Circularium - An Adventure in N

[AndrueC]

With retirement approaching I needed another hobby. Golf is great but even I have to admit that it's not going to be able to keep me occupied 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. So I'd been thinking of rekindling my interest in model railways. My Dad built my brother and me a layout when we were kids back in the 1970s. I liked it but after we moved house it got taken down and never built back. My brother continued some interest in the hobby (I think he hangs out here sometimes) but I pretty much forgot about it. Now 40 (!) years later I'm picking up where I left off.

 

The purpose of this layout is to develop my skills and see what works and what doesn't. I'm not trying to model anywhere in the real world but I did have specific goals I wanted to achieve. I chose to model in N gauge because one of the goals was that I wanted to model scenery (something we never had as kids) with trains running through it. I only had my spare bedroom and that meant 1.5 x 2.2 metres for the board and I thought an OO layout would look too toy like. I also wanted inclines, with trains actually going over the top of other trains. I have a memory of watching my Dad design our layout (I can't have been more than six at the time) and he wanted inclines but never did put any in. I also wanted a diamond crossing. My Dad had one of these in his 'spare bits' box and I always wished he could have used it somewhere. I wasn't too bothered about shunting. I don't dislike it but I wanted a layout where the trains could largely be left to do their thing while I just watched. The end result of this thought process and time spent with AnyRail was this:

Two inclines rise from left to right on the long sides. The orange area at the right is a mezzanine board which is essential since I only had about 1.7 metres for the track to rise. I love it because it's essential but hate it because..well I'll cover that later. The two central lines rise from right to left eventually meeting the second level. This is a basically U-shaped board on which sits two sets of sidings.

 

My original idea with the sidings were that they were simply somewhere to park trains while they weren't in use. More recent tweaks to the design mean that actually some shunting operations are now possible.

 

But back to the main part of the design. There are two loops (this is why I love N gauge). The outer loop is what it appears to be. A boring oval loop albeit with two inclines and one end being on a raised platform. The inner loop..is not a loop. It's a figure of eight. The crossover happens on the left side, near the quarry hidden under the second level. I told you I wanted to use a diamond crossing  The two loops are connected so that trains can move between them or indeed run them as one long circuit. This is achieved by what I now call 'Wilf's Junction' in honour of my Dad who sadly passed away in October last year. This wonder of track design is at the bottom left.

 

And that was how I started. I hadn't intended to start modelling just yet (I reckon it'll be another few years before I retire) but with another lockdown seeming likely and possibly feeling like I wanted to honour my Dad I started ordering stuff in late October. Never having built a layout on my own and not really having had much to do with building the one we had as kids I had no idea what was involved. I tentatively pencilled in end of February (my birthday is the 28th) as the time when all the track would be laid and powered. But thanks to multiple lockdowns things progressed further and faster than that.

 

But that's a tale for another post. In the meantime I leave you with Wilf's Junction as it now looks today:

Edited May 19, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

So things suddenly became more real in December 2020. I'd disassembled and disposed of a bed (no more guests!). And then on the 24th of November the baseboard arrived. I'd briefly considered making my own baseboard. I created a floor for my shed and whilst it probably didn't meet EU standards it had done what was needed. But no. My woodworking skills are poor and a search of the web showed that you could order flat packed baseboards. Anything for an easy life and MRS offered the sizes I needed and promised easy assembly.

 

It was shortly after placing the order with MRS that a couple of people pointed out that reaching to the centre of my board could be a problem. I tested it and concluded that the centre of my board was 'within reach'. Having lived with my layout for four months I stand by that but will concede that it's not ideal. Anyway MRS reckoned the board would be delivered by December so I was happy.

 

In the end it turned up on the 24th of November. I was a little concerned because I was unable to log into my MRS account I never received an email about the order. But I got responses from the company owner so I guess their ordering system is/was a bit fubarred. But it didn't matter. Suddenly things were coming real and I had to start construction.

 

Something I should mention at this point. I live in an early 1990s three bedroom house. I don't have a 'workshop'. The only thing I have going in my favour is that I don't have a partner to tell me that the living/dining room is not a suitable place to store stuff. If I have to work on something then it's the garden or..um. So the baseboard got built in the room where it was destined to live.

I actually ordered three baseboards. Two 1.5mx0.62m and one 1.5mx091m. After assembling them I was reminded that my choice of design was unusual. MRS assume that you will have your legs on the thin end of the boards and that didn't work for me. But after thinking about it I realised that if I put the legs of the large board on the ends I could put the legs of the smaller boards in the middle and aside from lacking a little support on the corners it would work. Turns out I was right.

You know looking at those pictures is kind of funny. I suppose a lot of these 'stories' are posted as they happened but this one is being posted several months into the future. There's a reason for that but I won't go into it right now. Anyway I look at that empty baseboard and realise just how far I've come. I think I feel another post coming on.

