Circularium - An Adventure in N

[AndrueC]

Audience participation time!

 

Following on from the earlier post, I'm now open to suggestions (polite ones, please  ) on what I can put on the newly 'turfed' areas. I've got some pictures here with a double bogied wagon to provide scale. The ideas don't have to be prototypical (that ship has not only sailed, it's won the trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific speed records and is well on the way to winning the circumnavigation contest ).

 

I'm after 'interesting' suggestions. Things that will be fun and interesting to construct and to look at. . Things that might even teach me a new skill. For instance on the first area I have a vague notion of a ruined building on the corner with a ruined bridge reaching out across the lower track and to the staging yard where the engine shed is. In this case the green wagon would be where the track has been smashed through the first part of the bridge.

 

This area seems like some kind of 'yard' might be appropriate as it's the two entrances to my staging yards and basically where 'Railway Company Property' starts:

The only thing I'd like to point out is that the flower bed is 700mm from the edge of my baseboard so only a sadist would suggest that I build something hugely complicated here. A diorama that I can build off-site then deposit in place would be preferred

 

Last but not least another corner piece:

 

So if you have any ideas please let me know. No real prize on offer but I'll let you choose the name

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Lights Camera Action!

 

This is short story of how to retrofit signals and turnout motors to a layout that was never supposed to have them in first place. When I started this layout I didn't think I'd get as far as I have as quickly as I did. I thought about turnout motors but dismissed them as something for my next layout. But after a few incidents with mis-set turnouts I decided that having signals would be a good idea and they were fairly pointless without turnout motors.

 

The first problem I had was choosing a motor. Ideally I'd like to have under board motors but with my layout already built there was just almost nowhere such motors could be mounted. So that meant I had to go for surface mount. Fair enough but even then finding space wasn't easy. I did a survey of my layout and concluded that:

• The north staging yard had enough space along the top of the cliff.
• The south staging yard had enough space for two of the three motors but the third would need to be mounted on some kind of bracket.
• Wilf's junction needed distant rod work.
• The mezzanine had enough space for two motors.

So it could be done and would stretch my skill set a bit further. I eventually decided to go with the Cobalt series. Their stuff is easy to use and well documented. I installed my first motor (or at least held it in place with my finger) and discovered my first problem. It turns out that Cobalt-SS motors will not move an N-scale Peco turnout with the over centre spring in place. Can't even make it twitch.

 

Removing the springs turned out to be a major problem. You can only access them from under the turnout and when your track is glued down and ballasted that's a problem. It's easy enough to loosen the glue and adjust the track but this required me to actually remove turnouts and fitting them back was not going to be easy. It turned out to be harder than I thought. I eventually gave up reconnecting some of the yard fishplates but the worst was that the last curve simply would not glue back down. I have no idea why but even leaving it weighted down for several days didn't work. So in the end I grabbed a couple of self-tapping screws and fixed the track that way. It's not ideal but I can live with it.

 

 

After that it was plain sailing to fix the turnout motors to the North Yard. However the rest of the locations are another matter. I think I can do the South Yard (there's a section of that track there needs relaying anyway) but Wilf's junction is a no-no. I am not going to tear that up after all the effort I've put into it. The mezzanine is equally out of play. Even if I wanted to relay the track the access is just too poor.

 

Getting power to the signals and motors was complicated by the yards being on an elevated baseboard so I have to drill through that then through the main baseboard. But a long drill and a few minutes finagling the wires got them through to the underside of the main board.

 

The turnout motor feeds share a single hole at the back. The four signals have their own power holes.

 

Electricians should probably not look at this picture. You can see two turnout controllers and the Alpha Mimic on the leg cross member. Having to site the Alpha Mimic on the leg cross member was not ideal but they are effectively a permanent structure anyway. Oh and there are also some wires visible

 

 

 

 

But it's all good because the end result is a set of working turnouts with signals:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LHZRqXpvQLfWzgpC8

 

They seem to work quite well but one of them got stuck at some point and didn't recover until I cycled the power. Not sure what that's about but I'll keep an eye on it.

