Crewlisle - From Baseboards to DCC & Overhead Catenary

[Crewlisle]

 

 

My 00 gauge DCC layout Crewlisle has been stored in my spare bedroom for the last 18 months & I am just starting to get it ready for its last exhibition at Warley this November (hopefully!).  I am the first to admit that Crewlisle is not the most detailed layout but it works & entertains at exhibitions. According to many modelling experts, my layout should not be running at all due to the way I have done things or not fitted this or that! I thought now is the time to start a forum & discussion as I start checking things out for Warley, together with photos where appropriate & why I have done things a certain way starting with the baseboards.

 

The overall size of the layout is 2.6M x 2.3M.  As you can see from the track plan, I have 5 different sized baseboards.  With reference to the bottom 'short' board, I did not make a mistake in my measurements.  It is so the bedroom door can open! This is hinged & is a single piece of suitably stiffened12mm chipboard to allow access to the airing cupboard & built in wardrobe.

 

Each board framework is made up of 50 x 25 planed softwood. The outside framework of each board was constructed first with each corner dovetail jointed & screwed.  All other stiffeners are at 300mm centres at right angles to each other.  On the longitudinal centre stiffeners on the two 600mm (approx) wide boards, the transverse intermediate stiffeners have cross halving joints but are only butted & screwed to the inside of the outside framework to avoid weakening the boards main strength. They were dry assembled on my garage floor by just screwing & using loose battens checked for twist in both planes.  After rectifying a couple of minor problems they were disassembled, then all joints were glued & screwed & checked again for twist.  Any problems, a light tap with a hammer on the still-wet joints ensured that when they dried they would be strong & square. If you are worried about your woodworking skills, you can always add small wooden blocks at the joints to strengthen them.  

 

Now for the surface.  I wanted a soft material to easily accept track pins & for cutting holes.  What did I use? Experts look away now, but none other than the oft derided 'no-no' material 15mm Sundela Softboard glued & secured to the frameworks with 30mm clout nails.  The wood glue I used for the surface & framework was the good old reliable Evostik Resin W.  I can hear the experts saying, "That won't last long before it all distorts or sags!"

 

How about 47 years!  They are still as flat & strong as when they were built all those years ago & have been dismantled/transported to 24 exhibitions.

 

As I progress the checking of 'Crewlisle', I will give you details of what & why I did things some of you will be horrified at.  But in the words of the great singer & railway modeller Frank Sinatra himself 'I Did It My Way' & it works!

 

Peter

 

[Legend]

I remember seeing your layout, I think when I used to buy Model Rail .  A great layout with lots of potential in a relatively small space . And back when first seen , not many people were modelling 25kv . So it’s been a great source of inspiration and I look forward to reading your notes . 

[Free At Last]

I still have some 40 year old 4'x2'sheets of 9mm Sundeala in my loft which are still flat, and I never had any problems with baseboards I made with it. They were leftovers from a job I was on and therefore free.  For its price now, £55.00 for an 8'x4' sheet locally, I would sooner use Baltic Birch.
What I can't find now is the 8'x4' sheets of 12mm Woodfibre Insulation Board, which was £8.00 a sheet last time I bought some about 5 years ago.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Free At Last

[Crewlisle]

One thing I forgot was actually aligning & connecting the baseboards together.  There are two methods used either with butt hinges or dowels/bolts. When using nuts & bolts, metal dowels in tubes are used for the accurate alignment & the nuts/bolts hold the boards together.

 

Perhaps the easier method is to use cast steel or brass hinges.  In turn, push each board together making sure that the tops are level & screw each pair of hinges to the edges of the two boards.  The cast hinges have accurate hinge pins which when replaced with removable pins keep the boards accurately aligned.  The cheap ordinary pressed out hinges have too much play in them.  Don't rely on these to support the weight of the boards but only for accurate alignment.

 

Peter

[The Stationmaster]

I remember seeing this layout at the show in Plymouth a good few years back.  I was very impressed by the ingenuity used in compressing so much railway in a relatively believable, and well observed, manner into such a small space.  This is going to be an interesting series of posts as it explains how the layout was designed and built.

