GRANBY JUNCTION - Shunting Siphons for the Up Parcels with a Manor!

[Mikkel]

Who says men can't multi-task?  

[Simond]

That’s a despicable rumour, and grossly unfair.  Many men of my acquaintance can multitask.  

 

I know a few that can simultaneously lean on a bar, drink beer, break wind and talk bo77ocks...

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Simond said:

That’s a despicable rumour, and grossly unfair.  Many men of my acquaintance can multitask.  

 

I know a few that can simultaneously lean on a bar, drink beer, break wind and talk bo77ocks...

Only a few?

[Bogie]

I will admit to 3/4 of those tasks.

 

No-one though is to speak to my wife!!

[M.I.B]

I'd rather not watch the rugby unless I change allegiance to the Soamoans..........

[St Enodoc]

47 minutes ago, M.I.B said:

I'd rather not watch the rugby unless I change allegiance to the Soamoans..........

... or Russia?

 

Oops.

[M.I.B]

I couldn't possible support anything Russian out of principle Comrade.

 

Smirnoff and Stolly are not Russian so I am content with that stance (:

 

Georgians played well - but the St George link worries me a little.............

 

So I may stick up for Samoa after all.

 

[john dew]

4 hours ago, M.I.B said:

I couldn't possible support anything Russian out of principle Comrade.

 

Smirnoff and Stolly are not Russian so I am content with that stance (:

 

Georgians played well - but the St George link worries me a little.............

 

So I may stick up for Samoa after all.

 

 

You could always join me in supporting England..........I believe the next sentence should include "gets coat"

 

 

 

[gwrrob]

Did your order from Roxey arrive containing those eyes, hooks and shackles ?

[john dew]

On 17/09/2019 at 18:53, john dew said:

 

Thanks John

 

It doesnt approach your standard of tidiness I am afraid but I have had a bit of a clear out........Granby doesnt get many visitors but this Sunday one of your NRMA colleagues, Anthony Ashley and his wife are paying us a visit......so there has been a lot of testing and cleaning.......I have warned him that careful cropping conceals a multitude of bodging.

 

Enjoy the rugby.......I hope I will

 

John

 

 

We enjoyed Anthony and Sarah's visit on Sunday. They are a charming couple. For those who dont follow Anthony's thread "North Welsh Coast Railway"...........you should!

 

Its a totally amazing project........his first ever layout, built in a purpose built 3 car garage........here is a link

 

 

If nothing else check out Page 17 and his version of Conwy Castle or Page 34 and an N gauge mountain (Penmaenmawr) that appears  to be 10' tall and about twice as long. The trackwork is equally impressive.....two traversers each of 34 tracks are planned on a lower level. The layout will be controlled by RR&Co Train Controller hence Anthony's visit to Granby, on his way home after an extended holiday in North America.

 

I spent most of last week tidying and preparing/rehearsing various automated routines to demonstrate to him the power and scope of Train Controller. The locomotive roster was ruthlessly tested and pruned. Only the most reliable locomotives were selected to perform. The track was polished to perfection.....I almost painted some coal white (MIB may relate to this)

 

On the day itself, I am afraid both Granby and its operator performed rather like England playing Tonga. Brief periods of well drilled power and efficiency interspersed with a series of unforced errors. Previous star performers never known to derail....did. Permanent rakes set up for years, never known to uncouple....did. I even started the wrong schedule, so while scratching my head worrying why a pannier hadnt started, unexpected sounds were heard from the concealed storage yard as a prairie (one dropped from the team) manfully attempted to obey orders by battering its way out. The list goes on. 

 

Despite all that embarrassing stuff  the visit was very enjoyable. I think Anthony was able to gain some knowledge of not only the versatility of Train Controller but also how to avoid some of its limitations.

 

I am afraid that I was too busy to take any photos but Anthony took loads with some very impressive cameras so hopefully we will see them once he and Sarah have settled back home in Brisbane. In an ideal world they will feature the periods of well drilled power and efficiency and no dropped passes...............just like I hope and expect England to perform against the USA on Thursday

 

Regards from Vancouver where the rain has paused.....briefly

 

John

 

[john dew]

1 hour ago, gwrrob said:

Did your order from Roxey arrive containing those eyes, hooks and shackles ?

 

Not yet.......it will be at least another two weeks. Generally I only start worrying after 6 weeks. I imagine my Warwells were despatched within a day or so of yours......I will post when mine arrive.

 

I like the paint job you did on your Cromwell. Because of all the uncertainty about Centaurs/Cromwells whereabouts in 1948 I am going to weather mine rather than have them pristine and invent some legend about the Marquess of Granby’s Yeomanry T.A. ......reformed very early.

