Installing Point Rodding

[The Fatadder]

Having finally started work on the ballasting on Brent, I have one thing which is blocking more progress.   The plan is that I am going to fit ModelU point rodding, however right now (thanks to the current CV19 situation) my modelling budget is rather non existent.  As such  I need to work out how to progress the layout with what I have available, the plan is to ballast and then fit the point rodding at a later date.  

 

Anyway on to my question.

 

I am interested to hear more about how people have installed point rodding, in particular installing after ballasting had been completed.  

 

Is it a case of installing the rodding stalls on top of / drilled through the ballast, or do you need to add small bases and ballast around them?  I know ModelU sell the prototypical solution of concrete bases onto which the stalls mount (but the aforementioned budgetary constraints prevent that route)

[The Great Bear]

I put mine on bits of card glued onto the ballast see here and following posts. My thinking being the card more or less looks like the top of concrete I shaped bases...

[31A]

As it happens I've just got around to doing this on my layout, albeit not using the ModelU rollers but making my own.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/83030-train-spotting-at-finsbury-square/page/24/#comments

 

The track has been laid for years and I had ballasted the actual track but not the 'six foot' between the lines (although the cork had been painted), so I was able to just glue the stools down to the cork underlay.  Then afterwards I added some ground cover 'grot' around the rodding stools; actually it's a mixture of fine sand, Cascamite powdered wood glue and black powder paint, brushed around the area and then glued down with Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement!

[The Fatadder]

Thanks to both, I am just ballasting the track to start with (with the 6ft to follow later on when I source an appropriate product to use).  The area I was most concerned with was the gap between platform and track (given its the tightest clearance wise and will be ballasted right up to the platform wall). I think gluing the card stalls down on top of the ballast will do the job there.

 

Whereas the rest of the layout will be a bit easier, with the decision on the approach differed until I start adding the ash/fine ballast either side of the track 

[Pete the Elaner]

We want point rodding on the club layout we are building.

The menmber who is most knowlegable about signalling (a 14 year old , who we encourge to speak his mind) is keen on installing the point rodding before any ballasting is done because he feels it is the best time to do it.

[down the sdjr]

7 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

We want point rodding on the club layout we are building.

The menmber who is most knowlegable about signalling (a 14 year old , who we encourge to speak his mind) is keen on installing the point rodding before any ballasting is done because he feels it is the best time to do it.

Point rodding before ballast everytime.

[Paul Cram]

We are modelling Hawes and the point rodding through the platform has the stools on the end of the sleepers.

[Siberian Snooper]

I would fit the stools, but not the rodding, prior to ballasting. Once the ballast was set and weathered, I would then add the rodding after giving it a coat of Gun blue, if it's the old style round rodding.

 

 

[bike2steam]

No, it's not easy 'planting' a compensator baseplate where there's already ballast!!!!

[Grovenor]

I would go for 31A/Siberian Snooper, stools before ballast, stools can be plasticard. I also have some to do shortly.

[Captain Kernow]

Rich - some good advice on here, but in my experience (I've done both point rodding after ballast and after), always, always do the point rodding first.

 

It is so much easier that way.

 

In my experience, I cannot stress this enough. Putting the point rodding in on Bleakhouse Road after the ballasting was rather a pig of a job. When it came to Callow Lane, I resolved to learn the lesson and do the rodding prior to ballasting.

 

This way, if you are using metal components (as I do), then you can happily solder away, knowing that you won't damage the ballasting. Also, priming and painting the rodding won't discolour the ballast. I found it just so much easier to do it that way round.

 

But most of all, it's about getting the rodding run level and parallel with the track and at the correct height with relation to the railhead. That is a lot harder to get right if you're laying it on ballast.

 

If you really can't bring yourself to wait to do the ballasting, then the idea of installing stools is a sensible one, but do make sure that the stools are installed before the ballast!

 

Also, I would definitely NOT use card for the stools. Use plasticard if you can, of the appropriate thickness. That way you don't get any nonsense with card distorting or fraying at the edges as a result of the glue used for the ballast affecting it.

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Captain Kernow

[The Fatadder]

Thanks for all the advice. 

