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Balley-yn-Eas


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355608065_850x1650Loopv33BTPlan.jpg.e4bc95d209af339844bfa7be7e3f9e6a.jpg

Proposed 009 layout 850mm x 1650mm with a fiddle yard 10mm below station level, giving a gradient of approx 1.3% on the 'main line', and a mine working 50mm above station level up a rather steep(?) 2.7% gradient.

 

Fiddle yard to mine working has a minimum clearance of  approx 50mm; 60mm less board and track thickness.  The passing loop should just about accommodate 3 coach L&BR (Lingague & Ballachurry Railway) stock hauled by freelance Fourdees motive power.  The mine working will have its own motive power (stabled on the short rightward facing stub) to allow locos to be released from trains arriving at the mine.  Minimum radius is 9 inches.  Turnouts are all Peco live frog medium.

 

Salvaged remains of my late father's long demolished garden shed (as a keen 2mm and IoMR 00n3 modeller he'd have been highly amused by this) are currently being used to construct a 'prototype' and if that test rig proves the gradients and loops to be workable I'll think about purchasing decent materials for the construction of a substantive baseboard.  Meanwhile, as it's over 40 years since I've built anything and this is my first foray into 009, having previously been an N Gauge modeller, your considered thoughts and wisdom would be appreciated.  Has anyone successfully used DCC Concepts 'Power Base' to improve traction on 009 layout gradients?    Plan and 3D views generated using AnyRail.

 

850 x 1650 Loop v33 BT_3D.jpg

850 x 1650 Loop v33 BT_3D 3.jpg

850 x 1650 Loop v33 BT_3D 5.jpg

850 x 1650 Loop v33 BT_3D 7.jpg

Edited by Chris Williamson
Grammatical correction to Topic Name.
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That is interesting, your plan is broadly similar to the 009 layout I have recently started building, although mine is only 1200 x 600.

 

009.png.e73f845ac4f1bf5a9f63e5b3547b5299.png

 

I have a 2% slope using Woodland Scenics incline set. the loop at the top is intended to feed to another board in due course, hence the point that leads nowhere. I did a test with a Bachmann Baldwin and 2%, 3% and 4% slopes and, whilst I have not ruled out using the DCC Concepts Powerbase, I don't think it will be needed. This YouTube video seems to suggest that it works quite well. Ok, there is no load, but the line is curved:

 

 

Be interesting to see how you get on.

 

Roy

Edited by Roy Langridge
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Thanks Roy.  Your test video is enlightening.  I've attempted a crude load test with a straight length of track over a range of gradients and a successful result appeared to be directly proportional to the weight of the loco and the number of axles attached in just the way you would expect. However, I was slightly surprised at how quickly the load and / or gradient overwhelmed the traction available.  This is the primary reason for constructing a quick and dirty framework on which to trial the essence of the final layout.  I don't want to expend a lot of time, effort and money on something that isn't going to be capable of being operated as I'd hoped for.  Time will tell, hopefully over the next few weeks, other commitments permitting.

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Progress over the weekend at Balla-yn-eas or more correctly Balley yn Eas - but not to be confused with the former station at the place with the completely anglicised name Ballanass:

 

The temporary* test frame has all but been completed. The salvage from the shed included a couple of large and mostly sound sheets of 6mm ply that had been used to insulate the inside of the back wall.  This has been cut to form the track-bed.  The track-bed for the mine working will be tackled once test track laying has been completed on the lower levels.  I want to avoid the complexity of track laying under previously built structures.  And I wanted to establish the feasibility of the mainline gradient and minimum radius at the earliest opportunity.

 

The photos show one gradient laid, along with the passing loop in the station.  Three coach trains have successfully negotiated the combined gradient and radius between fiddle yard and station and there is sufficient clearance in the station loop to allow three coach trains to pass.  The sharp eyed amongst you may have spotted the odd minor deviation from the template plan.  I'm not convinced that the AnyRail library drawings are an exact rendition of the Peco turnouts and this discrepancy is most noticeable where turnouts are combined, with a small geometry error in one being magnified across three used together.  I've also allowed for a little more easement than on the original plan and, of course, it's well nigh impossible to glue several A4 sheets together without again introducing errors over the length of the plan.  That said, so far so good and I'm please with the results!