Edited March 13, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Nostalgia - it ain't what it used to be

 

Take a trip back in time with me. To the late 1970s. My brother and I had been enjoying the layout our Dad built and out of the blue he turned up with two new locomotives. Well..new to us. I think my brother got a Britannia and I got an upgrade. Prior to then I'd been running a Lowler Class 3F 'Jinty' and a black Princess Elizabeth. Both by Tri-ang. I liked them but it has to be said that the PE was..black. What I got as an upgrade was a green Princess Elizabeth. And this had additional details picked out. Obviously a premium version. Coupled with my blood and custard coaches it looked great.

 

Fast forward to 2020 and I wanted to replicate that train. And that was a problem. First-off it became apparent that no-one had ever manufactured a Princess Elizabeth in N gauge. But some searching turned up the fact that Graham Farish had once manufactured a Queen Elizabeth in N gauge. Not quite the same thing and she had smoke deflectors but still - she would do. But I couldn't find anyone with stock. Except one day out of the blue when I was browsing a well known Cornish store online there she was. So almost shaking with excitement (maybe I am just a big kid) I bought her along with a collection of B&C Maunsell coaches.

 

She turned up before I'd laid much of my track but of course I had to get her out of the box:

 

But no way to run her:

 

 

Then a couple of weeks later I finally had a loop laid down. And I decided to have a bit of fun and carry out an experiment. Would a 9v battery power a train?

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/J9tScGjFRqRRYWt89

 

Apologies for the camera work

 

I've since learned/realised that I was lucky she ran at all. My track uses Peco setrack 2nd radius curves and setrack turnouts. It turns out that in N gauge Peco turnouts are minimum radius. The entrance to one of my sidings now has two turnouts back to back and the old gal doesn't like them if both are 'turned out'. Luckily she's okay with just one at a time so banning her from the inner-most siding solves that problem. But I've also noticed that she can't go round the curves at full speed and graunches a bit even at reasonable speed. She was always going to be a 'Sunday special' though so I can live with it.

Edited February 20, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

If you've got the inclination, I've got the line..

 

Part One.

 

It was always my intention to have a two level layout with tunnels. I actually wanted to see trains going over the top of trains and although that's technically possible with my layout I haven't got quite the effect I wanted there. But anyway, onto construction.

 

I wanted to have a couple of stone tunnel mouths and having found some online that determined that my second level needed to be 54mm above the first one (this is N gauge). Technically it could have been lower because UK trains don't need that much clearance but I was loath to try and chop the mouth down. I didn't want to exceed 2% originally so that required 2.7 metres of incline (50*54/1000). My only option was therefore to split the incline in two. I decided on 1.5 metres each way with a mezzanine half way up. The mezzanine would carry a short side of the outer main line and a turnouts giving access to the second half of the incline. There would also be a siding where a locomotive could wait for a shunter to take away it's current wagons and bring it some more.

 

It was a neat solution but I glossed over the fact that it meant the second stage inclines would be in the middle of my baseboard - 750mm from the edge. I verified that I could reach that far so decided it would be fine. It nearly wasn't.

 

For all four inclines my strategy was simple. Chop the ends off each incline support, make a bit more space and let the track find its own shape. I could have done a complicated calculation and worked things out exactly but that's not really my style. I rounded a few things up laid the corners at either end of the first stage inclines and reckoned that would do.

 

The next stage I decided was to build the mezzanine. I wrote earlier that I both love it and hate it. Here's why I hate it. When I ordered the baseboard for the second level I cleverly worked out that by judicious cutting I could use it for both the mezzanine and the second level. It meant I had to cut the mezzanine in two pieces but that was fine. How clever I was.

 

Picture the scene. I have assembled the slightly complex track for the mezzanine (not the inner curves, they are on the baseboard):

I have it sat on the two halves of the mezzanine. And then it hits me. How do I get this onto the baseboard? My woodworking skills were not up to joining the two halves together and I could only reach far enough to hold one half at a time.

 

So take two. Put the mezzanine in place and then the track. Oh deary me. What fool reckoned that working 750mm from the edge of the board would be fine? The worst of it was the double siding. It's bad enough trying to make those when they are in easy reach but at over 600mm from the board edge it was nigh-on impossible. But then I made a virtue out of a necessity. I realised that if I changed that into a simple siding it would be easier to assembly and I'd free up a turnout that I needed to complete my main sidings. Genius! And with that I was able to assemble the track on the mezzanine. I checked it very carefully afterwards because I knew that fixing it would be impossible once complete. I'm damned certain I checked it thoroughly.

Edited February 23, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Part two - with help from a budgerigar.

 

The central inclines needed to be built. The underlying form was going to be Woodland Scenics inclines which I'd already used for the first section. But I needed embankments.

 

My first attempt was a polystyrene sandwich then a very rough wood file. This worked quite well. It's actually a great way to make natural looking hills. It's also a great way to make a *censored* mess.

 

My second attempt was more successful. I made cardboard formers of increasing size and glued these into place, spaced several centimetres apart. Then I glued a couple of horizontal slats across the formers. On top of these I laid mod rock. This was my first experience of mod rock and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to use. Knowing that I'd want to ballast in the future I also laid down a base layer of paper to cover the gaps in the WS incline.

 

 

I see that the 9v battery is making an appearance again..