 

PS When using hinges to join layout sections one option - not cheap is to use proper, high quality,  'knockout' hinges which come from the factory with removable pins so are specifically designed and made to be dismantled and accurately reassembled.  But it can be cvery difficult to find them nowadays as you need a specialist retailer so that you can see how good they are. (or aren't) before spending your money.

[RobinofLoxley]

I am looking forward to visiting you and the layout at Warley in November, fingers crossed.

 

I daresay that Sundeala in the 1970's was a very different animal compared to today. Fibre based products looked completely different - you only have to look at Levis jeans then and now.

[The Stationmaster]

14 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

I am looking forward to visiting you and the layout at Warley in November, fingers crossed.

 

I daresay that Sundeala in the 1970's was a very different animal compared to today. Fibre based products looked completely different - you only have to look at Levis jeans then and now.

1970s Sundeala board was an excellent material for baseboard surfaces and all sorts of other uses - my father was a carpenter and thought very highly of it because of its stability.  The 'modern' version horrified me when I saw some as it is more akin to what used to eb called insulation board and is a lot softer than it used to be.

[Crewlisle]

Planning the Layout

 

When I decided on the space I had for a layout the next problem was how to fit in all the features I wanted.  I did my train spotting in the 1950's when I lived at Market Harborough on the Midland Mainline with regular visits to Rugby for the WCML or Peterborough for the ECML.  No contest; I settled for the WCML with locos seen from the 1950s & finishing with the APT, hence the name combination.

 

I wanted the following:

1.  Terminus (Crewlisle Midland) for 6 coach expresses.

2.   Double track main line with through station (Crewlisle Exchange).  Down is anti-clockwise;   

      Up is clockwise 3.   Steam & diesel sheds with turntable.

4.   Coach & wagon sidings.

5.   With a small space & wanting a lot of stock & locos, a fiddle yard is a must but where to put   

      it?  I decided on a series of cassettes inside the operating well regularly replenished from stock  

      boxes.  Details of my cassette storage system & how to build it appeared in the forum

      'Preferred Cassette Construction' (currently on Page 2 of the 'Layout & Track Design' section). 

 

All this would be impossible on a single level so I had to make a high level with acceptable gradients. Many locos have added weight & most coaches have had weight removed to manage the gradients. The relevant gradients are: Terminus down to mainline.  1:38.

Mainline down to reversing loop/cartridge exchange system.  1.28  (No problem as most traffic goes down but with the occasional 'up' it requires a gentle 'big hand from the sky banker).

Reversing loop up to up-mainline.  1:33

 

The reversing loop/cartridge exchange system leaves the down-main (see part section of top left hand corner of plan below), goes down the inside of the operating well, under the right hand baseboard, rising up under the bottom baseboard to join the up-main under the coaling plant. To support the reversing loop under the right hand baseboard, 5 in number U shaped 12mm thick plywood supports were made & glued & screwed to the baseboard framework.  When dry, the baseboard stiffeners were cut away in way of the brackets & a 6mm thick plywood track support fit a narrow 6mm plywood strip supported to the main boards by aluminium brackets.

In my next post I will describe how I laid the track & points, even across baseboard joints without soldering with up to100 mph running & no derailments!  Also, even with DCC & 29 points I only have one polarity switch (nothing on any of my point motors!) & no other DCC ‘gizmos’ on the whole of the layout.

 

Peter

 

Note:  The single line joining at the top is the relief line from 'Crewlisle Exchange' on the mainline.  The single line on the left is the top of the reversing loop joining the up-mainline,

[Crewlisle]

Laying the Track

 

I decided on Peco Code 100 track as it is robust, realistic & ideal for the average layout/model.  The first thing I did was to send away for a set of Peco polnt paper templates.  Now you can download them.  I roughly sketched the layout on the baseboard, ignoring the baseboard joints as I had worked out how to lay track & points over the joints.  Today, many modellers use the 'Any Rail' or 'Templot' track designing aid.  When I did mine all those years ago 'Any Rail' was not around & then it literally meant any old rail!

