Ramsgate Sands

[RScore]

This new layout which I'm calling 'Ramsgate Sands' is an N scale model of Ramsgate Harbour station which closed in 1926.

With modellers licence, this layout imagines that the station survived - with minor changes - until the late 1950's just prior to phase 1 of the Kent Coast electrification in 1959. if you wish to see images of the original station, just Google 'Ramsgate Harbour station'. I have not included any here due to copyright issues.

 

I started the build in mid-March just around the time that Covid-19 lockdown began, to help keep me sane, enjoy our hobby, and achieve a long-held desire to build a near-replica of Ramsgate Harbour station.

 

As at mid-April 2019, the baseboards are largely complete, legs all done too and track laying has just started. The first image shows the track plan drawn out on a large sheet of brown paper to accurately position points, etc.  The second image shows the baseboards laid out in my driveway, clearly showing the position of the turntable at the country end of the station, the fiddle yard being furthest from the camera. The third image shows the early stages of track laying around what will be the tunnel mouth.

[RScore]

It's been one of those weeks with a lot of thinking & designing solutions to various issues.

 

I managed to work out the shape of the down platform base and cut it from 9mm ply (see image). The 'Up' side was more challenging, as it has the main station building at the rear and I've no precise measurements for it. The closest I can get to it's dimensions is the 25-inches to the mile map of 1872! That gives the rough overall size, but the detail I had to work out/estimate from the photos taken at Fawley Hill of their model of the station building.

 

Having sorted that out, I was about to lay some track through the station and thought I'd better take a look at the turntable kit to check track levels. Just as well I did, because the Peco kit assumes use of code 55 finescale (ok) plus Peco underlay (not Ok - this layout doesn't use underlay).

So here was a dilemma: raise the track 2mm on the turntable (TT) approach or lower the TT ?

Raising the track would cause difficulties with clearances to the platforms and raising platform levels at one end would make for an uneven base for the station building. Didn't fancy that. So lowering the turntable by 2mm it is.

 

To complicate things further (!), in the photos you will see that I've reduced the length of the turntable deck by about 30mm. The Peco TT as supplied is a scale 75-foot in diameter. In real life, the TT was about 45 foot. In the mid-1920's the SR installed a 60-foot TT at Margate, so that's the length chosen to model here.The images show the various components. Note there's also an Expo motor drive to fit (see image) which requires a structure under the TT to mount it on.

 

Did anyone say railway modelling was easy?

 

All the best & stay safe,

 

Rob 

[RScore]

This week has largely focussed on getting the remaining track down in the scenic part of the layout. Just before laying track on the up side, I happened to take a look at the working semaphore signals to be installed. Just as well, because these require a hole 13mm in diameter (see photo of signal, loosely positioned in one hole, with the hole cut for it's neighbour).

Now one of these signals needs to go in the 'six foot' between the Up Bay platform road and its adjacent siding. Cue a minor mod to the track plan to allow for this 13mm  hole before then laying the remainder of the track on the up side of the station (see photo).

Turning to the three carriage sidings, I'd left the woodwork around the tunnel mouth and the zig-zag steps (in real life, the Alexandra Steps) until finalising the design of the zig-zag steps & footbridge. Cue further design work on the steps' dimensions, then cutting the final pieces of plywood to form the tunnel mouth and adjacent cliff. After the glue set on that, the 3 sidings were then laid (see photo).
 

Thoughts then turned to the wiring - and the control panel. More on that next week!

[David Bell]

Well done. This is really starting to look the part from what I have seen of the prototype on the net.

What are you thinking for the overall roof? Quite a challenge especially in n.

 

It is a challenge I am facing too albeit in oo for Glasgow Queen Street

Cheers David

[RScore]

Re the query on the overall roof, this will be built with plastruct and OO scale corrugated sheeting to represent asbestos cladding. I've yet to work out the detailed design, which is many weeks away yet.

 

This week, I've got to admit, is not the most exciting piece of modelling. But it's all part of making a model work - and hopefully work reliably!