 

Still to come: completing the loop and building and laying the gradient up to the mine working.

 

A parting thought: If the station and village of Balley yn Eas sits in the bottom of Glion Eas, with the waterfall of Eas Mooar Bane at its head, what would be the name of the ridge or rheynn on the slopes of which the mine working is located?

 

Footnote re Temporary*

I'm beginning to wonder if this frame could, with a little more bracing and support become the finished article?  Is 6mm ply, possibly doubled / laminated in places so as to make it 12mm, a viable base in the long term or will I come to regret not having used something more substantial?

 

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IMG_2433.JPG

IMG_2440.JPG

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A little more progress on Balley yn Eas  yesterday.  Firstly the loop has been completed.  Hopefully the link to the video of the first run works and those interested can see this OK?  I've created a YouTube channel especially, though I'm rather wary of security and privacy issues around Google accounts.

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8o-VrUHvpbO_db9jlg_4FA

 

The 'scenic, curtains were drawn to even out the light levels.  Note to self: next time I'll wait until evening to get better lighting.

 

Since completing the loop, I've relaid the end of the fiddle yard where the mine working line crosses over. This to get a better alignment for the viaduct buttresses against the 'main line'. And a start has been made on the gradient up to the mine, though more work is still needed to maintain a smooth transition into the climb and to ensure an even gradient thereafter. Next installment to follow once that's sorted, but not sure how soon that will be.

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A gradient up to 1 in 30 should just about be manageable by short 009 trains, though it does depend on the loco and the weight of the train, and the sharp curves won't help. Do make sure gradient transitions are gradual to avoid uncoupling problems.

 

6mm ply will be sufficient as a track base if well supported, but you'll need lots of supports to ensure the correct gradient anyway. 

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Having taken encouragement from Michael Campbell's observations, work has slowly but steadily progressed on Balley-yn-Eas.  Forming the track-bed for the line up to the site of the mineworking on the slopes of Rheynn Eas has required a degree of due care and attention to ensure an even gradient on the climb and a level area at the top of the climb.

 

Once work was underway it became apparent that the mineworking to fiddle yard vertical clearance was going to require an additional 5mm.  Happily a degree of prototype construction, enabled by an assortment of G clamps, uncovered this problem at an early stage.  The final viaduct, where the mineworking line crosses the main line, will now form part of the gradient rather than being on the level and the overall gradient remains unchanged at about 2.7%.  Also, following delivery of same, the test fitting of a Cobalt point motor highlighted the need to increase the (plan view) horizontal clearance between mineworking and fiddle yard; achieved by moving the upper line further into the baseboard and trimming the inner edge of the fiddle yard track bed to make it narrower by a couple of cm.  The layout of the fiddle yard itself remains unchanged.

 

Track has been laid.  Trains have been run.  And, at last, success can be reported.

 

Not of the best quality, but here are a few photos to give you a better idea of progress:

Plan_View.JPG

Junction View.jpg

Running over First Viaduct.jpg

View across Mine towards Station.jpg

View across Station towards Mine.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

There hasn't been a great amount of progress with Balley yn Eas since the last posting.  However, I've finally found the time to work out how to edit video clips.  So here's a link to brief footage of the test running shown in the photos above.

 

 

With only limited opportunities to make progress since early September, efforts have firstly concentrated on sorting minor niggles with track laying and alignment.  If I can recall any meaningful lesson from my N Gauge days, it's that it's too easy to lay track and launch straight into scenery building, only afterwards coming to realise that there were niggles that could then not readily be corrected and that would forever-after frustrate smooth and reliable running.