All my track is curved where it passes over the baseboard joints so it would have been unwise to use the standard method of soldering the ends of the track to copper clad Paxolin or screw heads at the baseboard edges due to the track having to be cut at very shallow angles ‑ especially running trains at realistic speeds on the WCML!  The slightest misalignment would be disastrous.    

Now I had an idea where the track would go, I glued & laid wide sections of 2mm polystyrene wall insulation as the track ballast base.  2mm cork was much too expensive at the time!  After making numerous copies of the templates, i pinned them in their approximate position.  Lengths of track were then bent to fit between them, pinned & adjusting track or points as required.  Ensure the track is 'set' in position & does not try to spring back straight.  Ensure that any track joints start at least 150mm before you start your curve.  Don't worry about laying track or points over the baseboard joints, i will deal with that next.

The foam was not stuck 80mm either side of the baseboard joint.  The track was cut 80mm each side of the baseboard joint with a razor saw or small cutting disc and the short section lifted out and reinforced with thin card on the underside & ballasted.   The rail ends of this section were carefully filed, rail connectors soldered to one end and sleeper chairs cut at the other end to allow the fitting of sliding fish plates.  This allowed accurate and reliable track alignment & electrical continuity every time by having the track continuously joined with normal rail connectors.  As the adverts say, "You cannot see the join!".  After completing your lengths of track, the track will have additional strength when you glue your ballast down.

 

I have been exhibiting for over 30 years & have had no trouble with this method of connection when having to dismantle/assemble the layout for exhibitions.  I even have three points on the high level & a pair of crossover points on the mid level WCML fitted across baseboard joints in the same way.  None of the points have had to be cut as they are joined in the same way as the normal track.

 

When I started this post I was going to put all the different features I used on the layout in this forum.  Contrary to the last paragraph of my last post, I have now decided to keep specific track problems in this forum but put the electrics, points & catenary under 'Modelling Questions, Help & Tips' & DCC under 'DCC Help & Questions'.  It will help any modellers to find out how I did things which to the 'experts' should not work!  For example, there is only one polarity switch on the whole layout & none on any of my 29 points, with some of them converted to electrofrogs from insulfrogs.

 

Peter

[RobinofLoxley]

Can you explain slidng fish plates. Any fishplate can slide in principle but its getting a grip to move them. And presumably there are no missing sleepers.

[Siberian Snooper]

Chop the chairs off, to give room for the fishplates to slide?

 

 

[Crewlisle]

Robin,

 

My apologies.   I was also thinking about something else at the time!  I meant the standard Peco nickel silver rail joiners.  Just use a small screwdriver to push them on or off the adjacent rail.

 

Peter

[Crewlisle]

There are a total of 14 removable  pieces of track where the track crosses baseboard joints.  These range from short sections of plain straight track to a curved section of plain track approximately 450mm long.  They are joined as described in the penultimate paragraphs of my May 19 post.

 

Three of these have points.  One of these is the main line trailing cross over across the right hand baseboard/bottom baseboard joint.  The photo shows the underside & how it is wired with a single DIN plug.

 

On all my cross-baseboard electrical connections I use a mixture of DIN plugs for points, single & double pole phono plugs or various size single jack plugs for other electrical connections.

[toolongtoremember]

I wish I hadn't of seen this thread! 

 

I have been making do with a 11ft by 2ft end to end, where realistically I have the space for an 8ft by 7ft layout. 

 

I just bought a freightliner class 70 and some megafret wagons and I was just searching the internet to get some ideas of what sort of layout I could make for it. 

 

Turns out this layout would run with not only my freightliner well, but also all of my other stock... 

 

I hope you don't mind, but may I borrow your design and amend it slightly for my purposes? 

 

I want to drop the staging area and turntable from the top to make it less wide, and put a Minories terminus at the top. 