 

The control panel is now fully wired up and firmly attached to the baseboard. The photo this week (just the one) shows the results. I spent many hours this week soldering up wires to switches, continually checking against the wiring diagram. And making on-the-fly alterations to reduce the 'travel' of certain wires. Then, after attaching the control panel to the baseboard using a couple of hinges, I connected up the wires to some 50-odd terminals. It will not escape your notice that a lot of the wires are the same colour. This can't be avoided, as there aren't that many colours of wire available. So I will be bunching wires together in six separate sections, and within each section most of the wires will have different colours.

[thirty2a]

spooky! just started a OO project called Ramsgate town ! similar licence used, not posted anything as yet but watching this one ...

[RScore]

Having wired up the control panel, next on the list is to fix and wire in point motors.

The tortoise motors come with a paper template but I'm not using it. The method here is to glue them in place using a hot glue gun.

First I take a part-assembled point motor with the sliding fulcrum flush with the base. On the baseboard top, centralise the point blades so they are mid-way between the stock rails. Under the baseboard, carefully position the point motor lining up the motor's hole with the point slider's hole. Mark position of motor with biro on two adjacent sides. Then add the actuating rod onto the point motor and slide the fulcrum down to the desired position. Then glue the point motor on using the hot glue gun. Only once during placing 12 motors on did I find the motor glued in the wrong position. So with a twisting motion I managed to remove the point motor and glue it in the correct place.

 

I tested every motor after gluing on to ensure the blades fitted snugly against the stock rail in both positions. Having done all that, I found that one or two points (see photo) weren't fixed down as well as I thought they'd been and the track was out of alignment. Quickly fixed with a track pin or two.

 

In the photo showing ten point motors glued in position, you'll notice I've marked up not only all the point motors, but also which wire belongs to which frog, etc. The wooden blocks - glued in - are for fixing small terminal connectors to, as plywood is a little thin and hard to screw into.

[eastwestdivide]

Oh, interesting choice of location.

Have you visited the tunnels, which are (normally) open as a tourist attraction?

Below, my 1985 shot of the roof of the 'Pleasurama' amusement arcade, as the site had then become:

 

And from 2015, the entrance to the tunnels, plus a shot inside:

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by eastwestdivide

[RScore]

In answer to the above, no I haven't visited the tunnels. The last time I was in this tunnel was in the days of the Ramsgate Tunnel Railway up to Hereson. The tunnel mouth is going to be quite a challenge to model with all that fancy brickwork!

 

Now the hassle of my house move is done, it's great to be back to "normal".

 

This layout was designed from the start to be portable. I'd planned for the two scenic boards to be bolted together with end plates for transport. But I'd not bargained for the sheet weight of scenic 'B' board once it had a control panel added and 14 point motors (12 already fitted).

 

One of the fiddle yard boards - board D - required minor surgery (a bit cut out off at the buffer stops end) so I could get in and out of the modelling room when the layout was put up in full. So to get round the transport issue I decided to use board D, when turned upside down in transit, as a cradle for one of the scenic boards. So minor surgery turned into a complex carpentry job.

 

The 'before and after' photos of board D help tell the story. As this board will have no point motors underneath, I also took the opportunity to reduce weight by completely cutting off the bottom 50mm all round.

 

Wiring has re-started - more on that next week.

[sandwich station]

On 05/07/2020 at 06:00, eastwestdivide said:

Oh, interesting choice of location.

Have you visited the tunnels, which are (normally) open as a tourist attraction?

Below, my 1985 shot of the roof of the 'Pleasurama' amusement arcade, as the site had then become:

 

 

I seem to remember that this caught fire a few years ago.

 

 

 

[RScore]

Due to the unseasonably good weather in September progress has been slower than usual. But now I'm back to wiring - and there's lots of it. So much so that much thought went into the order to wire items up in.

 

First wires to go in were the black and red droppers attached to the track and to the two buzz bars (bare copper wire), as these were closest to the underside of the baseboard. Then wire up the point frogs, then finally the point motors as these wires are furthest from the underside.