 

Meanwhile earlier in the year I installed some line side fencing:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CJxX9z7jo5qb1uGUA

 

And my ongoing soldering work is..ongoing. After installing the LEDs I noticed that the trains were running very slowly and almost stalling in a couple of places. In the end I had to install a couple more droppers and soldered two joints on a curve. You live and learn

Edited October 23, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

So what have I been doing recently? Mostly just scenery work. I have finally completed the ballasting of the North Yard and it's looking quite good. The trains are all stored off-track at the moment but that means you can see the tracking painting:

 

And a barrow crossing:

 

I've also added some random trees here and there. Only plastic trees but the effect isn't too bad I think:

[AndrueC]

Rock on BabyBertie!

 

A bit of an indulgence this one. If I'm doing general maintenance or scenery work I sometimes want to run something along a section of track to see how it operates and/or looks. Dragging one of my six or carriage long trains down from the staging yard is a bit of a faff plus if there's a problem it's a pain to back them out of the way and I certainly don't want to lift them off the track.

 

So I needed something small that could easily be carried around and thought about getting a small 0-6-0. This would also serve as a useful test for the track since 0-6-0 locos are I believe less forgiving. A honking great diesel won't care about a bit of dirt because it has eight pickups and they are spaced widely apart.

 

So did a bit of browsing online and came up with the idea of 'Bertie and her Fixin' Crew'. Bertie has arrived along with a nicely weathered ballast wagon so I thought I'd introduce her. It's also an opportunity to show off part of my new rock face. This is the fourth rock face I've attempted and this time I used Woodland Scenics rock moulds. The painting was interesting. I started with a black wash and then...finished. Because frankly the black wash on its own has achieved what I've been wanting all along. Okay so I also chucked a bit of grass on but there you have it.

 

She was pre-owned and a bit finicky to program (reading CVs was sporadic) but I got there. Also she doesn't like some of my turnouts and pointed out a bit of track that needed a clean so as a tester I think she's going to be good. If she can bimble around my layout without stopping I will know that everything is tickety-boo

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Measuring up and curbing my enthusiasm.

 

My current project is a diorama on the last large section of empty baseboard. I've decided that I will build a maintenance yard. Some barrels, a shipping container, couple of skips, rusty train wheels..that kind of thing. It's going to be a major feature of the layout and my first attempt to get good detail in N scale. I reckon up to now I've done passably well on the bird's eye view but I want something that can pass the 'macro photography test'.

 

The first step was to mark out the yard boundaries. I already knew there was going to be a small industrial unit in one corner because I'd just built it. So in my usual haphazard style I looked around for something to use to gauge area. In the end I went for that old standby - the box of golf balls. I put two boxes side by side then moved them apart to fill the area. Then drew around the area with a pen. After taking the boxes away I could see that I had a bit more space so moved the back line a bit further out.

 

Because part of the are has had to be filled back in by cardboard (originally it was going to be a quarry) I need to cover the floor with something and decided paper would do.

 

 

Now to transfer the dimensions to a sheet of paper. Now bear in mind that whilst I used two boxes to establish the area that was only a rough guide and I moved them apart and extended the area afterwards so it's basically a random area. The short side turned out to be 200mm. How odd. A nice round number. The long side was 300mm. Weird. Another round number. Hang on a moment. 200mm x 300mm. Isn't that...yes, it is. I have randomly created a yard the exact dimensions of an A4 sheet of paper. Spooky.

 

Anyhoo the next step was to paint the paper black and then start running curbing around the edge. I've tried paving before using printed sheets and didn't like the result. So I decided that for detail one needs to go the extra yard. You can't skimp corners and just print out thirty curbing stones. So I took some card, dry painted it grey (so as to get a slightly mottled effect) then leopard spot dry painted it with black. Then I cut the card into 2mm wide strips then cut each strip into 10mm long curb stones. Then I glued them on, cut out a corner piece and stood back. I have to say that I think the effect is quite good:

 

And the corner:

 

 

Eventually the yard is going to be surrounded by palisade fencing with weeds along the bottom.