 

cheers

 

John

Edited September 25, 2019 by john dew

[M.I.B]

3 hours ago, john dew said:

 

You could always join me in supporting England..........I believe the next sentence should include "gets coat"

 

 

 

 Like the saying goes:  i support two teams...........

[john dew]

3 hours ago, john dew said:

 

Not yet.......it will be at least another two weeks. Generally I only start worrying after 6 weeks. I imagine my Warwells were despatched within a day or so of yours......I will post when mine arrive.

 

I like the paint job you did on your Cromwell. Because of all the uncertainty about Centaurs/Cromwells whereabouts in 1948 I am going to weather mine rather than have them pristine and invent some legend about the Marquess of Granby’s Yeomanry T.A. ......reformed very early.

 

cheers

 

John

 

Hi Robin

 

I maligned the Royal Mail and Canada Post.......guess what the postie delivered this morning.........14 days to cross the Atlantic and North America......not bad for 3.45 GBP

 

 

 

 

 

[81C]

Hi John quick visit house move in a months time so I will start back post once the new layout is underway.

those Roxey parts need pin vices to hold them, get the Slaters chain if you can it looks better, back soon. Bob

[brianusa]

 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Figures are vulnerable at the best of times. It is even worse when they are set up just outside, or in the doorways, of buildings that are easily nudged. The roof was even more susceptible to movement as I leaned over.>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

John, looking at layouts, including my own, the people and vehicles rarely move.  Occasionally some movement can be detected if close to edge of eternity but generally things stay the same.  In the initial placement, I try and figure out the most pleasing situation which seems to have lasted these last twenty years or so but in looking for specific people, I sometimes find it takes time to find them even though my layout is not so heavily populated as yours.  Sometimes I think the spiders spirit them away !

As time passes, I rather think we all suffer the same maintainence problems you mention both on the layout and within ourselves

     Brian.

[M.I.B]

On 25/09/2019 at 16:30, john dew said:

 

...I almost painted some coal white (MIB may relate to this)

 

John

 

 Cast iron lino-floor bumper used on the ceiling?   And all the leaves picked up too I hope.

[john dew]

On 26/09/2019 at 04:54, 81C said:

Hi John quick visit house move in a months time so I will start back post once the new layout is underway.

those Roxey parts need pin vices to hold them, get the Slaters chain if you can it looks better, back soon. Bob

 

Hi Bob

 

Good to hear from you. I wondered where you had got to.....hope the house move goes well.....lang may your lumb reek!

 

John

[john dew]

This post is about my ultimately successful attempt to get my Bachmann 64xx to consistently and reliably haul that GWR branch line icon......the Cynwyd autotrain:




12 years ago, when I first started to learn about the mysteries of DCC, the lower level branch line was the first section of track that I laid.  I am afraid I didnt do a particularly good job. Its a bit uneven in places and in those days if you wanted to isolate the electrofrog points, rather than snip a little wire you, had to make the cuts yourself with a Dremel. I have some horrible gaps....carefully filled but of, course, without power.


The 57xx panniers that take the B Set to and from Granby manage to cope very well with this uncertainty. The autotrain does not! I have struggled for over three years with both a DJM 14xx or the 64xx  .
 

 

 

 


The 64xx is the better of the two but despite constant wheel cleaning and finely adjusted pick ups it still requires far too many little nudges from the sky.


When I get really frustrated I have even been known to substitute this ancient Lima rail car, which I believe I bought in Beatties, Sheffield, in 1998!




You may well ask why this 20 + year old model, notorious for its pizza cutter wheels, can out perform a modern Bachmann loco?

Well the wheels have been updated and additional pickups have been fitted. However the principal difference is that a Stay Alive capacitor is wired to the decoder.

A capacitor is a sort of battery that stores up power and supplies it to the decoder when the decoder detects a power outage.

I have three in use on Granby. They have some downsides......they are bulky, expensive and used to come pre wired to a specific decoder. I have found the best value for money to be the TCS Keep Alive range. The problem is that I cant abide the TCS decoder with its erratic speed curve.

I was about to hold my nose and fit one in the Autotrain and hard wire it to the 64xx when I discovered that you can now buy the TCS capacitors separately and they have been on a diet.....much slimmer:
 

 

The next problem was how to attach the KAT2 to the decoder.......the 64xx is designed to accept a 6 pin decoder that plugs directly into a pre-wired socket.....ie no wires.