 

Work has also started on a collection of quick and dirty cardboard mock-up buildings.   A few more of these are needed yet to be able to play with ideas for the structures within the station boundaries and for the village of Balley yn Eas.  Photos to come in due course.  The mine working will need rather more research.  So there'll be a few days out to the sites of local workings, a trawling through the excellent photo archive of the Manx Museum and doubtless plenty of correspondence with a couple of contacts who graduated from the Camborne School of Mines many moons ago.  After all, it's one thing to look at an old photograph of the tangle of machinery involved in the processing of lead ore but another thing entirely to understand exactly what was going on and therefore how best to capture the essence of that in a model.  Clearly all of this isn't going to readily fit in the space I have available:

 

 https://www.imuseum.im/search/archive_record/view?id=mnh-museum-694279&type=archive&tab=all&from=0&term=washing+floor&size=20&sort=&filter=&view=&images=&ttmgp=0&rfname=&rlname=&machine=&race=&raceyear=&linked=0&pos=0

 

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  • 3 months later...

Experimental work has been progressing on a number of fronts.  Most effort has been expended on cardboard mock-up buildings.  This resulted in the temptation to start construction of a couple of structures that I felt confident about.

The main elements of a water tower and the goods shed have been put together with the intention of competing final assembly once the various details have been painted.  Having been unable to find a commercially available representation of slate walling, I've taken to adapting Wills irregular stone sheets.  However my biggest challenge has been in deciding on how to paint this to best represent Manx slate.  Unlike, say, Welsh slate, this is not uniformly grey, but rather a mix of hues with reds and yellows (iron oxide?) as well as blue / green all identifiable on an underlying background of various shades of grey but well nigh impossible to describe or, to my mind, represent at 4mm to the ft!

 

I've taken one approach with the base of the water tower - based on a pale grey mortar, stones painted individual shades of grey and then, once dry, a light bushing over with a thinned down rust and a little cream.  All paints are Humrol matt enamel.  I'm less convinced by the effect I've created on the goods shed.  Here I've used more than one thinned-down colour per stone prior to any of it drying.  This, possibly coupled with the fact that the mortar is a darker grey, has lead to a rather muddy looking effect in my opinion.

 

Comments, constructive criticism, thoughts and suggestions are now eagerly sought before I move on.  Please don't be shy!

 

Hopefully the following photos will give you some idea of where I've got to - Water Tower in this post and Goods Shed in a following post as they are quite large:

 

 

 

 

Water Tower 003.jpg

Water Tower 004.jpg

Edited by Chris Williamson
Correcting Typos
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Very nice buildings, neatly made, and the painting is very effective - it looks convincing to me.

 

Despite using matt enamels some of the photos show a bit of a sheen, which will take away a little realism as stone walls are about as matt as matt gets (unless it's raining!). Ideas for reducing the sheen are:

  • A weathering wash of well thinned brown - I apply this to most buildings anyway, both to make them look weathered and to emphasise shadows
  • A dusting with talcum powder, or weathering powders
  • A coat of matt varnish - before fitting the glazing. I use Testors Dullcote.

To avoid enamels looking shiny (yes even the matt ones) I don't stir them. Instead I remove the pigment (with a matchstick) as I need it to a palette - a Ferrero Rocher tray with the insert has lots of useful hollows to use - then add enamel thinners. I think the gloss comes from the oil in the paint. This also makes it very easy to mix colours.

Edited by mjcampbell
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Nile,  Having seen the very high standard of your work, that is a compliment indeed.  Thank you.

Michael, Again, thank you for the complement.  You are quite right about the sheen in the photos and it this is one of the issues bothering me.  In reality, the effect is gloss in parts and I had wondered how to deal with this.  I will most certainly be trying out your tips!

 

Having mulled over the two approaches I've taken to painting I'm now minded to restart the shed and stick to the style adopted for the water tower base as the darker elements of the shed stonework are too brown in appearance to my liking.  Further updates when I get the chance to make some progress.