Edited December 4, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Giving yourself the run around..

 

So it's been a while since I actually ran any trains. Last time I did Miss Behaviour lived up to her name and kind of put me off. Instead of running trains I buried myself in my show piece diorama. That's coming along nicely and will be the subject of another post in a week or so. But I'd promised myself that today would be train running day. Rebuild some confidence in my layout.

 

So this morning I have run:

* Miss Behaviour (class 43). Not a single break-away but her unpowered rear struggled to keep the lights on. Bit odd that - it now has a Zimo decoder installed but I can only assume there's a pickup problem somewhere. The important thing is that she ran for ten minutes without dropping any coaches.

 

* DRS Bertha (class 67). Ran without an issue.

 

* Little Bertha (class 53). Didn't want to move at first (seemed dead other than lights) but after removing her bogies (ooh er missus) I found some scenery in her gears. After removing that she seemed fine.

 

* Blue Gorgeous (another class 67). Ran without an issue.

 

So that was nice. I'll run some more this afternoon, might take a look at the trailing car on the '43 to see if I can sort that out.

Edited December 25, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

The point of it all (part 2)

 

Earlier this year I had an exciting time installing point motors on to the North Yard. It was made most difficult by me having to lift the turnouts in order to remove the over centre spring. For that reason I've been putting off doing the South Yard. But Saturday's train running session showed that I really wanted motors on both yards. It just felt so primitive to move turnouts by finger.

 

But the good news is that I've discovered a technique for removing the spring that doesn't require track lifting. So here is how you remove the over centre spring from Peco N-gauge Setrack:

Set the turnout to straight ahead. This makes the spring more accessible.

Insert the tip of a scalpel under the spring and raise it (it'll reach about 45 degrees).

With a very small pair of wire snips grasp the spring. Don't bother trying to snip it.

Twist the snips while steadying the points with a finger. It doesn't take much force but the spring will eventually come out.

 

And so this morning's task was to install three turnout motors. To be honest I was hoping to have all three done this morning but I ran out of gas and only managed one. Here's what happened:

 

I had to connect the first turnout to the second controller (already in-situ) by extension cable. The controller is the baseboard so I had to get on my hands and knees. When I'd installed that controller I set it fairly high up and the plug I needed was the top one so it took five minutes of finagling before I got it home. Then I had to adjust the throw. Remembering last time I was careful to copy the settings of the previous turnouts. On the Cobalt controllers for N-gauge '+' and 'S' appears to the setting to use.

 

 

Then I just had to fix install the motor itself. First issue - I picked the wrong linkage and in the process of working this out I managed to ping the linkage..somewhere. I looked and I looked but I couldn't find it. Thankfully a quick test showed that it hadn't landed on the track but now I've got to buy a magnet because I can't leave a small piece of metal kicking around. Sigh.

 

Then I had to position the motor. Doing it by finger was pretty easy (although I can never remember whether '1' is out or in even when I'm testing it. Having determined the position I gently screwed it in. Tested it and the motor wouldn't budge. Eh? So I unscrewed it and double checked the position. Apparently I was off by a millimetre. So reposition and try again. Same thing. Now I'm getting a bit irritated. A few more attempts and it seems that I can only screw this motor down at the rear. Meh. It's secure enough and a little bit of play doesn't seem to bother it.

 

On to the second motor. For this I need to install a controller. It started well enough. Drill small pilot holes, screw controller to baseboard side. Now I just needed to run some wire from the previous controller to this one. Simple eh? Cobalt stuff is easy to use because it's all plugs and screw connectors. Hah! I still don't know exactly what happened but one of the screw connectors just didn't want to play. I couldn't get the wire in no matter how much I swore at it. Eventually in exasperation I unscrewed the controller so that I could get better access. Still no joy until I stuck my screwdriver into the hole and gave it a waggle. Finally the wire goes in. The connectors don't look like they have a clamp inside them, just the screw itself but it seems like sometimes they need some persuasion.