I have been meaning to try a Zimo decoder for some time. They have a relatively inexpensive 6 pin decoder with two largish solder pads for the blue (+ve) and black/white (-ve) wires.

I emailed John Gymer of Youchoos to ask his advice before ordering from him. He was super helpful and made a number of very helpful suggestions.......including an even smaller and far less expensive way of storing power .....unfortunately the KAT2 was already ordered........but more on this later. 


Here is the rig to be fitted inside the 64xx
 

 

 

KAT2 Capacitor to be connected via a tiny protective device (Lifelink) to the Zimo decoder....the two  "largish" solder pads are bottom left.

I had intended to put the capacitor either on the cab floor or in the bunker but had forgotten that the decoder socket is right at the front of the loco.

 

Fortunately I was able to fit both the Lifelink and KAT2 underneath the decoder
 

 

 

I have learned to take things like this very slowly and carefully but even so I dont think this took more than an hour to complete.

And here is the result

 

 

 

I dont expect to ever have to run the loco over 18" of un-powered track but clearly there is now sufficient power in reserve to overcome any gaps,dirt or insulfrogs.

Here we see 6407 complete with new fireman and a new headlamp moving smoothly over a turnout previously known as Stall point!





I now have a cunning plan to deal with the DJM 14xxs


Regards from Vancouver

John

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, john dew said:

This post is about my ultimately successful attempt to get my Bachmann 64xx to consistently and reliably haul that GWR branch line icon......the Cynwyd autotrain:




12 years ago, when I first started to learn about the mysteries of DCC, the lower level branch line was the first section of track that I laid.  I am afraid I didnt do a particularly good job. Its a bit uneven in places and in those days if you wanted to isolate the electrofrog points, rather than snip a little wire you, had to make the cuts yourself with a Dremel. I have some horrible gaps....carefully filled but of, course, without power.


The 57xx panniers that take the B Set to and from Granby manage to cope very well with this uncertainty. The autotrain does not! I have struggled for over three years with both a DJM 14xx or the 64xx  .
 

 

 

 


The 64xx is the better of the two but despite constant wheel cleaning and finely adjusted pick ups it still requires far too many little nudges from the sky.


When I get really frustrated I have even been known to substitute this ancient Lima rail car, which I believe I bought in Beatties, Sheffield, in 1998!




You may well ask why this 20 + year old model, notorious for its pizza cutter wheels, can out perform a modern Bachmann loco?

Well the wheels have been updated and additional pickups have been fitted. However the principal difference is that a Stay Alive capacitor is wired to the decoder.

A capacitor is a sort of battery that stores up power and supplies it to the decoder when the decoder detects a power outage.

I have three in use on Granby. They have some downsides......they are bulky, expensive and used to come pre wired to a specific decoder. I have found the best value for money to be the TCS Keep Alive range. The problem is that I cant abide the TCS decoder with its erratic speed curve.

I was about to hold my nose and fit one in the Autotrain and hard wire it to the 64xx when I discovered that you can now buy the TCS capacitors separately and they have been on a diet.....much slimmer:
 

 

The next problem was how to attach the KAT2 to the decoder.......the 64xx is designed to accept a 6 pin decoder that plugs directly into a pre-wired socket.....ie no wires.

I have been meaning to try a Zimo decoder for some time. They have a relatively inexpensive 6 pin decoder with two largish solder pads for the blue (+ve) and black/white (-ve) wires.

I emailed John Gymer of Youchoos to ask his advice before ordering from him. He was super helpful and made a number of very helpful suggestions.......including an even smaller and far less expensive way of storing power .....unfortunately the KAT2 was already ordered........but more on this later. 


Here is the rig to be fitted inside the 64xx
 

 

 

KAT2 Capacitor to be connected via a tiny protective device (Lifelink) to the Zimo decoder....the two  "largish" solder pads are bottom left.

I had intended to put the capacitor either on the cab floor or in the bunker but had forgotten that the decoder socket is right at the front of the loco.

 

Fortunately I was able to fit both the Lifelink and KAT2 underneath the decoder
 

 

 

I have learned to take things like this very slowly and carefully but even so I dont think this took more than an hour to complete.

And here is the result

 

 

 

I dont expect to ever have to run the loco over 18" of un-powered track but clearly there is now sufficient power in reserve to overcome any gaps,dirt or insulfrogs.

Here we see 6407 complete with new fireman and a new headlamp moving smoothly over a turnout previously known as Stall point!





I now have a cunning plan to deal with the DJM 14xxs


Regards from Vancouver

John

John, perhaps I've missed the point and it's probably too late anyway now, but can't you permanently couple the loco to the coach and have pickups on all seven axles? Then you'd have an electrical wheelbase of about 14 inches.