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An aside to the observation in my earlier post about the lack of suitable off-the-shelf material for modelling slate walling:

 

There's been some discussion elsewhere on the forum regarding the 009 announcements in the Peco 2020 Spring Report - https://mcusercontent.com/447cc01a867103118302481e1/files/3c31b010-9685-4c9d-83f4-974a2868c92a/Peco_Spring_Report_2020.pdf (page 9), but I was also very happy to notice the note, hidden away at the bottom of page 7, regarding the forthcoming availability of Slate Wall in the range of Wills Material Sheets. I wonder how long it will be before its available to buy in the shops?

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On 26/01/2020 at 18:32, Chris Williamson said:

Comments, constructive criticism, thoughts and suggestions are now eagerly sought before I move on.  Please don't be shy!

You have one thing in common my new engine shed where it was pointed out that I didn't have down pipes from the gutters. ^_^

I am not sure about tackling that one yet, I need to work out how to bend plastic pipe nicely 

 

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2 hours ago, Stephen Rainsbury said:

You have one thing in common my new engine shed where it was pointed out that I didn't have down pipes from the gutters. ^_^

I am not sure about tackling that one yet, I need to work out how to bend plastic pipe nicely 

 

I use round plastic rod heated and softened with a heat gun set on low heat . Very easy to form the characteristic 'swan neck' shape and then trim to length. You can even drill a small hole in the gutter so the top of the down-pipe locates securely.

Edited by happyChappy
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I've got a supply of Wills down pipes ready to be made up, painted and fitted once the stonework is satisfactorily finished. Heating gently to form the swan-neck sounds like a good plan to me as does drilling a small hole in the gutter. I'm currently working on a small Ratio kit signal box at the moment (while still contemplating how best to paint the stonework) and, indeed, the gutters are supplied with holes to secure the top of the preformed down pipes. 

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6 hours ago, Chris Williamson said:

I've got a supply of Wills down pipes ready to be made up, painted and fitted once the stonework is satisfactorily finished. Heating gently to form the swan-neck sounds like a good plan to me as does drilling a small hole in the gutter. I'm currently working on a small Ratio kit signal box at the moment (while still contemplating how best to paint the stonework) and, indeed, the gutters are supplied with holes to secure the top of the preformed down pipes. 

I have some from a nondescript packet but they are a bit short so I like the idea of bending plastic, however I am going to glue mine under the guttering so you won't be able to see if there is a hole of not. I just need to make some brackets to support it now :(

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  • 1 year later...

Long overdue, but here at last, an update!  Following up on advice kindly given on this forum, I've worked on thinning down the Humbrol oil paint I've been using as well as adding talcum powder. Still not quite there if I'm honest, but I think this is a great improvement on the previous finish.  Though I've only just noticed that I should have cleaned the dust off prior to getting the camera out.  Work has also started on an IoMR inspired cattle dock.

 

In other news, the layout wiring is all but complete.  Working on the electrics consumed a large part of last year and took far longer to complete than I'd ever anticipated.  I'll endeavour to post more news soon.

 

Talking of cattle, I acquired some Nine-Lines W&L van kits some while back and, on going back to order more kits, have discovered that the business has apparently ceased to trade, possibly due to retirement.  Does anyone here know more?  It would be good to hear that production and supply of these lovely kits was going to be taken on by someone else, but I've no idea if there's any likelihood of that happening?

Goods Shed 010.JPG

Goods Shed 011.JPG

Edited by Chris Williamson
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As noted in the previous post, a good part of last year was spent working on things electrical.  Power for earlier test running relied on two lengths of pre-wired Peco set-track, one on each of the innermost and outermost fiddle yard roads, with just the innermost and outermost rails being connected.  So long as a through path was selected on the complete loop it was possible to power a loco on that path or alternatively up to the mine.  This, of course, precluded running on the station yard or the loco spur at the mine.

 

So the time came to take a deep breath and get started.  The wiring, however, couldn't be undertaken without considering fitting the Cobalt DCC point motors at the same time.  In an earlier post I mentioned test fitting one of these, for which I glued two scrap pieces of suitably sized 6mm ply together, fitted a Peco medium sized point to one side and, after marking out and drilling as required, the Cobalt motor to the other.   This confirmed two things: that there's little tolerance available in getting the motor placed correctly given the total throw offered by the motor - so accuracy of marking out prior to fitting was going to be paramount; that the mounted motor was going to be deeper than the current baseboard frame by some margin.