 

By this time I've been crawling around the baseboard for over an hour. Several times I'd left tools somewhere stupid so that I couldn't find them or had to crawl back out to get them. This is an old habit that I thought building a model railway had cured me off but apparently when I'm annoyed I go back to my old habits.

 

Anyway the way it's left at the moment is that the second motor needs to be positioned and screwed down. I've also noticed that the motor cables will need a bit of adjustment to avoid fouling the South Outer Cutting.

 

[AndrueC]

What's in a name?

 

So I'm beginning to formalise the names of some areas of my board. Here are a few of them:

 

North Yard, South Yard.

The two staging yards. Cleverly named for the fact that one is on the north side of the board and the other is on the south.

North Yard, to the left, South Yard to the right.

 

Then there's Castle Curve because, well, duh!

 

Then there's Beekle's Crossing (named after a Budgie I used to share my house with)

 

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of Wilf's Junction (named in honour of my late Dad) and mentioned Angry Tunnel (the train is coming out of it). I was hoping someone would ask me why it was called Angry Tunnel but to my disappointment no-one did.

 

 

It's simple really. It's because the lines cross inside:

 

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

It wasn't supposed to be this way..

 

As per my previous post I'd left the job half done. I don't like doing that. I could have lived with only two turnout motors installed but one installed and one just sat by the track is not acceptable. So with a spare hour left in the afternoon I pulled myself together and went back to the layout. I connected the turnout to the track, plugged it into the controller and switched on ready to check the positioning.

 

B E E E E E E E P!

 

What the..? My circuit breaker has tripped. Is the new connecting wire fouling the track? Nope. Did that lost connecting wire find it's way onto the track? Damn. So I grab a spare wagon and start minutely inspecting the track around  where the wire could've pinged. No sign of it.

 

Ah but while working under the board I hit my head and made things rattle. Perhaps some rolling stock has jumped the rails and caused a short. So I inspect the South Yard and find one coach and two wagons off the rails. Well the wagons can't be at fault because although they do have metal wheels they don't have lights so can't cause a short but of course coaches can. Reseating the coaches is tricky in a packed staging yard so I remove them. Then I power the track back on.

 

B E E E E E E E P!

 

Okay, this is disturbing. If it's that connecting wire I'm going to have a devil of a job finding it. Those things are small. First step - remove all the rolling stock from the South Yard. The only good thing about doing that is that it was already on my to-do list because I want to ballast that yard. What I love about N gauge is how long the trains can be. In my case a metre long. So that's five coaches/freight wagons and double that number of coal wagons. The South Yard was full so that's four trains to dismantle and pack away. Joy. Oh and although I kept all the boxes I obviously wasn't assiduous about packing them up because I'm damn' sure that a Maunsel coach should not be going into a box that says 'DCC fitted' on it and this class 53 does not fit into the box with its name on it. But after half an hour it's all done. Rather than power the track back up I grab my multimeter and check for continuity between the tracks.

 

Beep! You have continuity!

 

What? Right next sensible thing to do - I've been playing with the electrics so maybe I've damaged something. So I dig around under the board and disconnect the bus from the power feed. Time for the multimeter again.

 

Beep! You have continuity!

 

Now I'm flumoxed. I move all the rolling stock off the North Yard rails (only three trains on this side thankfully) and I don't bother to pack them away. Test the MM Again.

 

Beep! You have continuity!

 

Frankly this is getting ridiculous. I begin to have visions of unsoldering track to find out where the problem is. But then I have another idea. When I built the layout I fitted a snubber. Not because I thought I needed one (let's not have that debate) but because it was cheap and no-one said it did any harm. So I unscrew one of the wires. And test with the MM again.