[john dew]

Hi John

 

I have done that in the past with the Hornby 14xx and it was my last resort in this case. I prefer to avoid the loco being permanently coupled if I can.

 

If I am successful with the DJM 14xx I will probably run that with the Autotrain and use the 64xx elsewhere

 

I guess you are enjoying the Rugby as much as I am!

 

Best wishes

 

John

[St Enodoc]

7 minutes ago, john dew said:

I guess you are enjoying the Rugby as much as I am!

Well, apart from last Sunday I am! As a dual British (English)/Australian national I like to see Australia win and Wales lose!

[5BarVT]

19 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

and Wales lose!

That sounds like an Aussie (rugby) equivalent of “which team do the Scots support?  Depends who England are playing!”

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

That sounds like an Aussie (rugby) equivalent of “which team do the Scots support?  Depends who England are playing!”

Paul.

Pretty well, yes. There is an added complication for me when England play Australia (at any sport). I resolve that by saying that I'll switch allegiance to AUS when I've lived here longer than I did in the UK. By that time I'll be about 93...

[john dew]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Well, apart from last Sunday I am! As a dual British (English)/Australian national I like to see Australia win and Wales lose!

 

At least you were able to look forward to a close game.......as a dual British (English) / Canadian national I am not keeping my fingers crossed for later tonight when Canada play the All Blacks!

 

John

[john dew]

Thanks for all the ticks guys...much appreciated.

 

This post features the GWR  48/14xx 0-4-2 T, designed in the 1930s specifically for Branch line work.

For many years the only RTR version available were versions from Hornby and Dapol of a very old Airfix design.

There was much excitement about 5 years ago when Hattons, in collaboration with the now defunct DJ Models, announced a brand new design incorporating all manner of new features.

Sadly, the model turned out to be a bit like the Curate's egg.....only good in part.  

Here is a  work stained 1407 in Cynwyd goods yard.
 

 

It is generally accepted that the bodywork is superb. There are a couple of minor design issues...the ash pan went AWOL and few people liked the recessed number plates. (I added after market plates to my model). Apart from this, visually, they were a huge improvement on the old Airfix derivatives.

Unfortunately they have proved to be very erratic performers. The coreless motor and unique gear system can sometimes make them very jerky....particularly on gradients. The biggest problem is their intolerance of the sllightest speck of dirt or uneven track.

They did appear to improve with frequent running but like last weeks 64xx still required too many nudges from the sky to keep moving.

Time to think about adding stay alive. Not a straight forward exercise.....the body cannot be easily removed!




The smoke box door is held in place by magnets and the 6 pin decoder inserted into a circuit board that just fits into the boiler........definitely no room for a stay alive capacitor as well!

However in addition to motor and pick up wires there is an additional set of wires designed to connect with a speaker in the bunker. I dont do sound (too deaf) so I was able to connect these redundant wires to the blue (+ve) and white ground wire that John from Youchoos had kindly added to the Zimo decoder for me 

Remove the coal from the bunker and the wires (now connected to the decoder in the smokebox) can be accessed




I didnt think I could fit a capacitor and lifelink board in there and in any event I wanted to try out a less expensive alternative: Tantalums



Until a couple of weeks ago I thought Tantalums were a variety of spider!  Courtesy of google and wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_capacitor

Three of them, wired in series, will provide about a third of the storage capacity of the KAT2 I used last week....and, along with the lifelink board, fit comfortably inside the bunker.




Once everything was put back together the loco went on the programming track and the Cvs adjusted before re-profiling and back to work





...............and the verdict?



I am afraid that the experiment cannot be described as an unqualified success.

The loco undoubtedly runs more smoothly and somewhat more reliably than before
It is not however the sort of dramatic improvement that one saw with the 64xx. That loco is now like the Ever ready bunny ...it just keeps running and and running at unbelievably low speeds. The 14xx, I am afraid, still stutters at moderately low speeds over track that other locos have no problem with

It is possible the fault lies with the loco......maybe I am expecting too much from what is now known to be a suspect design or maybe it requires a more powerful capacitor than the space available.......I guess the ultimate solution could be to hard wire it to an Autocoach containing a KAT2 (I did that once with a Hornby 14xx)
 
I will have another go with a set of tantalums in a more conventional and moderately reliable loco to try and learn how effective they can be.

 

To add to that disappointment I now find I cant watch England play France on Saturday!. Just hope the typhoon doesnt cause too much damage.

Regards from a sunny but cold Vancouver

John