 

Then I needed to cover it and make it all pretty. Now at this point I had an idea for my layout. One side would be posh, the other not so posh. The posh side of the central incline would be manicured grass the other side just gravel as if the builders couldn't be bothered to do anything with it. And that's where the budgerigar comes into it. Not a real one sadly as mine passed away many years ago but I remembered bird cage paper. It's basically really rough sand paper. I bought some sheets of that and glued them over the top and down one side.

 

I had a central incline!

 

All I had to do now was lay the track along it. At around 700mm from the edge of the baseboard. Oh dear. After fifteen minutes I was beginning to worry. I could only just reach the track joins and there was a definite limit to how long I could stand with my arms out trying to persuade the *censored* fishplates to do what they were supposed to *censored* do.

 

Then I realised that there was really only two pairs of joints that were a problem. Those at the bottom and two thirds of the way up. The ones at the top were easy to reach. So decided on a desperatesneaky solution. I'd solder the awkward fishplates and join the curves. I was using Setrack curves so joining them is relatively easy - certainly easier than flextrack. And it worked. I checked the joints multiple times (and the joints on the mezzanine) and breathed a sigh of relief.

 

The rest would be easy as that's just a matter of assembling four sidings and a curve, all within easy reach. Et voila! Track laying was complete:

 

Now a funny thing happened to me the other day. I was perusing my track as you do and I noticed something worrying. The joint where one of the curves meets its turnout was a bit proud. Closer inspection showed that it wasn't in its fishplate. That was..unfortunate. Also very puzzling because I checked, double and triple checked all those mezzanine joints. But there it was. I thought of various scenarios but knew that lifting the track was not an option. Most of my rolling stock didn't seem to mind but it was still not a good thing.

 

But then I hit on a solution. All that track had power feeds (that'll be the subject of another post) so all I needed to do was cut the fish plate. My first thought was a Dremel but I don't get on well with that tool. But thanks to another post on this forum I remembered that I'd bought a razor saw. And waddya know the blade fit perfectly between the rails. So it was only five minutes work to cut the fishplate and remove the waste. Then I just had to soak the track to loosen the PVA and put a weight on it.

 

Incidentally that's what the box of golf balls is doing in that last picture, albeit for a different piece of track. I find Callaway Supersoft golf balls to be ideal for all my railway modelling needs

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Soldering on..

 

So once I had the track laid it was time to do some soldering. This is something that had me worried. My previous attempts had been ugly. Trying to practice it didn't seem to help. So I approached this with trepidation. First of all I had to work out where I needed drop wires. My layout uses insulfrogs (so sue me). That meant I needed to supply power to at least one rail of every siding. Then there was the short section of main line on Wilf's Junction that was between two turn-outs. Then I needed to ensure that both the outer loop and inner figure of eight had power.

 

All in all I needed a minimum of fifteen drop wires. Oh dear. Worse still some of the siding connections would require me to lean over the track and look back as I worked. But that's part of why I took up this hobby. Learn something new. Overcome challenges, so I knuckled down.

• I drilled a small hole.
• I sanded the edge of the rail.
• I tinned the rail.
• I tinned the wire.
• I held the wire to the rail while applying heat then blew on the joint and removed the iron.

The result was a pretty good connection. I was surprised. So I poked the wire down its hole and went on to the next one.

That went just as well. And the next. And suddenly, I realised that I like soldering. In the end I drilled a few more holes and popped a couple more droppers in around the layout just to be sure.

 

Then it was just a matter of using suitcase connectors to attach the droppers to my bus. Rather than drill fifteen holes I'd decided to aggregate the siding droppers together and use a single wire for each set. This went moderately well once I'd fought to get the wires into connector blocks.

But then I discovered that the suitcase connectors I had didn't work when connecting 'bus wire to bus wire'. So I had to order a few more connectors.

The next step was to fit the circuit board for the DCC controller. This I thought would be easy. I have a Dremel (clone) but cutting a rectangle out of the baseboard side panel should be easy enough. This is the point when I realised that I don't like Dremels. The tool created a terrible noise and vibration and I immediately stopped. The bit was properly inserted but it just seemed like that was the way it was. So in the end I drilled multiple holes and used a hacksaw to complete the cut. A couple of screws later (ooh er missus) and everything was connected.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Taking stock. Dapol in the dog house.

 

Up to now I'd been running my HST box set, coal wagons and the Queen Elizabeth with her coaches. I'd run them sporadically and everything seemed fine. So one day I decided I'd get everything out in turn and have some fun.

 

First up were my bullet wagons.

These look great and ran well. In fact they seemed really well built with good springs on the couplers. I was well impressed and ordered some more to make the total length up to 900mm (the length of my sidings).

 

Then it was time for the JNA wagons. I had high hopes for these because they are yellow. Very yellow:

These were a revelation and not in a good way. They wouldn't run. They couldn't make it past a single curve or turnout. Abject failure. After spending half an hour trying to get them to run I had to admit defeat. They were apparently incompatible with my layout.

 

So then I moved onto some MJA mineral wagons. They were a bit unusual because each pair of wagons is tied together, but they looked neat.

These ran. Up to a point. More specifically they kept decoupling on my inclines and my mezzanine where there's a bit of a hump. A closer inspection showed that all wagons suffered from at least one drooping coupling. So that was another set of Dapol wagons that were no good.