 

<silence>. You do not have continuity.

 

Wow. Better test the snubber on its own.

 

<silence>. You do not have continuity.

 

So I wire the snubber back in and bracing myself I test with the MM.

 

<silence>. You do not have continuity.

 

So I wire the bus back to the output and flick the power switch. I get the usual clunks, clicks..and nothing else. No Beeping. All is right with the world.

 

So I've fixed the issue (hurrah) but don't really know what the problem was. The connectors on the snubber are possibly not intended for 14 gauge wire and the ends of the wires were bit frazzled. I can only assume that in my haste many months ago I had a frayed end or two hanging out and somehow today I brought those into contact with each other.

 

You're probably asking if I've now finished installing the second turnout. No. I'm now even more frazzled than I was before lunch. I can only take consolation from knowing that next weekend I can lay my at-grade crossing and ballast the South Yard which will finally complete all my layout's ballasting.

Edited December 27, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

And after all that..

 

It seems like it might  have had nothing to do with the snubber at all. I realised today that during my diagnostics I'd begun to disconnect accessories and I'd left the Alpha Mimic unconnected. So I wired it back up, switched on the layout and...

 

B E E E E P!

 

After messing around further I've concluded that the Alpha Mimic is causing a current inrush that trips the PSX. It's been suggested that I move the wires around so that the accessory feed bypasses the PSX so we'll see how that goes. It's a bit odd though since the AM only seems to draw 0.05A. Might have to raise that on the Coastal supplies forum to see what they think. I could understand if it was a turnout controller charging something up but I can't see that the AM has to charge anything.

 

However I have finally fixed the second turnout down. I've also laid a load of trunking and ballast on the South Yard. Still got one turnout and four LEDs to install though, to say nothing of painting the ballast. I'm not sure my poor old ballast painting brush will survive the experience. Dry painting is pretty cruel in the first place but dry painting ballast must be terrible.

Edited December 29, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

The points are in!

 

So I've finally got the third turnout motor on my South Yard installed. It's been a bit of a trial this has. I knew it wouldn't be as easy as the North Yard which is why I left it a few months. But it turned out to be more fraught than I'd imagined and there's an issue that will delay installing the signals.

 

 

The last motor is the one on the left and I'm sure the first thing you spot is the wire trailing across the scenery. Actually the wires of all the turnouts are not optimal. The two I did first are perilously close to catching trains passing on the South Side Main Cutting. I've tried to restrain them with Gorilla tape but apparently it's not worked very well. I'm going to have to think about that because I want that gap to be covered by something removable as it gives access to the track underneath.

 

And it's access to the track underneath that is now at the heart of my problems. That hole is the best access I have. It's also possible to poke a long stick through New Tunnel (under the grass on the left) and the curved wall at the very top left is part of a large section of scenery that can be removed to access the rest of the track. Unfortunately the access to the area under the third motor/pile of rusty wheels is very poor. It's enough to get a track rubber and if a train derailed I could poke it out with a stick. But it's not enough for what I now need.

 

Ideally the third motor wires would go straight down through the top board, main board and out the bottom. Unfortunately getting the wires through the covered main board would be nigh-on impossible. I also have to avoid the track and a block of polystyrene that supports the top board at this point. So I've elected to go the easy route. It looks bad now but I think that great unsung hero known as 'Foam Scatter' can be used to hide it. It's amazing how useful that stuff is. You can just grow a bush or hedge anywhere that you want to hide something..

 

But then we come onto the signals. I've bought a load of ground signals and they work well on the North Staging Yard but here..oh dear. For reasons best known to themselves DCC Concepts give each light a long metal pole. Obviously part of the reason is to help site the lights through a baseboard but the poles are 35mm long (you can see them in an earlier post). So that means the wires for the signals will always be a minimum of 35mm below the lights themselves. And I have no access to the area under where they were supposed to go. You can see the original plan in the three circles in the ballast between the wheel pile and the third motor. At least two of them foul the aforementioned polystyrene block.