 

2022 gonna be expensive!!! 

 

 

 

[DCB]

The Crewlisle plan has been very carefully optimised, changing one thing will probably mess up several others.  I don't think you can fit a Minories throat without losing a couple of coach lengths. but you just need to run wrong line approaching the terminus to access the lower platforms.  That said Crewlisle certainly proves the feasibility of terminus, continuous run and return loop with reasonable gradients in 8ft 6" by 7ft 6" in OO.

[Flying Pig]

On 31/01/2022 at 21:02, DCB said:

but you just need to run wrong line approaching the terminus to access the lower platforms

 

Not really a problem with modern track and signalling layouts.

[toolongtoremember]

On 31/01/2022 at 21:02, DCB said:

The Crewlisle plan has been very carefully optimised, changing one thing will probably mess up several others.  I don't think you can fit a Minories throat without losing a couple of coach lengths. but you just need to run wrong line approaching the terminus to access the lower platforms.  That said Crewlisle certainly proves the feasibility of terminus, continuous run and return loop with reasonable gradients in 8ft 6" by 7ft 6" in OO.

 

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Not really a problem with modern track and signalling layouts.

 

Thank you guys for your feedback, it's much appreciated. 

 

I've settled on doing what I have attached in the image. 

 

I have reversed the points in the lower platforms as to give access to cross platform interchange for the branch line if there is a terminator in there. Also so that the branch can access the mainline without wrong line running towards the left end and also so that trains from the branch can easier access the top terminus platforms.

 

I have cut off the yard area as I won't have the space or money as of yet for that. I will extend the length of the layout to 12ft and reduce the width to 6ft which appears doable. 

 

I have ordered the pointwork (before it goes out of stock again) and next month I'll order the flexi track, I am awaiting baseboard alignment dowels and allen key head bolts and T pronged nuts to arrive to start the baseboards, and I suppose I had better make a new thread for that in the near future and come up with a name! 

 

Thanks all!  

 

[Flying Pig]

51 minutes ago, toolongtoremember said:

have cut off the yard area as I won't have the space or money as of yet for that. I will extend the length of the layout to 12ft and reduce the width to 6ft which appears doable. 

 

I suggest you draw that out and then start your own thread so as not to divert this one.  You have significantly more length available which might be useful.

[DCB]

Looks good.   Do you still have room for the return loop?  (Lowest level at the bottom of the plan.)  It's going to ruin operation if you can't .  Its a bit like trying to improve the moaner leezer.     I wonder if the crossover in the station would be better as a trailing , two left hand points, rather than facing with two right hand if you don't need it as a yard headshunt .

[toolongtoremember]

5 hours ago, DCB said:

Looks good.   Do you still have room for the return loop?  (Lowest level at the bottom of the plan.)  It's going to ruin operation if you can't .  Its a bit like trying to improve the moaner leezer.     I wonder if the crossover in the station would be better as a trailing , two left hand points, rather than facing with two right hand if you don't need it as a yard headshunt .

I don't have space for a return loop, but anything that will be going up to the top will be just DMU sets really. I do have a plan to fit a fiddle yard under the terminus platforms. I know earlier in the thread it was not recommended, but I have had a fiddle yard with no access to it running for well over a year with only one or two times I have had to poke a train to get it to go, so I'll be copying what I have already done. An oversight from me, there will not be a crossover in the terminus platforms for simplicity.  

[toolongtoremember]

Is everything OK with Crewelisle and it's operators? I went to Warley to see you, and there was just an empty spot with masking tape on the floor labeled with the floor number and "Crewlisle Branch" :( 

 

Do let us know! 

 

Nick. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by toolongtoremember

[2E Sub Shed]

1 hour ago, toolongtoremember said:

Is everything OK with Crewelisle and it's operators? I went to Warley to see you, and there was just an empty spot with masking tape on the floor labeled with the floor number and "Crewlisle Branch" :( 

See below from Warley Exhibition thread

 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by 2E Sub Shed
Formatting