 

Last up were a set of EMR coaches. At this point I was feeling a bit down but I consoled myself with the HST and QE that both ran. Thankfully the EMR coaches also ran perfectly well. But still - I remember being a bit upset at the end of that day.

 

Since then I've taken a gamble and bought both a yellow and a white/blue set of Cargowagon ferry wagons. Thankfully these all run perfectly well so I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with my track.

 

But then the HST which had been running perfectly well got me worried. She wouldn't reverse down the incline onto the main loop. Right near the bottom she'd derail. I checked and rechecked but the point of derailing was almost flat track. Curiously it was only ever the power unit that had a problem. Upon further investigation it turns out that the power unit can't travel backwards very far at all. Basically as soon as she exits any kind of curve she derails.

 

I think I know the reason for that. The copper chassis pickups are further apart on the front bogies and I think that's causing the bogey pickups to get jammed. The issue with the JNA wagons appears to be the poor coupling design. The couplers slide in a V shaped groove with a very weak spring centering the coupling. The couplers often end up stuck in their sideways position causing the wagon to derail when straightening up. The issue with the mineral wagons seems to just be poor design. Taking them apart revealed a very small hair spring and it seems like some of the couplers just wouldn't stay seated leading them to droop.

 

Anyway for now I'm treating Dapol with suspicion. It's taught me to be wary of buying their wagons.

Edited February 28, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Just a slip of a thing.

 

So I thought I'd exercise a loco that I hadn't used in a while.

 

A good looking loco and one I'd set aside for a dedicated passenger hauler. I set her up with six coaches because that's the maximum I can fit on my sidings and let her loose. Oh dear. She spun her wheels on my inclines and struggled to pull out of one curve. But it was late at night so I tried to forget and went to bed,

 

In the morning it was time to fix the problem. I knew there was nothing wrong my track and another similar diesel was fine so I just needed to sort it. First thing was to wipe the track. This intrigues me as a newcomer. Why is it that every time I wipe my track there are black marks on the tissue? I don't run my trains all that often and it's a bedroom so..where does the dirt come from?

 

Anyway after that I plonked one of the loco's bogeys on some tissue and ran the loco. Then swapped bogies and repeated. There wasn't much of a mark but there was something. So I ran the loco..and all was good. Incidentally this is the most recent version of my layout.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zJvuk624EQAzzr6L7

Edited March 6, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Insulfrogs - you've got to laugh.

 

Sometimes you wonder why you bother, lol. Decided to spend some time running trains this evening. For a change I decided to run one (the Queen Elizabeth) on the inner figure of 8 and the other (an EMR class 53) on the outer oval at the same time as opposed to just running one train round both.

 

The first oddity was that the Queen Elizabeth had apparently fixed her free wheeling con rod. "That's nice" I thought. Then after getting most of the way round my layout and just as I was backing the other train down to the main line the QE derailed. Turns out the free wheeling con rod is now a dangling con rod. Sigh.

 

Never mind. It gave me an excuse for a bit of fun. Circle the other loco around the siding so that it can go out and pick up the QE's coaches. This was actually quite challenging because it meant running a loco in reverse and it took me a while to work out which bits of track to get her on in order to reach the front of the train. Anyway once that was sorted I decided to let the replacement loco continue round the figure of eight. It made it about two coaches worth of track and stopped.

 

Whut?

 

It didn't take me long to discover that a little used stretch of track between two turnouts was dead. Further investigation confirmed that neither of the two turnouts was routing power. I eventually persuaded one of them not to be so awkward but by then the gloss had gone off the evening. Besides I needed to solve that problem for the future. This is where sod's law strikes. One of the turnouts is inside a tunnel mouth. The switch is outside but the main body is concealed inside (part of my 'aren't I clever?' design, lol). The only track I can get a soldering iron to is the straight on Wilf's Junction and that means removing some ballast first.

 

My dear ol' Dad would definitely be smiling at this situation.

Edited March 6, 2021 by AndrueC

[Artless Bodger]

On 28/02/2021 at 16:27, AndrueC said:

Anyway for now I'm treating Dapol with suspicion. It's taught me to be wary of buying their wagons.

That's interesting, because I've had some mixed results with Dapol; a Southern BY van I think it is (LWB 4w with guards compartment), originally very stiff to run, checked it out to find the axles too short and the pin points not seating in the axleboxes. I checked the back to backs as they are individual stub axles in a plastic muff. B2B was ok - opening it out made the wheels run smoother but out of gauge. Ended up replacing the wheels with the only ones I'd got that fitted well - old GF pizza cutters which spoil the effect a bit. Devil of a job to see let alone fit the brake rods back. Then it just threw off on curves if run at the front of the train - far too light. Managed to fit some weight but difficult due to the amount of coupling spring gubbins in the body.

The SR 4w PMVs though are fine - run well. GW siphon again very light - haven't got round to opening that up yet to fit more weight. 