 

No matter how I tried to place them they just aren't going to work. Now that's annoying because the main reason I'm installing motors is because I want signals to tell me which siding of each yard is the active route. Without indicators the whole thing loses most of its purpose because if I have to look at the turnouts to determine how they are set I'm close enough to give them a prod with my finger.

 

So it's lateral thinking time. I can't mount them on the ground so I have to mount them in the air. The irony here is that that's what I wanted all along. I wanted the signals to be on the gable end of my yard covers, above each siding. But I couldn't find any ready made signals that would fit to a 'gantry'. I looked into making my own but that's a lot of work and more than I fancied. Especially the bit where I'd have to wire them into a plug that fit my Alpha Mimic board. But my plan now is to build another gantry over the rails. I already have four from N-Scenic and I think I can build the supports around the signal poles. A few strategic cuts in the top girder and we can have ground signals in the air. It won't be ideal because the gantry will have four supports instead of just two but I think it will suffice. Maybe I could paint it very, very rusty and claim that it was cheaper to add supports to a weak structure than rebuild the structure..

 

While browsing the N-Scenic site I saw some structures that looked nice and one of them will give me an excuse for the new gantry. There will be an electrical substation where the pile of wheels is at the moment - clearly the signals have to be on a gantry for visibility. I might even use the building to help hide the motor wire. The other structure I bought is an indulgence and will go on the other corner near my new diorama. Which reminds me there's a story to be told there as well..

 

..some other time

Edited December 31, 2021 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Well that didn't go as I expected. I posted to the wrong thread, lol. Anywa - take 2!

 

What to do with a spare fifteen minutes? A bit of weathering. I didn't think my first attempt would be very subtle so I decided to depict a wagon abandoned to rot in a siding. The technique I used was:

 

• Scratch the writing a bit with the handle of a pair of tweezers.
• Dab greatly watered down black acrylic paint on. First with a paintbrush but latterly with a screwed up paper towel. The paper towel seemed to do a better job.
• Blow on the paint to dry it slightly.
• Dab weathering powders from Vallejo Dust & Dirt collection on.

 

I think it turned out passably well.

 

In the background you can see my signal gantry which I'll be posting about this weekend.

Edited January 14, 2022 by AndrueC

[BroadLeaves]

And now my original reply is completely out of context, so take two from me!

I'm impressed (and if the whole thing really only took 15 minutes I'm *very* impressed!)

The colouring on both the inside with the rusty steel and the outside with the grubby, bashed-about-a-bit it-was-green-some-time-ago are spot on.

Also, the yellow text is nice - there's enough there that you can certainly see someone thinking "Should I repaint that? Nah - it's still just about readable - leave it for another year".

You've definitely captured the run down and beaten up look very well.

[AndrueC]

5 minutes ago, BroadLeaves said:

I'm impressed (and if the whole thing really only took 15 minutes I'm *very* impressed!)

Thank you! Yes, it was only fifteen minutes. I suppose that making something look mucky is a fairly quick process (kids seem to manage it in far less time).

 

My next attempt will be aiming at 'the end of the working week dirty' so will have to be more subtle. I want to do a diesel loco next and there are specific areas which should be a specific kind of dirty so I can't get away with just throwing muck around

 

I do have an airbrush but I've been too scared to even open it. Based on these results I think that I can put off getting to grips with it for another few months

 

Thank you once again for your kind comments.

[AndrueC]

Mission complete!

 

So after a length campaign I finally have turnout motors and signals installed on the South Yard. I always knew it would be a bit of a struggle and I'm both pleased and relieved that I finally got there. A quick recap of what I've done:

• Laid and painted ballast across all four sidings.
• Laid trunking.
• Installed turnout motors.
• Built a gantry that includes signals.