 

To help reduce congestion of wiring and ease fault finding, I bunched the wires into looms. In the photo, I've shown loom "3B" which had at that moment been connected to the control panel switches but before connection to four of the point motors. The idea of setting up wires in looms before fixing them in place comes from my time working in a fork lift truck factory!

 

In the second photo below I've shown the third section of board B. The two point motors have been glued in place, dropper holes all drilled and marked up, and three pieces of wood glued in to support terminal blocks. The three holes marked RS1, RS2 and RS4 are where three signals will be fitted

[RScore]

The last few weeks have not been exciting - just loads more wiring, so I haven't bored you with that. Earlier this week I reached a milestone: two boards completely wired up. So a proud moment loomed: the first opportunity to run a loco on the track under its own power.

Or so I thought. The loco wouldn't budge. Throwing a few section switches on and off revealed a bizarre fault: whenever a section switch was turned on, it caused a short circuit. Except for one: the Goods Shed road.

This had me baffled for a day or two. Prime suspect was the wiring, but the fault didn't match up with any of the circuits. There was nothing for it but to start disconnecting things and see if that helped.

After disconnecting a couple of DC traction wires the penny dropped. I hadn't cut through the copperclad on the copperclad sleepers placed at all the baseboard joints. And the Goods Shed road? Due to the angle it crosses the baseboard joint, that one had been done in two separate (and therefore electrically separate too) pieces of copperclad strip.

The photo showing the five track ends has the Goods Shed road on the extreme left, illustrating the issue described above. The next photo shows what I should have done. The final photo shows the moment of live loco testing today, which was largely a success, apart from running over the three-way point where it repeatedly stalled. More on that issue next week!

[37Oban]

1 hour ago, RScore said:

The last few weeks have not been exciting - just loads more wiring, so I haven't bored you with that. Earlier this week I reached a milestone: two boards completely wired up. So a proud moment loomed: the first opportunity to run a loco on the track under its own power.

Or so I thought. The loco wouldn't budge. Throwing a few section switches on and off revealed a bizarre fault: whenever a section switch was turned on, it caused a short circuit. Except for one: the Goods Shed road.

This had me baffled for a day or two. Prime suspect was the wiring, but the fault didn't match up with any of the circuits. There was nothing for it but to start disconnecting things and see if that helped.

After disconnecting a couple of DC traction wires the penny dropped. I hadn't cut through the copperclad on the copperclad sleepers placed at all the baseboard joints. And the Goods Shed road? Due to the angle it crosses the baseboard joint, that one had been done in two separate (and therefore electrically separate too) pieces of copperclad strip.

The photo showing the five track ends has the Goods Shed road on the extreme left, illustrating the issue described above. The next photo shows what I should have done. The final photo shows the moment of live loco testing today, which was largely a success, apart from running over the three-way point where it repeatedly stalled. More on that issue next week!

Hi,

 

been there, done that!  No doubt will keep doing so despite best intentions!

 

Roja

[Artless Bodger]

On 29/05/2020 at 08:56, RScore said:

This can't be avoided, as there aren't that many colours of wire available.

My brother is an instrument engineer, they use small numbered rings which slip over the wires to code them. I've had a similar problem with power feeds (all red or black), and used small cardboard tags made from cereal box card, with a hole punched near one end, for each pair - not elegant but cheap and cheerful.

 

I like your turntable modification.

 

A nice layout idea, I look forward to seeing it develop - I've toyed with a what if, Ramsgate Sands lasted into BR times, in memory of visits to relatives in Ramsgate in the 60s (though we went by East Kent bus from Margate). Ramsgate Sands station was an amusement arcade by then - Merrie England iirc. It reminded me of the Hornby Dublo station (the cream plastic buildings).

[Artless Bodger]

On 15/11/2020 at 14:54, RScore said:

After disconnecting a couple of DC traction wires the penny dropped. I hadn't cut through the copperclad on the copperclad sleepers placed at all the baseboard joints.

