edward66 Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 Hi Jamie, Are you intending to use overhead pickup for the electric trains or would that be just too difficult to do? Edward Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted December 6, 2012 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted December 6, 2012 Hi Jamie, Are you intending to use overhead pickup for the electric trains or would that be just too difficult to do? Edward No. All being well the pantographs will touch the wires but to use overhead pick up would mean wiring one end of the fiddle yard which would cause all sorts of complications. Cheers Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xerces Fobe2 Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Hi Jamie There is an article in Traction Magazine 208 about Lancaster Ayre Green and Carnforth - I have not seen it yet however it might be worth a look? Nigel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted December 9, 2012 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted December 9, 2012 Hi Jamie There is an article in Traction Magazine 208 about Lancaster Ayre Green and Carnforth - I have not seen it yet however it might be worth a look? Nigel Thanks for that Nigel. I had been tipped off about it and looked at it in Smiths at the weekend. It's by an ex fireman called ken Nuttall who I have got to know but the photos are either of the ex LNW electrics (in colour) or are after closure of the electric system and there are none of Green Ayre itself. You migbht well want to invest in a copy. Cheers Jamie 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted January 4, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 4, 2013 (edited) Much has happened over the Christmas period. The main control panel is now about 80% complete and I have even fitted all the auxiliary switches to the Lever frame. Over half the boards are now wired and the end of that job is in the distance but no longer over the horizon. Whilst this has been going on John Patrick has been working on the backscenes. These are not easy as the perspective is tricky. the layout curves where the prototype is straight and in some places some selective compression has been used to make the layout work. The area that he us working on at the moment is the north bank of the river Lune going east from the station to Skerton Bridge. Skerton Bridge is an 18th century stone arch bridge with 5 arches. We only have room on the baseboards for half an arch, plus the approach ramp and the bridge over the railway. It then disappears into the backscene but need to be seen from both sides as it is on the corner of the layout. Anyway on Wednesday evening we had the clubrooms to ourselves so put up several boards with backscenes and this is the result. Not very clear photos due to me only having my phone with me but hopefully they give the idea. John and I were able to sketch the arches onto the backscene and plan how the bridge is going to join onto it. (It's a good thing that John's wife didn't see him kneeling on a stool to lean across the board) However the painted bridge will only have 3 arches, which will fit with the bridge near the station (Greyhound Bridge) which only has four spans instead of eight. Now it's back to the wiring. Jamie Edited July 22, 2022 by jamie92208 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted January 5, 2013 Share Posted January 5, 2013 That back scene seems to be a work of art by itself. Very impressive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted January 5, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 5, 2013 (edited) That back scene seems to be a work of art by itself. Very impressive. Thanks Adrian, John is a very talented amateur artist. As well as having built the magnificent station buildings he is working out how to paint all 10 of the backscene boards, About 50' in all, in such a way that they make sense in terms of the real landscape. The layout has various curves where the real line was straight so getting the perspective right is not easy. I've done him an overlay on the 25" to the mile map from 1910 with the board outlines marked on and from that he is able to project the various board boundaries to buildings on the far bank of the river. Hopefully the full backscene shoould look as good as the buildings. We are having a running night on 4th February at the clubrooms and hope to put all this area up complete with the cardboard mock up of the bridge. Jamie Edited January 27, 2013 by jamie92208 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted January 26, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted January 26, 2013 (edited) Much progress is still being made as we slowly get the wiring done. Last week i took the completed main control panel to the club and connected it up at the east end of the layout. A few teething problems emerged and on Wednesday I installed a few wires that had been forgotten. I then spent half an hour trying to work out why some relays weren't clicking over. I finally checked the relays to find that though the bases were installed and wired up I had forgotten to insert he actual relays. Durrrrrrrrr. Anyway Last night I took a loco down and tried that but no joy. I then checked the wheels and found the steel tyres covered in rust after 2 years of storage in the wardrobe. After a little work with sandpaper it was put back on the track and moved off smoothly. At last after over 2 years work we finally got a loco moving under the command of the main panel. Points were moving correctly and the indicator lights were changing on the panel. All in all a very nice moment. Now we just have to continue with the debugging and get 6 boards working for the club running night on February 4th. Jamie Edited January 27, 2013 by jamie92208 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 4, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 4, 2013 Just got back from spending a few hours at the clubroom. We arte having a running night tonight with all layouts in the clubrooms running wehther complete or not. As the only 32mm gauge layout (There is an 0n30 which is 7mm scale) we could not be outdone by the smnaller scales so have erected 8 boards downstairs which make up the east end of the layout. Thee ahve all been wired and are now connected to the main panel which is also complete. For the l;ast week we have been trying to debug it and kept getting persistent shorts. This has been very frustrating. Anyway over the weekend I drew out the area and worked out all the various