This went quite well. The gap in the legs isn't quite large enough for the DCC Concepts ground signal 'leg' but it can be made to work:

• Installed gantry.
• Added some scenery including a power station building.

The latter two items can be seen here:

It needs a bit of tidying (got some wires to hide) but it's basically complete.

 

After that it was time to program the four macros. That went quite well although one of the motors needed to be relocated slightly as it was failing to throw its points. I also discovered that one of my previous macros for the North Yard was incorrect so I had to fix that. Programming macros on the PowerCab isn't terrible but it'd be nice if it had an edit facility.

 

Anyway here is a link to a video of the South Siding strutting its stuff. You may or may not be able to make out the points moving but you'll see the lights changing - they are hard to miss

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fpKuxRXmg2WoMyKq9

Edited January 15, 2022 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

This weekend I will be..

 

Doing a bit of re-wiring. I took delivery of a new loco this week (a Sonic 0-6-2). So today when the decoder arrived I decided to plonk it on my programming track and give it a run.

 

Oh dear.

 

Previously I had to fix an issue with start up current tripping my circuit breaker. I did so by moving the acc. bus in front of the breaker. Or so I thought. Actually I'd forgotten what else was on that circuit so what I actually ended up doing was putting the acc. bus in serial with everything else and at the front. This does allow the layout to run but has two consequences:

• I can't use the programming track because the PowerCab detects a short (presumably the acc. bus, lol).
• If I disconnect the acc. bus the layout gets no power at all.

So this weekend I need to rearrange things. Somewhere under the layout is a small PCB that cuts power to the main when I select program track mode. Shouldn't be hard to find since it will have two wires connecting it to the programming track. However I also thought it would be a good idea to use my new wire capping tool so that it would be easier to insert wire into screw terminals. I had the tool to hand along with the ferrules only to discover that the smallest ferrule I have is .5mm and that's too large for the screw terminals. Hopefully you can buy smaller ferrules.

 

Warning to any visitors to my house this weekend: There might be outbursts of foul and abusive language....

[AndrueC]

I'm inclined to be imperfect...

 

It's getting to the end of my modelling season now so I've been spending more time actually running trains of late. It's been nice. For the most part everything just runs and it helps dispels lingering feelings of doubt. So I'm quite happy with my work. But nothing is perfect and I have encountered a few glitches. I thought I'd share them here.

 

The Blue Horror

This is a class 53 Ashford. It's been in my bad books before. After the last bout of bad running I found a hair inside and removing that seemed to fix her. Nope. She was playing up again last week so I had to investigate further. Turns out she was suffering from two related problems. Firstly her rear bogie wasn't sitting deep enough into her chassis to fully engage the top bogie cog with the worm drive. I initially tried to fix that by pushing the copper pickups further into her chassis. Unfortunately that just means she sometimes failed to get power through that bogie. My current attempt at a fix was to scape the underside of the chassis next to the worm to allow the bogie to go in deeper and that seems to have worked.

 

BR Bertha

This is a new loco - a BR class 53 that I bought to replace the Ashford. Ironically upon receipt it stalled on turnouts. I tweaked the copper pickups and now she seems fine. But I detect a pattern emerging here. I do have another class 53 Little Bertha that has never put a wheel wrong but still one out of three doesn't say much for Dapol QA.

 

It's Only a Coal Wagon

You wouldn't think these could cause any problems. I have one train that consists of 12 of these. I realised that I actually had enough room in the siding to add three more so I did. And then the train stopped running. Various wagons kept derailing. I eventually concluded that I had just gone too far. Except that I like the new wagons because they are weathered so I removed three of the old ones and tried again - no go. I've now concluded that the three new wagons just don't like my track. I've checked their B2B but they can't go around even when the rake only consists of three of them.

 

But as I packed them away today I realised that I used to use a wagon as my track laying tester because it was so sensitive so perhaps I shouldn't be so blasé about trying to string over a dozen them in one rake.