 

I have gone for the fit the stalls prior to ballasting, then build the rodding  off layout, paint and glue in place.   The first batch of slabs was glued in place last night (and painted this morning).  I have some modern wagons to try and sell which would fund a first batch of rod / ModelU parts ( though I dont know what the current crisis has done on 2nd hand prices which may sink the idea).  

 

 

[The Fatadder]

I have one more question on point rodding

 

i have been struggling to find photos of the rodding through stations, certainly photos of Brent are not clear enough

 

i am trying to confirm how the rodding was arranged between the platform edge and the track.  In particular the gap between sleeper and the concrete stall, and whether the stall was located in line with or between the sleepers 

[Captain Kernow]

8 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:

I have one more question on point rodding

 

i have been struggling to find photos of the rodding through stations, certainly photos of Brent are not clear enough

 

i am trying to confirm how the rodding was arranged between the platform edge and the track.  In particular the gap between sleeper and the concrete stall, and whether the stall was located in line with or between the sleepers 

My guess is that it may have varied, but you need to consider whether there would be sufficient room to dig foundations for the stools (which were quite deep, think 'tip of iceberg' etc.) in the narrow gap between the sleeper ends and the platform foundations.

 

[31A]

I think sometimes when rodding ran between the platform and the rail, the rollers were fixed to the sleeper ends, without any separate stools.

 

[The Fatadder]

Would that be a standard length sleeper or a longer one?  Certainly makes a lot of sense that they would be fitted to the sleepers given the tight space.  
 

 

I assume at the end of the platform

they would be cranked away from the track? 

the big problem I have found is that photos are always focused on the loco and the area around the rodding all gets a bit blurred 

[Paul Cram]

12 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

I have one more question on point rodding

 

i have been struggling to find photos of the rodding through stations, certainly photos of Brent are not clear enough

 

i am trying to confirm how the rodding was arranged between the platform edge and the track.  In particular the gap between sleeper and the concrete stall, and whether the stall was located in line with or between the sleepers 

We are moodellling Hawes on the Wensleydale branch and the rodding was on the end of normal length sleepers through the platform clearly shown on the photos of the station

[Izzy]

I don't know if these will help at all, but on my little P4 plank I found the need to keep the rodding as far away from the track as possible, right up against the platform wall, and as low as possible as well, to avoid stock catching it. Low outside brake rigging, sand pipes, on locos etc. This was just with 1/2 runs and I have since found the same with another layout in 2mm, keep it as low and as distant from the rail head as is possible. Up against the wall gives room for compensators to be used between them and the track sunk well down.

 

 

I used separate stools on the ends of or mostly between the sleepers and don't know how you'd get on with them on the ends of them if they are standard length. Obviously from Paul Cram's posts it must work okay but just wonder if it might depend on the size/make of the stools/rollers used. My stuff was made using Colin Waites stuff of which I still have supplies.

 

Izzy

[31A]

I don't suppose most people reading this would have it, but there's a lovely picture of a D16 on the front cover of the latest Great Eastern Society Journal.  It's leaving Six Mile Bottom station (on the Cambridge-Ipswich line) in 1956, and in the foreground very clearly a run of two lengths of point rodding, in rollers on the ends of the normal length sleepers.  You can't see the platform as the photographer was standing on it looking forward, but the impression is that the point rodding has run along between the platform and the rail and continues beyond the front of the loco, where there are cranks (seem to be on extended sleepers) which take the rodding under the track in front of the loco.  In the foreground you can see a compensator in one of the runs, on a piece of timber set outside the sleeper ends, parallel the rails.  It's round rodding and presumably GER type rollers; the rodding looks to be about level with the top of the running rails.  The rollers are fixed about half way between the chairs and the ends of the sleepers.

[Paul Cram]

Hawes is P4 and the rodding is no higher than the top of the rail

[Captain Kernow]

7 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

Would that be a standard length sleeper or a longer one?  Certainly makes a lot of sense that they would be fitted to the sleepers given the tight space.  
 

 

I assume at the end of the platform

they would be cranked away from the track? 

the big problem I have found is that photos are always focused on the loco and the area around the rodding all gets a bit blurred 

Rich, if you can't find any suitable photos of Brent, why not look at other GWR stations and copy that practice?

 

[w124bob]

For those wanting more info about point rodding The 2mm Finescale Association have a book which may be of use http://www.2mm.org.uk/products/nms/index.html

Third one down and it's available to nonmembers.