Class 73, would originally derail at points after a curve - found the frame moulding drooped a bit and fouled the bogie rotation - that was eventually fettled but the loco sounds good at v slow speed but squeals as its opened up (and it has been lubricated according to the instructions. Other 73s at club are brilliant - smooth and quiet. Q1 tested in the shop (Church Street Models in Basingstoke) who kindly got some 1st radius curves out to answer my question whether it would go round them (Dapol suggest 2nd radius minimum) - works ok on a plain 9" radius curve, but I now have two 9" radius S curves in and out of a platform, it does not like that! Kept on the 2nd radius and its fine and a nice quiet runner, good looker too (my favourite steam loco class).

 

Glad to hear the 33 is ok, as I'm hoping to buy one. 

 

Regarding the track, I also get a lot of dirt on my rails even though I rarely run, and clean wheels, especially the plastic ones which are reputed to pick up greasy dirt readily. I usually wipe with a bit of cloth (narrow strip cut from an old cotton shirt) pinned around the end of a narrow flat stick, just over gauge width. I dip the cloth in IMS (industrial methylated spirit) and it always comes up black after, even on a short length. 

 

I have some issues with conduction through PECO points too, both dead and live frog, as I rely on the point blade contact with the stock rail. All my points are finger operated (it's thus a digital layout), so switching the frog polarity separately isn't an option without rewiring the layout. Usually a bit of poking sorts the problem, sometimes a wipe through the switch rail / stock rail  gap with fine wet and dry paper is necessary (blow or vacuum away any dust after). Sometimes I'm inclined to regard the layout as a stationary diorama and forget the operating bit!

 

Good luck with the repairs.

[AndrueC]

I took a look at the Class 73 after reading your post @Artless Bodger. This one caught my eye (how could it not?).

I'm not prototypical (not even close - Circularium doesn't even have any stations) so I could probably get away with mixing Southern and South Western locos. And that colour scheme would make me smile every time

Edited March 6, 2021 by AndrueC

[Artless Bodger]

Yes SWT livery was nice, preferable to the current SWR blue, I used to watch the 159s pass our office at my last job. 73s have come up in a lot of liveries since privatisation. I have the plain rail blue one as that is how I remember them bringing in the oil train at work in my first job. Backing 1000T up grade into our siding on the diesel was marvellous to hear. The 73 and the thumpers are the only motive power I'd ever consider DCC sound for (if I won the lottery, which I never enter).

 

I'd like to be prototypical, but rule 1 keeps getting in the way.

 

Had a quick look at your video - need to watch it fully, but your layout looks great, plenty going on, and crickey have you got a move on with it! I'm not much past basic track laying and a few buildings after over 2 years. Total length ballasted, less than 2'.

[AndrueC]

27 minutes ago, Artless Bodger said:

Had a quick look at your video - need to watch it fully, but your layout looks great, plenty going on, and crickey have you got a move on with it! I'm not much past basic track laying and a few buildings after over 2 years. Total length ballasted, less than 2'.

Thank you. Yes I had no idea how far I'd get. By now I thought maybe I'd be fully wired up and would've downed tools to play golf at every opportunity. But the lockdowns have prevented that so what else is a bloke to do? Looking at those early pictures with a mostly empty board shocks me.

 

It's been a fun journey and confirms that this is a hobby I want to pursue. But I also think that the speed of development has detracted from the quality somewhat. I tend to pick something to work on and just do it as efficiently as I can. I assume those layouts that are exhibition quality and that look almost realistic in photographs are ones where the builder is happy to spend an afternoon working on half a metre of track.

 

But things will slow down from April. We're allowed back on the course from the 29th (don't get me started on what I think of us being banned in the first place) so I expect not to do any more work on the layout until October. I do golf all year round but once the clocks go back I can't play in the evenings so that's when I need an indoor hobby.

 

For now it's my first layout and a chance to experiment and have fun. Find out what works. I'll probably move house in a couple of years and that'll be when I start my 'final' layout. I'm thinking of one that runs round the outside of a room so that I can still have a loop and not have to reach so far. The big question will be OO or N. I love N for the amount you can get into a small space but it is a bit fiddly even at age 54 so I might not be thanking myself in thirty years time. Also N seems to suffer from lots of minor issues that I don't remember afflicting the old Tri-ang stock that my Dad gave us.

 

But anything you can do in OO you can do a lot more of in N

Edited March 6, 2021 by AndrueC

[Artless Bodger]

Reading RMweb and looking at various videos reviewing model railways often makes me think there are problems with all scales and suppliers, to various degrees. I'd never heard of mazak rot until the proprietor of one model shop I was in showed me a broken OO class 47, the chassis block was expanding and splitting the body. Luckily I've never experienced it in either my OO days nor in N now. One day I may go back to OO as my eyesight and dexterity fades, but for now it is N to get a reasonable bit in a small space (8' x 5' L shape). I've got 3 ovals, a triangular junction into a 4 platform terminus. Loco plus 4 mk1s is my limiting train length. Nothing special but I enjoy it and can work on it or not as I feel (I am retired, and am honorary legumier, plongeur in the kitchen and under gardener). In terms of trouble free running (all fingers crossed as I type this), my old Minitrix locos are best, if a bit noisy. The most recent models are great for detail (that I cannot see without a magnifier), but generally light, luckily they have no gradients nor big trains to pull. Oh, and Union Mills locos - have that old Hornby Dublo or Triang style and are bullet proof.