connections again and 3 of us met at lunchtime to try and get it running for tonight. After frustrating time getting one board sorted we tried it again and discovered that curing one built in short (Due to my faulty wiring) that cured 2 others. Another half hourts work cured another and by 3.30 we had got a loco running on both main lines, across a crossover, in and out of the bay platform and across from the up main towards the coal yard. GREAT SUCCESS. All the points worked and the indicator l;ights on the panel also work so we were very pleased. Hopefully tonight should be a success and I will try and get some pictures. The backscenes are also up for the part we are running and look stunning. Jamie 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 5, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 5, 2013 Well we had a cracking night with all the layouts running and believe it or not green Ayre behaved itself and we even managed to shunt the station. John brought 3 of the backscenes down and this is the result Moving to the right The bridge mock up was used to position the scene and the actual bridge carried the last horse tramway on the UK mainland so this has appeared. We spent much of the evening shunting backwards and forwards and managed to reverse 3 bogie coaches plus a van into the bay many times without any problems. Also the 1 in 12 crossover which Martin Wynne helped with when my Templot skills failed me, performed faultlessly. Even the panel behaved itself.All in all a fabulous evening and even the chairman brought his new acquisition of which I thoroughly approved. It was great to be able to control trains via the panel and have them run reliably. We even reversed goods trains across the diamond crossing towards the coal yard. Jamie 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohmisterporter Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Looking good Jamie. I just can't get my head around how the cardboard Skerton bridge links up to the painted backdrop, but no doubt you have it figured out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 5, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 5, 2013 Looking good Jamie. I just can't get my head around how the cardboard Skerton bridge links up to the painted backdrop, but no doubt you have it figured out. That's ther tricky bit. The bridge dissappears into the backscene after half an arch. John has therefore painted both sides of the bridge strecthing away from it so that looking from either side the bridge will hopefully appear continuous. The cardboard mock up was just to give us the idea and we are going down on Wednesday night to start cutting plywood fore the real one. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohmisterporter Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Thanks Jamie. I can picture that in my mind and know where the artist is coming from. Looking forward to seeing the layout finished. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Thanks Jamie. I can picture that in my mind and know where the artist is coming from. Looking forward to seeing the layout finished. As you say it is coming along nicely, I can see how the bridge is blending into the back scene so you should see one bridge from either side. In having a quick look to see how the prototype looked I came across this curious photo, unfortunately it seems to be the other side of the river otherwise it would have made an interesting cameo. Without further adieu - from http://fortonservices.webs.com/localinterest.htm 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 5, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 5, 2013 As you say it is coming along nicely, I can see how the bridge is blending into the back scene so you should see one bridge from either side. In having a quick look to see how the prototype looked I came across this curious photo, unfortunately it seems to be the other side of the river otherwise it would have made an interesting cameo. Without further adieu - from http://fortonservices.webs.com/localinterest.htm 2175413719_da2dd246c71.jpg Hi Adrian, that's a very useful picture. It looks as if it's taken from the south bank looking north west. You can see the flat topped railway underbridge just above the rear wheel of the upturned bus and then the first arch of the river bridge. The wall in the foreground is useful detail for me as there is a lot of vegetation obscuring that side. I'm going to be roughing out that area in pywood tomorrow night so it's arrived just in time. Thanks again. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Hi Adrian, that's a very useful picture. It looks as if it's taken from the south bank looking north west. You can see the flat topped railway underbridge just above the rear wheel of the upturned bus and then the first arch of the river bridge. The wall in the foreground is useful detail for me as there is a lot of vegetation obscuring that side. I'm going to be roughing out that area in pywood tomorrow night so it's arrived just in time. Thanks again. Jamie No problem glad to help - have a look at the website I linked to, which has a few more interesting photos, with photographs of the old and new greyhound bridge. It also has a link to a booklet about the conversion of the greyhound bridge from rail to road - with a before and after photo and cross sectional drawing. http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/historichighways/allpurpose/greyhoundbridge.pdf Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohmisterporter Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Thanks for those links Adrian, how easy it is to forget what the roads were like pre-motorways. The cars in the pictures of the motorway openings will be "classic" now. I remember the bus going through the bridge wall onto its side, but can't recall the cause of it. IIRC traffic was two way on Skerton bridge at that time. The pictures of the building of Lancaster by pass reminded me of an old workmate who worked on the construction of the motorway and was run over by a bulldozer. Amazingly he survived! Apparently the ground was so soft the dozer squashed him into it as it drove up his body and then down again. After a long recovery period he walked again with two sticks and got a job where he could sit most of the day.Gone a bit off topic but I thought this may be of interest. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 19, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 19, 2013 (edited) Well another working week has started on the layout. Yesterday 3 of us got the front, scenic section erected in the church and started testing the west (Station and Shed) end with power from the panel. Various minor problems were found such as a missing tie bar and a 2 pole relay where there should have been a 4 pole one. (The relays all have the same bases). The west end is controlled by three panels (Loco Shed, Castle Branch and Main ) and the main purpose of the week is to get all three talking to each other successfully. We connected everything up and found that one of the long interpanel leads was duplicted and another was missing so I spent an hour making a new lead. Today we are going to put the back scenes on and sketch out the west end ones and continue with the elctrical debugging. It's a slow process but worthwhile. I'll try and post some pictures later in the week. Jamie Edited February 19, 2013 by jamie92208 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 19, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 19, 2013 Day 2 of the work week got off to a good start with me sorting out some crossed wires across a basebaord joint that sent the Up Main Power to the Down Main and vice versa. Then a variety of jobs got done. The east end bridge (Skerton) was started in plywood so that we can sort out the gradients and perspective later in the week. We put some more backscenes up behind the station area and John sorted out what he's going to paint where. Dave sorted out various bits of pointwork that were sticking and we got all the points on the layout working from their respective panels. Now I've just got to get the panels to talk to each other properly and not cvause relays to chatter. And we got a loco running on another 2 sections of main line. All in all a good days work. Jamie 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 20, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 20, 2013 (edited) Day 3 of the work week. Not a great deal done as it was tram building day but I got up this evening foa couple of hours. I managed to get all three panels energised without shorting each other out but need to do some more work on that. I then got the Up Main energised across Greyhound bridge and was able to drive a loco from the bridge all the way to the other end of the layout. I then started to do the same for the Down Main but have hit a few snags and have somehow managed to lose a wiring diagram for the single slip that leads to the Castle brnach and loco shed. So this evenings homework is to reconstruct the diagram and then get things sorted out tomorrow. Jamie Edited February 21, 2013 by jamie92208 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 21, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 21, 2013 Day 4 and an early start trying to make sense of the way that I had wired the single slip. This piece of pointwork is the key to the whole layout and if it doens't work properly everything will grind toa halt. After over 2 hours I realised that the whole are a could be rewired in a simpler way. After lunch we took the board down and started to work on the relay matrix underneath. A couple of hours later the job was done and by 5 o clock the board was re erected. While this was going on various other jobs got done. Work continued on Skerton Bridge and Tony and I marked out where the Overhead gantry supports go on the Greyhound Bridge side girders. After tea I went back and tested the newly wired section and things had started to work. After correcting a couple of minor problems I managed to get a loco to run successfuly on the Down main, the Castle Branch and towards the Loco Shed. This emans that all the lines connected to the main panel ahve now been tested successfuly. Not a bad result. This was the scene No 14 brings a coach down from Lancaster Castle And enters Lancaster (Midland, later Green Ayre) Going across the slip and crossover into the Up Platform under Gantry 19. One slight problem, the platforms don't have enough clearance for outside cranks so 14 walks along the platform in a somewhat ungainly fashion. All in all a good day. Jamie 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparks Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 This was the scene No 14 brings a coach down from Lancaster Castle And enters Lancaster (Midland, later Green Ayre) Going across the slip and crossover into the Up Platform under Gantry 19. Looking good! These photos are immediately recognisable as Green Ayre. I've been following for a while and can't wait until you get to the electric stock! Stuart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sheep Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 Looking good! These photos are immediately recognisable as Green Ayre. I've been following for a while and can't wait until you get to the electric stock! Stuart I read that as "can't wait until you get an electric shock!" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted February 22, 2013 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 22, 2013 Day 5 of the work week and more good progress. On the electrical front we got trains to run on all of the Castle branch. Later on I tested the inter panel signalling system and most of it seems to work with various LED's lighting when they should. I then started to sort out the Locoshed area and got a loco running through quite a bit of it. John Fitness of this parish came over and we spent a while sorting out signals. Dave Tanner (Supersonic) trimmed 3 lengths of platform and got them refixed in the right place. Paul came over and spent the day making the approach ramps for Skerton Bridge. This is going to be quite a large structure. All work ground to a halt as we the started playing trains. John F's Co bo ran well and Dave's Royal Scot also Tony Bonds little Ixion. This also spent a bit of time banking 2-4-0 No 14 up the bank to Castle. I even managed to get some video on my phone which I will try to upload. Tomorrow it's sort out Skerton Bridge then pack it all away. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparks Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 I read that as "can't wait until you get an electric shock!" LOL.Makes me think of those wonderful signs that the original units carried in front of the pantographs - "It is dangerous to touch this apparatus"! http://cumbrianrailways.zenfolio.com/p851296226/h2e5fd82f#h2e5fd82f http://cumbrianrailways.zenfolio.com/p97896241/h2a1ec925#h2a1ec925 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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