 

Building Inclines

I have four inclines on my layout. Two on the outside leading to a mezzanine, two down the centre leading up to the staging yards. Historically they haven't caused any problems. And that mostly continues to this day. I say mostly because my class 43 Miss Behaviour started slowing a bit at the top of one of them. Luckily it just needed a track clean but I've noticed before (one of the reasons for her name) that she leaves a dirty track behind her.

 

Unintentional Inclines

This one had me both confounded and amused. I have four nominally 180 degree corners on my layout. I've noticed that when pulling out of one of them most trains slow at least a little bit.

Inner curve, trains run clockwise.

 

Well Miss Behaviour slows quite noticeably. On one occasion she slowed to a halt and started spinning her wheels. Now fair enough it's a long curve but it's not unique in that, I have another that's greater than 180 degrees and that's fine. All my trains are around 900mm long which means the loco is pulling out of the curves while the tail is only just going in. I know that's going to make them work hard but I was curious about that particular curve. If you look at the top you can see a kink in the line (more quality track laying by the Circularium Work's Department). You might also notice a gap where two baseboards join. I'd forgotten about that. "There's a slight rise there" I remember thinking to myself.

 

So out of curiosity I downloaded a spirit level app to my phone and did some measuring. The four actual inclines are reported at between 0.5 and 1.4 degrees which is 0.87% to 2.4% (this ignores the easements). Since I was aiming for 2% I'm happy with that. What shocked me was that the section of curve from the pink tree to the gap in the baseboard came out at 1.6 to 2.2 degrees or 2.8% to 3.8%!

 

No wonder trains are struggling a bit! It's interesting that most manage it with barely any reduction in speed - you could almost put it down to an optical illusion. Miss Behaviour suffers the worst and I think it's because of her rear unpowered trailer. That has never seemed as free running as her coaches. From what I remember the power pickups on that are different to the coaches presumably because she's the same unit as the engine but without a motor.

 

I suppose the moral of this story is not to employ the Circularium Work's Department

 

But I'm enjoying running trains. I know that I haven't used top quality for this project (I think the layout was only track complete a year ago) so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. The next layout which is being planned will be built to a higher quality. It's a retirement hobby so hopefully I'll have thirty years to work on it

Edited February 3, 2022 by AndrueC

[AndrueC]

Major track works in progress!

 

After the recent alarming discovery of bad track layingsubsidence Bert has been called out to raise the track bed on the North Inner Loop Curve, lol.

 

Yes although it's not stopping trains run I've decided I ought to address it. The first step was to apply some wet water around the track. This would loosen the ballast and the track itself because I glue track in place with PVA. The next step was going to be to vaccuum up the ballast but I decided before that to just raise the track a bit and see what it was like. Much to my surprise it actually lifted cleanly carrying most of the ballast with it. Considering the curve is made from Setrack I was really pleased that it was happy to raise up as one unit because it made my job easier.

 

So I cut some curves out of cardboard (A thick pair and a thinner pair). I carefully slid them under the track - without having to disconnect it which was nice. Then I just put the track back down and relayed the ballast. I did my best to lay the ballast tidily but the new ballast soon became damp and tacky so I had to call it quits eventually. I did at least verify that the inner track was clear and that my test wagon passed over the area happily. I also tested the slope and it's now a lot less than it was.

 

I did a final quality check of the track joins, put weights on it and there it is for now. It should all be dry tomorrow so I can give it a final going over to tidy it and then we'll see how it runs. I have a feeling that I might have to put some solder down since disturbing fish plates (especially while there's glue around) may have conductivity consequences but that's easily sorted.

 

I also finally got around to building a wall to cover the exposed turnout/signal wires for the South Yard. That is also now drying so no picture at the moment.

 

And that might be all the major work for this season. I didn't get around to finishing the road access to the yard and didn't even start on the pond but I think that needs more thought. That'll be a task for next winter.

Edited February 5, 2022 by AndrueC