[AndrueC]

Miss Behaviour

 

To be honest what I wanted all along was an APT-E. Unfortunately they are rarer than hen's teeth in N-gauge. Apparently a Canadian company known for its humorous manuals produced one but that was before my time. In any case it would probably not be 1:148 so might not fit under one of my arched bridges.

 

As a young lad I remember being wowed by the APT-E. As a callow youth I remember being unimpressed by the HST. It's the non-indented windscreen that annoys me. That looked so cool on the APT-E. An HST is just a diesel locomotive with a sloping front. Meh.

 

That is a high speed train..

 

Anyhoo an HST was the closest I could get so that's what I got. At first I thought she ran fine but then I noticed that she left a mucky track after running. Apparently that's just the way Dapol ship locomotives these days. Of course it doesn't stop them telling us owners not to over lubricate...

 

But the biggest pain was that my HST had problems reversing. Now HSTs don't need to reverse very often but on my layout all trains have to reverse to get out of the sidings where they are kept. Anyway I tracked the issue down to poor quality control. The copper chassis power pickup strips are too far apart on the front bogies of locomotive (quality control - Dapol have heard of it). There wasn't a lot I could do about them but I could tweak them a bit and now she seems able to reverse for long enough to get to the main line.

 

But she has developed a new bad habit (or is that two?) occasionally while running the coach rack will break away. Or the rear (unpowered) loco will break away. Rather annoying since this is supposed to be a show-case train with four coaches and two locos.

 

But she doesn't do it all the time and today I managed to record a video demonstrating how good she looks when she's behaving.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wz65uK9G7JhLJQNeA

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

So, in the video I say that there's going to be a farm house later in the day. Well now is later in the day:

 

I'll need to revisit the gate area tomorrow because my attempt to fill a gap in has failed and sunk. That yellow area in front of the gate is a bit too much of a ramp to be realistic, methinks. Even the farmer's tractor is going to struggle with that

 

The curved stone wall in the background is part of a cunning disguise. That entire bank at the bank is removal so that I have access to the rails behind it and underneath the ridge. A bit of strategic flock on this side of the wall and no-one will be any the wiser

Edited March 13, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

So I got my 'Oxford Flyer' back from DCC supplies yesterday. Repaired insofar as she actually moves now but not right. Suffered wheel slip. I eventually worked out she's only got one driven bogie so have started the refund process with Hattons. This leads me to suspect that my troublesome class 33 might be suffering the same thing intermittently.

 

I also took delivery of some light grey ballast and this is the stuff I should have ordered all along. So today I've removed the ballast from Wilf's junction and replaced with the new stuff. I do have to wonder how Woodland Scenics 'extra fine dark grey' is larger than than 'fine light grey' though.

 

But the new colour is much better. The sleepers clearly stand out and there's scope for application of paint to simulate oil. I've decided that my sidings are going to be 'exhibition standard' detail. That'll be a challenge in N scale and one that I will be attempting next autumn. I've placed an order for two canopies with York Models so that will turn up eventually. The idea is that those canopies will act as dust covers allowing me to leave my rolling stock on the layout over the summer.

 

I've also decided that the second half of the board will have a stream and a large village so that's something else to look forward to next autumn/winter.

Edited March 21, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

The Cover Story.

 

So what's been happening on Circularium? Not a lot. With golf courses now open my other hobby has taken precedence. I'm still trying to repair the damage inflicted by nearly six months without decent golf. But York Modelmaking came through with my bespoke staging yard cover. I can highly recommend this company. All I told them was that I wanted to cover a section of track with a simple girder structure. The cross section would be an inverted U where the arms were 40mm. The entire structure would be 900mm long with regular girder braces. I would provide my own perspex.

 

From request to delivery only took a couple of weeks and here is the result:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/aLGxyaiJTJXp2nuh8

 

A better modeller could probably get the perspex glued better but primarily it's a dust cover so that I can leave my rolling stock out all summer. I might not have the time to work on my layout but it'd be nice to be able to run it when the fancy took me without having to assemble trains. There will be a second of these 'covers' for the other staging yard which should be complete this week (you can see the first two sections in the distance).

 

I've also glued some steel at grade crossing in place, laid some more ballast and stuck a few junction boxes and a control cabin down. I might even lay some ducting. But apart from that I'm not working on the layout at all

Edited April 4, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

An update on the class 33. She still goes into 'wheel slip mode' now and again so today I got her onto the workbench and stripped her down (ooh er missus). Everything seemed okay but I did find a couple of hairs inside her. I don't think they were mine because I bought her DCC fitted. Anyway I can well imagine that hairs drifting into gears could be an occasional problem and after putting her back together she seems to run just fine.

 

Time will tell I suppose. She had her good days before I did the strip down and refitting the bogies fixed her on those occasions. But I couldn't see any other problems.

[AndrueC]

Not a great deal going on now that golf is back but I've largely completed my dust cover/sheds. I've also taken delivery of another loco and put almost all my rolling stock on the staging yards. The only missing stock is my Queen Elizabeth and her coaches. Unfortunately she's been sent off for repair.