 

There followed the purchase of 12mm ply to make a surround for the frame to sufficient depth as would allow for the motors to be fitted and tall enough to provide a profile for the surrounding scenery once that's complete.   Joinery isn't one of my strong points and I was relieved when this 'retofitting' was tidily completed.  There was the added benefit of enough 'leftover' to make a rack for the Cobalt Alpha DCC accessory power bus kit and a control panel to house all the conventional DC track power controllers and switching.

 

The Operators side of the layout now looks like this:

 

142654424_OperatorsSide.JPG.bea2858f27089445b93f0a4d3ca47cfa.JPG

 

With a rough experimental control panel made out of corrugated card; I've some leftover acrylic sheet stashed for the final version; two controllers can be in use at any one time and at the moment one of these can be switched over to a plug-in walkabout; Cobalt Alpha Mimic will indicate the road set:

 

20276986_ControlPanelRough.JPG.1ea2a6dd6632d032f83346b0b5e3c456.JPG

 

And access to the main part of the fiddle yard is here:

 

582895094_MainFYAccess.JPG.8446ec53780e2e43d270e2a6f46043da.JPG

 

and to the far end of the outermost long fiddle yard road here:

 

660050351_LongFYRoadAccess.JPG.35b29d69ddc416e5713e4c84f8e2e60c.JPG

 

Finally, I wanted to check there was useable access to the main part of the fiddle yard once the scenery was in place.  This led to time spent mocking up a potential mineworking scene.  More cardboard:

 

1009626484_MineViewRough.JPG.2ca88156cd4f602207af5ce7c4b76f75.JPG

 

Chimneys and engine houses inspired by Snuff-the-Wind / Cross's and Cornelly mines.  The workshop is a cut-down caricature of the building that once sat on the north edge of the Laxey washing-floors. The loco shed is very roughly based on the one at the late lamented Peel station.

 

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The IoMR inspired cattle dock is nearing completion.  Based as much as anything on a couple of photos taken at St John's and interpretation of photos from Kirk Michael, Crosby and Ballasalla.

 

1325644095_CattlePens03.JPG.a3ded0de3a7494ec451176ab1b25b3fe.JPG

 

I'll prime and paint the pens prior to fixing down.  I suspect it will be too difficult to get a decent finish otherwise.  Apologies for close-up distortion.  The fencing is, in reality, all square, contrary to appearances in the photo.

 

904703114_CattlePens02.JPG.a711cae3be4a499279a8dab39240fa90.JPG

 

The track-side gates have been built to align with two coupled Nine-Lines W&L vans.  The shed doors have yet to be attached and downspouts are still required

 

655009867_CattlePens01.JPG.a00c7cf5ca854987bd64798f894e42d8.JPG

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Painting the cattle dock continues.  Following advice kindly given here previously, I'm working with well thinned paint and a modicum of talc.  This is a slow process with the need to build up the layers of colour on both stonework and woodwork, a good sunny day, the absence of the very sensitive nose of the domestic authorities - Humbrol enamel thinners is not, apparently, a perfume in fashion and the need for at least a couple of days drying time between coats.

 

With the need to make use of what time was available otherwise, I've started work on the framework for the scenery that caps the fiddle-yard; this is the element for which I made the corrugated card mock-up shown in the photos a couple of posts back.  I had pondered awhile as to how to go about this.  Inspired by other threads here, I hit on 5mm foamboard as the solution.  Some while ago I tracked down an on-Island source and a couple of sheets were acquired.

 

Here's a couple of pictures to give you an idea of the task so far:

 

Underside of the lower terrace with the marking out started for the upper terrace.

 

IMG_2798.JPG.29507755f49f22df832e788733dc17c0.JPG

 

 

The lower terrace the 'scenery-side' up.

 

IMG_2802.JPG.9bb3058432841c223ffb4a3ab744c82b.JPG

 

 

Edited by Chris Williamson
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