at each corner of the lifting flap:

 

So other than that and what IIRC is a magnetic sheet for grip, the construction is only 9mm ply and 2x1?

[Nearholmer]

Right, I'm going to add some "fang configuration" dowels to mine as soon as I get time. It may not be the complete solution, because the track curves through ninety degrees on the mega-flap, so there is "side alignmen"t to consider too, but if it reduces the amount of subtle nudging that it needs when the weather changes, that will be a victory.

 

Many thanks.

[Annie]

 

I really like your branch terminus Martin.  Is it based on any particular prototype location?

Edited December 18, 2020 by Annie
fumble brain

[Harlequin]

Here's a little package of suggestions regarding your BLT:

• Have more, but shorter storage lines because that's probably more flexible.
• Leave the lower storage points fan where it is and start the upper fan more towards the West, feeding into the shorter storage roads.
• That means there's a run of simple plain track in the NW corner, and that means you can angle the BLT more into the NW corner (as far as you can without cramping the fiddle yard operator's space.
• That means that the entrance to the room is more open and there's more room for the BLT operator.
• Then the BLT approach curve is more open and the BLT can be a bit longer.

Idea: The curves at the East end seem to be quite relaxed now and if there's no need to disguise them any more that would be a great place to drop the baseboard away and have the two lines cross a river valley on bridges or small viaducts of very different characters, say, one brick and one timber!

 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Harlequin

[Martin S-C]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

I really like your branch terminus Martin.  Is it based on any particular prototype location?

Thank you. The origins of it are Hintock which is well known among these parts. The original I drafted where it was down in the SW corner was almost a direct plagiarization but this version is cropped and compressed, losing a couple of sidings. I certainly wanted a couple of private industries so that branch freight operations have more meaning and as a way to explain why the WELR was built (traffic/income). On the Hintock plan I especially liked the sharply diverging bay road which was too short for anything much at all except a railbus but on this version can be pressed into various uses.

I think, by shifting the dairy to the back of the station I could buy a bit more space and narrow the baseboard a tad.


 

1 hour ago, Harlequin said:

Here's a little package of suggestions regarding your BLT:

• Have more, but shorter storage lines because that's probably more flexible.
• Leave the lower storage points fan where it is and start the upper fan more towards the West, feeding into the shorter storage roads.
• That means there's a run of simple plain track in the NW corner, and that means you can angle the BLT more into the NW corner (as far as you can without cramping the fiddle yard operator's space.
• That means that the entrance to the room is more open and there's more room for the BLT operator.
• Then the BLT approach curve is more open and the BLT can be a bit longer.

Idea: The curves at the East end seem to be quite relaxed now and if there's no need to disguise them any more that would be a great place to drop the baseboard away and have the two lines cross a river valley on bridges or small viaducts of very different characters, say, one brick and one timber!

 

 

Interesting stuff! I should let you come and build it as you have many more fruitful ideas than I!

Currently there's 4 storage loops suitable for 3 trains each, probably 4 each in a couple of them if they are titchy sets. So 12-14 trains. If I make that 5 suitable for 2 to 3 each I don't lose much (considering there's probably another 6-8 trains worth of storage siding space on the layout) and I was concerned about the pointwork hidden beneath the BLT loco spur. I have a real dislike for concealed pointwork now! I know everyone else worked this out years ago but I had to make my own mistakes and learn from them...

I will have another fettling session tomorrow. Watch this space.

[AdamsRadial]

Regarding dowels and a couple of comments about how heat, vibration, changes in humidity can cause hinged flaps to go out of alignment, I've been considering for a while now making conical dowels that drop into a conical hole. I played around with the dowels that have a hemispherical nose to them and although they do work to draw the flap into alignment I found I had to give the board a bit of a slap to get it over the initial reluctance to mate I mean slide into precise alignment. I hope that a cone of about a 60 degree angle will therefore have a longer period of gradually centering and so not need the same amount of persuasion. The board in question isn't hinged but is a lift out section, so there are no hinges at one end to maintain alignment there, hence the need to get it right on two sides and four dowels at once.

 

Hinges, being brass or steel, are good candidates for changes due to thermal expansion or sticking due to dust of moisture contamination, and so there might be a case for eliminating them.