 

I also appear to have blown the decoder in Miss Behaviour (aka Class 43 HST). No smoke or signs of damage but she's dead. All I did was reverse the train against a turnout and derail the unpowered car. The lead loco did buzz a bit when she stalled so I suppose excess motor current did it. She's always lost her programming on derailments (and until I fixed her she used to derail in reverse on any bend). So I moved the second decoder from the unpowered rear to the front and have ordered a Zimo decoder. I'm hoping that will be a bit more resilient. Maybe one day I can give her a unique address. At present I leave her set to 3 because I got fed up of having to reprogram her.

 

My attractive but wheel slipping Class 56 appears to be behaving now that I removed an errant hair from her innards. Pretty sure it wasn't one of mine because I bought her DCC fitted and have never needed to open her up before.

 

Anyway here are some pictures.

 

An overview of the layout:

 

From left to right (Miss Behaviour, Big Bertha and the Bullet Train, DRS Bertha:

 

From left to right (Blue Horror, Little Bertha and Blue Gorgeous.

 

Yes, trains can pass but a longer siding might have been useful:

 

My newest acquisition (DRS Bertha) in more detail:

Edited April 15, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Adventures with Varnish/The Old Girl Won't Play/Drunken Track Laying

 

So a funny thing happened today. No, not really. I've posted elsewhere that after installing a DCC Specialties PSX-AR (purely for the circuit breaking feature) I discovered that one of my diamond crossings had a short circuit. I eventually decided to remove the PSX-AR because locomotives ran fine through the diamond anyway. Today it turns out that two of my locomotives don't run fine through it. They stutter. And at slow speed the NCE Powercab buzzes. Quite why this is only recently coming to light is a bit odd. And the same locos are perfectly happy with the other diamond. They are modern locos so there shouldn't be any issues. The best bit is that of course this diamond has to be the one inside a tunnel.

Obviously Sod's Law is at play here but how does a diamond cross locked away safely start to play up? The other diamond crossing has been through two sets of ballasting (I didn't like the first version so I re-did it). This crossing should have been sat quietly, doing nothing for years. Anyway after playing around a bit I determined that it was the centre of the crossing causing the problem. I can't really see how it's happening but I dug out the liquid skin I'd bought in anticipation of such issues and put some on. This cured the problem. Of course eventually it will wear off but I can live with re-applying it. I've now put the PSX-AR back in circuit and all runs well.

 

Sadly there has been a casualty of kinds at Circularium. I got my Queen Elizabeth back from Bachman Repairs and they have fixed her valve gear. Unfortunately her back-to-back seems to be too narrow. She can't reverse around any turn-outs or curves. Now fair enough the turnouts are settrack so that means minimum radius but she ought to be able to reverse round a 2nd radius curve. She could before I sent her off. I think the problem is that the narrow back to back is allowing her front end to swing out too much resulting in her cylinder heads hitting the front bogey. So I'll have to contact Bachman again which is mildly irritating. Hopefully they will agree to repair her for free.

 

Lastly I built my 'stairway to Heaven' or mostly built it anyway. What I wanted was the ballasted rails with a concrete path on either side and a shoulder onto which I could mount some fencing. I don't know where I got the idea from but it sounded like it would look good. In the end I got more than I bargained for. I built up the concrete out of 2mm thick card and it looked good. Then I poured the ballast on. Now as I mentioned above I've not been happy with my ballasting efforts. The main lines looks okay apart from the colour. It is too dark and hides sleepers. The staging area I've done uses a much lighter ballast but it is very fine (almost grains of sand) and until I've spent an hour or two cleaning it up tends to have a 'maggot infestation' look about it.

 

Since my stairway was the mainline I decided to use the original ballast and hoped the white card might lighten it. So grabbed a tub of the stuff and poured it on. Hmmm. I'd forgotten that at one point I mixed some white sand in with it (another failed ballasting experiment). But I decided that I might as well continue spreading it to see how it looked. And rather to my surprise it actually looks very good:

You can see the original, darker ballast to the left. That picture incorrectly implies that the ballast sits level with the 'footpath'. It actually sits about a millimetre lower.

 

Having completed the stairway and rebuilt the bridge (the same white card and two Peco girder trusses I can also show a slightly less elegant section. When building my layout I did these inclines after I'd laid the track at top and bottom (I don't know why, but there you have it). I didn't quite get the track near the top straight.

I was probably lucky that it didn't interfere with the 'concrete' path but since the rolling stock doesn't mind I will just chalk it up to experience. You know - a lot of railway modellers don't like inclines but so far mine are one of the few features that has never given me any grief.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

The best laid track of mice and men.

 

I'm supposed to be mostly playing golf but I moved all my rolling stock onto the layout so that I could have a quick 'play' as a reward for all the hard work over winter when the fancy took me. I was rewarded tonight by a loco stalling on a turnout when it was set to straight ahead. It would have only been mildly annoying but it's on my infamous mezzanine so difficult to reach making it more of a concern. I eventually determined that the points were not making good contact with the stock rails any longer and the closure rail had no power. But I was a bit puzzled because this is the first of three turnouts in a row and the next turnout (the one the loco didn't reach) has dropper feeds on it which means that the closure rail should be getting power from there.