One of my mistakes in the past - I'd used scraps of copperclad recycled from work, and had cut the copper between the rails but still had shorts, I'd overlooked that the copper (on a glass fibre base) was clad both sides, and I'd nailed the pieces to the board edge through pre-drilled holes, thus conducting between the surfaces. Once I'd realised it was cured by cutting topside between the rail and the nail, but it flummoxed me for weeks until I twigged. We'd been scrapping old electrical instruments made in house (had to destroy them so snoopers couldn't reverse engineer them) and I got permission to recover any toggle switches in my own time. This was great, there were what appeared to be 1 pole on / off and 2 pole on / off / on types and saved money when funds were short, but many years later I had recurrent electrical problems, locos moving when the switches were off. I could not fathom the reason and it was a contributory factor to scrapping that layout. Similar problems and shorts occurred with the next layout, it was only when using a magnifier to read the stamped info on the switch I found that a few were on / on / on - problem solved, and I ended up replacing all the switches and bought crimp tag connectors too to avoid having to solder, the wiring is a birds nest but it works.  

[ManofKent]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. I used to work in Ramsgate in the early 90's and know the area well.

[RScore]

Following on from last week I've now completed eight of the nine buffer stops required and show a picture of one here, alongside a pair of modelling pliers to help illustrate how small these are! This is one of six and is to an SECR pattern which seemed perfect for an ex-SECR station. The three buffer stops at the end of the turntable were to a simpler style in real life, so I've picked a GNR style for those three as a close match to reality.

 

You may notice the buffer beam, so to speak, is actually wood. Is this a nod to reality too? Actually, no. Ian Morgan (fellow ex-"Basingstoke Bodger") recommended using real wood rather than the brass metal pieces supplied with the kit. Wood does not conduct electricity, whereas brass does and could cause a short circuit.

 

Building a model railway is a project. And like all projects, you hit unforeseen difficulties. I discovered one pair of switch blades on the three-way point picked up the traction current feed by contact with the adjacent stock rail. And this contact was of poor quality. Added to which, use of the standard Peco three-way point caused the six-foot to widen out (pointed at by the purple pencil in the photo). So I decided - not a decision taken lightly -  to replace the three-way with two RH points to improve looks and more importantly long term reliability. The switch blades on the Unifrog points have a built-in connection to the adjacent stock rail.

 

So most of the last week and a half has been spent re-laying track, moving around the point motors and re-wiring. Photo no.3 shows the new arrangement at the station throat.

 

[Clss71_ro]

Wow - the layout is looking great - no doubt you’ll get to run long summer expresses when all becomes fully operational - keep up the good work. 

[RScore]

A very Happy New Year to you all.

 

With track alterations done attention turned to the control panel. As point 7C, the turnout for the middle station loop, had moved from the country side of turnout 7A to the London side, this had to be reflected in the track plan on the control panel. The first picture illustrates the new holes for the new switch positions with the old holes filled with 2-pack wood filler. The second picture shows the job complete, after re-painting, re-lining and re-lettering.

 

The next thing on the list was to fix in position all the buffer stops.However, the ones at the turntable

couldn't be positioned correctly without the ability to line the turntable deck up accurately against the tracks on the opposite side. So it was time to wire up the Expo turntable motor.

A quick test revealed that even at the maximum allowed 6 volts, the table deck would take no less than 3 minutes just to turn through 180 degrees. What - three minutes to turn a loco round? Not happy with that. So I had to get my head round the instructions to change the gearing in the motor to speed things up. The next two photos show the 'before' and 'after' adjustment to the gear box, with the two gears removed from the gear box shown in the second picture. A loco should now take about 20 seconds to turn round.

 

Now to decide what the switch or switches to wire up to the turntable .....

[RScore]

Having re-geared the turntable drive last week, this week turned to installing the switches. Only one was supplied with the kit - a push-to-make two-way switch. However, installing only that switch would mean having to stand there and push the switch for 20, maybe 30 seconds to turn a loco round. So the idea came to put in an extra two 'on-off' switches to control the turntable movement and direction. That way, the operator could set the turntable in motion and then go do something else.