Edited December 18, 2020 by AdamsRadial

[Annie]

Thank you very much for posting the Hintock track plan Martin.  I shall have to file that away for future reference.

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

Hinges, being brass or steel, are good candidates for changes due to thermal expansion or sticking due to dust of moisture contamination, and so there might be a case for eliminating them.

In over 20 years of being part of the “road crew” for East Lynn and Nunstanton, with the layout stored in a house if being worked on, or a garage if not, and being loaded into cars and cans and sometimes left in them overnight, and then assembled and dismantled in exhibition venues with big swings in temperature and humidity, there has never - not once - been a problem with the split hinges, quality drawn brass backflaps and tight fitting. (We have had some other problems, such as some idiot kicking a leg off of the layout, but...)

 

So, care to share why you think this to be a problem?

[Nearholmer]

Yes, my grand-piano-lid-door-flap is on a piano hinge (logically enough) and I've not had any trouble with that, even though it isn't a very high-quality one. My old 009 layout used back-flap hinges with knock-out pins, and they were fine for donkey's years.

 

Conical dowels in fang-mode have to be a good idea, though. Old-style high voltage electrical switchgear often has very precisely-fitting parts that are aligned that way, and it definitely works, gently pulling heavy components into alignment.

[AdamsRadial]

On hinges, I admit to having a slight bee in the bonnet, a lot of repair jobs that end up on my bench are broken or missing hinges. They're something we take for granted, like screws, they're all the same? I opened a pack of four recently for a job that required three hinges. Two of the four I would describe as a matched pair, they weren't loose or tight, a third needed levering open with a penknife, and the fourth had nearly a sixteenth slop in it. My point in regard to Nearholmer's comment that something was throwing his lifting flap out of alignment was that we take hinges for granted and assume it's the wood or the frame causing the problem, but why do I get so many broken hinge jobs to repair? They're subject to quite a few conditions that cause them to snap, work loose, throw the pin, make creaking noises, humidity and temperature can affect a hinge just as easily as they can affect the wood they're screwed to. For Regularity, I can only apologise and assure him I wasn't firing my shots towards his installation, just accept it as an unfortunate riccochet.

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

So other than that and what IIRC is a magnetic sheet for grip, the construction is only 9mm ply and 2x1?

 

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Right, I'm going to add some "fang configuration" dowels to mine as soon as I get time. It may not be the complete solution, because the track curves through ninety degrees on the mega-flap, so there is "side alignmen"t to consider too, but if it reduces the amount of subtle nudging that it needs when the weather changes, that will be a victory.

 

6 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

I played around with the dowels that have a hemispherical nose to them and although they do work to draw the flap into alignment I found I had to give the board a bit of a slap to get it over the initial reluctance to mate I mean slide into precise alignment. I hope that a cone of about a 60 degree angle will therefore have a longer period of gradually centering and so not need the same amount of persuasion.

 

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Conical dowels in fang-mode have to be a good idea, though. Old-style high voltage electrical switchgear often has very precisely-fitting parts that are aligned that way, and it definitely works, gently pulling heavy components into alignment.

The story of the lifting flap starts here:

 

It's inspired by a design developed by a friend and fellow BRMA member in Adelaide (go back a few posts before that one to see his). I added the fourth dowel later when I realised there was indeed enough room for it. All four dowels align nicely every time and there is enough friction to hold the flap in place, although I've left the magnetic strip in place as it maintains the vertical alignment.

 

Here's a short video of it in operation:

 

 

[Harlequin]

I used the "fang" technique for the bridge section on my test layout too, but in stalagmite orientation...

 

It wasn't built to be regularly opened and closed - I just duck under most of the time. The dowels really only like exactly parallel movement so it takes a bit of wiggling and lifting at both ends to lift the bridge off. Some sort of conical devices would be much better. (Are the DCC Concepts things conical?) Notice that the landing block is bolted on, not permanently fixed. When things rarely go out of alignment I can slacken off the bolts a bit and tap the block into a better position, then tighten up again.

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Harlequin

[Nearholmer]

Adjustable landing is another good idea, thanks.

[Regularity]

14 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

For Regularity, I can only apologise and assure him I wasn't firing my shots towards his installation, just accept it as an unfortunate riccochet.