 

So while contemplating having to solder the closure rails I did a bit more investigating and the light finally dawned. This was the section of rail with the badly installed fishplate that I had to cut a couple of months ago (see earlier episodes, lol). What this meant was that for the last couple of months the second turnout had been relying on the first turnout for its power. Apparently today was the day that turnout got fed up of it and decided not to play any more.

 

Luckily the fix was straightforward. Just solder the the rails back together in lieu of the removed fishplate.

 

I'm beginning to think that the warmer weather is having an effect on my layout. It's not really been warmer per se because it's in  a spare bedroom but it's not been getting as cold overnight or during the day when the heating is off. I suppose it's reasonable to assume that newly laid track is going to need some adjustment.

 

On the plus side Miss Behaviour (Class 43) has now backed out of the staging yard several times and run several circuits without ever doing anything wrong. It might finally be time to install the decoder I got to replace the one that failed and maybe even move her off address 3. I've been leaving her on 3 because of her annoying tendency to reset her decoder when she derailed.

 

Oh, and I now have a dedicated programming track. The end section of one my staging yards is supplied separately from the main bus and isolated. I have an NCE AutoSW that cuts power to the main bus when Program On Track is selected. So I can drive locos on/off then program them without affecting my other locos.

 

https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/home/nce-info/nce-accessories/nce-autoswitch

 

It's not entirely coincidental that Miss Behaviour is parked on the staging yard that terminates with the programming track. I is not stupid and trust has to be earned 

Edited May 12, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

The queen is back!

 

It's been a while since the last update. Because golf. But due to the vagaries of the British weather I have been doing some work on the layout so here's a status update.

 

I have started work on the staging area dioramas. Very early days yet but I'm still hopeful of producing a 'macro photography standard' scene here over the winter.

 

I've built out the embankments on the inside of my two top curves. I think they've turned out quite well and definitely add to the atmosphere of that area. I've still got to paint the rock wall on one of them but that's a winter job.

 

A friend used their laser cutter to provide me with two new bridges:

 

I mentioned a while back that my Queen Elizabeth had come back from Bachman Servicing so I'll finish this short post with a link to a video of her strutting her stuff. She stutters once or twice where I've been doing scenery work (probably needs the track cleaning) and at low speed her tender jumps rather alarmingly at the exit of Wilf's junction. But she ran for nearly ten minutes without a serious mishap so I think I can claim that my track laying is of an acceptable standard.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/x6nUgsoNnuQSLvfr9

 

One thing that amuses me - at times the resonance with my baseboard means that she actually sounds like a steam engine. Lol. No sound decoders were installed prior to the making of this video

Edited June 29, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

A little more work this weekend. I've been experimenting with track weathering so took a risk and decided to upgrade Wilf's Junction (built in honour of my late father). I'm pleased to say that it turned out quite well:

 

 

The green ties on the right are the result of an earlier experiment so I'm going to adjust that later. And yes, I've removed that bit of fluff

Edited July 12, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

There's something fishy going on..

 

Not wanting to risk a lightning strike I decided today was going to be a train day rather than golf. The morning went quite well. I put down some more mainline ballast - almost the last in fact, just some difficult to reach turnouts that might never be ballasted. I glued my last buffer stop in place and chucked down some scatter.

I put some brown umber and PVA on a few parts of the cliff face beforehand as it needed a bit of grass.

 

Then I dropped some bushes around the cliff edge next to 'the scrap yard'. This is currently where I leave 'tools and stuff' that I can't bothered to put back in drawers but I'm beginning to think it might make quite a nice diorama one day

 

I completed the scatter and bushes around my 'giant's footpath'. I wanted a pedestrian tunnel really but I had a spare WS tunnel portal so needs must. We can pretend an old railway line ran through there

At least when the line was closed the local council embraced the alternatives, built a path and even painted the arch. A lot better than what HE do with some of their old railway bridges..

 

In the afternoon I decided to run a couple of trains because we all deserve a reward. The first of them (Little Bertha and her coal train) stalled just outside the staging yard entrance but that's where I put the scatter so a swift wipe with a track rubber and off she went, happy as Larry.

 

She came steamingdieselling out of the tunnels after Wilf's Junction and immediately stopped. Locos have done that before and typically it just needs another wipe. Except that I haven't done any work there recently and 'Mr Magic Sky Finger' prodding the loco didn't make it budge. Hmmm. That area of track has history:

The feeders were added a few months ago when trains couldn't exit the tunnel when running on the central loop. The blobs of solder on the joint itself were added today because I can't be bothered to drill more holes and do a proper job. Not being completely lackadaisical I traced the line along and discovered the other problem joint. Now that's near the centre of my board so about 600mm from the edge. A bit tricky to get at but with care I managed to bodgefix it up.

 

If nothing else this confirms what all the wise modellers have always said. Solder a dropper onto every piece of track. I'm hoping I don't get too many more failures. My layout uses Setrack curves so there's potentially a lot of fish plates that can fail.

Edited July 24, 2021 by AndrueC