 

The first photo shows the first attempt, with the complex wiring necessary to make it work. Only it didn't quite work. I discovered on testing that a double-pole switch was needed, not a single pole one as shown. Once the correct switch was in and wired up correctly, I ran a final test of the switches. This revealed that though the motor worked ok and turned the large red toothed gear round, the turntable deck wasn't moving.

 

The second photo shows the large red toothed gear, and the bronze-coloured axle it is mounted on. And therein lay the problem. The axle is too smooth, and any slight obstruction to movement and the gear slips round on the axle. So I removed the red gear, scored the surface of the axle with a file and filed some grooves in the centre hole of  red gear. I smeared some 10-minute epoxy on the axle and re-mounted the red gear. Did it work? I'll tell you next week - it's been left overnight for the glue to set.

 

The last photo shows the three turntable switches now fitted into a small corner behind the backscene.

[RScore]

The Working Timetable (WTT) sequence has now been run through - about a day and a half's worth - the second picture shows this in progress. One of the unexpected discoveries during this was the need to shorten the overall station roof at the country end by about two inches. This will allow the operator to uncouple a loco from it's coaches after arrival in the main down platform. If built as per the original plan, the station roof would be in the way.

 

With the testing done, I dismantled the two scenic boards and turned them on their ends for storage. Alas, I'd forgotten that the 9mm ply piece (about 18 inches long), the base of the Up side station building and platform, was not stuck down. On its downward path to the floor it "demolished" two buffer stops. Demolished? Well, the ply sheet knocked them off. But the buffer stops remained intact. So I've found these brass buffer stops really are robust!

 

Alongside the WTT run through, the signal box was completed - see the third photo. The outside steps do not bear close inspection, but otherwise I'm really pleased with it.

 

The next photo shows the real life 'Augusta Stairs', taken in 2015, after they had been refurbished with new railings and paintwork. Otherwise they are much as I remember them in the 1960's. I could find no clear period photos of the Augusta Stairs prior to closure of Ramsgate Harbour station in 1926. So with modellers licence in mind these have been remodelled in concrete, but to the same  pattern as the post-1926 stairs. To build this 'Zig-zag' staircase requires four Ratio SR concrete bridge kits and some serious kit bashing to adapt it. The last photo shows the double flight of steps from ground level to 35 mm up. From this a 90mm footbridge deck will be launched across to the bottom of the zig-zag. The first photo below (which is upside down, not sure why!) shows the bottom flight of the zig-zag steps in place.

Edited February 14, 2021 by RScore
Photo sequence wrong and some text misspelt

[eastwestdivide]

Those steps always scared me as a nipper when on holiday visits to my grandparents. I think it was the height and the way every second flight is stepped out from the wall.

Any chance of a cameo of a little lad in shorts holding on tight to the railings?!

[ManofKent]

When I worked in Ramsgate a regular walk was along the front to Jacob's Ladder at the Harbour End then back up the Augusta Steps - I'm not sure it did my knees any good.

 

[whart57]

Only just come to this thread, very interesting.

 

I've always felt that if the GWR had produced a trackplan like this - terminus station with carriage sidings in front of a cliff, inside which you can hide the fiddle yard - then it would by now be a worse cliche than Ashburton.

 

Fortunately it was the SECR that did it and it barely survived into the Southern, so it's still fresh.

[RScore]

Many years ago I was browsing a model exhibition and saw a layout with a footbridge close to the front of the layout. And to protect the footbridge, the modeller had placed a suitably contoured piece of wood, painted black, to protect it. Now this may not have been to everyone's taste, but after a moments thought, felt it a good idea. So, many years later, I've done the same to protect the footbridge here (first photo).  The fascia will be painted black .... eventually!.

 

With construction of the north side brick tower now complete, work has started on constructing the south tower (photo 2). As with the north tower, the core box is made in 40 thou white plastikard, apart from the base which is 40 thou black.

 

The zig-zag steps and footbridge, completed last week have now had two coats of acrylic "weathered concrete" paint. Photo 3 shows the zig-zag, footbridge and north tower placed in position, but not yet glued in. The plan is to paint and finish off the brickwork on both towers before gluing in place.