Not my layout, hence my comments about supporting the layouts at shows. 
The hinges were high quality, and the workmanship appropriate to someone who designed and built medical instruments.

Quality materials and quality craftsmanship always pay.

[Martin S-C]

I might go for this option, a fully removable plank with 4 location dowels seems very simple and less prone to warping via the hinge end. With the new DCC concepts power-linking dowels its easier too.

After looking at the branch terminus and swinging it about and adjusting the storage loops and faffing this way and that I think I'll stay with this now. So essentially we are done.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Martin S-C

[brumtb]

Martin

Its been an interesting and entertaining experience watching the layout's evolution (if this is the final version??) can't wait to see it become reality.

Following your decision making has made me think again about the unfinished part of my layout.  Unfinished because I wasn't happy with it but didn't realise! 

Best wishes

Tony

 

[Martin S-C]

I have found it both entertaining and enlightening as well, and its great to be able to make use of the skills of the forum's "virtual model railway club". Really so nice to have so much helpful input from so many skilled and experienced modellers.

Next job - signalling diagram!

And for comparison, this is where we started. Only the basic main terminus and general colliery layout have survived!

[Schooner]

4 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

So essentially we are done.

 

Congratulations! It has an awful lot going for it - the colliery in particular is glorious - and I've enjoyed playing trains on it in my head through this development phase

 

That being said, please forgive the following which is now entirely for my own benefit, intended as a 'road not taken' bit of whimsy and certainly no slight to Plan Nine intended...but:

 

I find the main station somehow unconvincing. 

 

Wondering what to do about this (I find messing about with other people's perfectly reasonable trackplans to be far superior to making any progress on my own!), I looked back at the starting post for this flurry of layout-designing activity. As I understand it, the priorities for this layout, roughly ordered, are

• storage yard [essential]
• mainline terminus, with developed goods facilities [Hunstanton]
• colliery [Ackthorpe]
• branchline terminus, with goods facilities
• circuit

The final basic design (roundy circuit, junction station, rising branch to terminus) is tried and tested. It's good, ticks many operational boxes, and allows for a large central operating well which seemed a big plus. So, the fundamental format stays.

 

There's no particular reason why the priorities, which include two termini, couldn't work with this framework. The lightbulb moment was the recollection of Henley-in-Arden, which was served by a fetching BLT:

...some of whose routes were rendered obsolete by the GWR who drove a twin-track main line along the other side of town. An extension was built between the two to allow the early terminus station to be bypassed:

In time, the branch was closed and the terminus became goods-only, with the stub of the old branchline as a headshunt. Fascinating. More info at the wonderful Warwickshire Railways.

 

A similar scheme would free Hunstanton to be a 'true' terminus, at high level, without becoming too wide, if its facilities were arranged thus (hopefully legible):

L-R: Terminus passenger station, curving round to goods facilities (front) followed by engine facilities (rear), and gas works. There could even be semi-scenic kickback carriage sidings into the lower-left corner of the shed. The mainline could start descending straight after the goods connections, with the gasworks served by a spur.

 

Keeping the same footprints as Plan Eight (the latest then available) might give something like:

 

Were it me, I'd be tempted to copy H-in-A more closely and place it on the 'top' of the layout (where Hunstanton is on New Plan Nine), and encourage the colliery to settle in the lower-right corner, where the setting could excuse the visual impact of the tighter radius curves. Branch and mainline could run behind it as their elevations closed, meeting in a junction at the throat of H-in-A. Sorry for not showing this, I haven't got access to trackplanning software at the moment and alternatives were too messy to be useful.

 

Sorry also not to have been able to do a better job illustrating the idea in general, but hopefully it makes sense? 

 

Final apologies for saying anything at all at this point! Perhaps it could still be useful to you, or someone else on here, one day. Even if not, I enjoyed thinking through it all and thought I might as well share. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Schooner
Claritee. Spellink

[Martin S-C]

Yes, I can see there's plenty of options to fit the basic scheme into the same space.

I count myself fortunate that I have the large space that I do, and right away I started to doodle something entirely different but will just keep that private and play about with it simply for the experience of getting more adept at the planning software.

 

BTW - have you a link please to where you got the Hunstanton track plan from?

Edited December 19, 2020 by Martin S-C