Portland Grove

[McGomez]

Hi Brian.

 

I hope you didn´t go home because it was too cold.

 

I keep meaning to go and take some pictures of the trams too.

They had their first accident the other day. See here.

Not exactly newsworthy but beats the local politics.

 

All the best.

Andy

[McGomez]

As a couple of people have asked how the helix is held together and the measurements, here are a few photos. The tracks rise 95/100mm every turn.

 

 

 

Pretty simple really. M8 nuts and washers clamping it all together on the cross members.

 

 

 

 

I went I bit OTT with the wiring. I didn´t want any problems with stalling locos so attached droppers every quarter turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A close up shot of the ply sandwich.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bye for now.

[McGomez]

October 2009 saw the extension from where the helix ended towards the corner of the garage, curving through 90º and running adjacent to the back wall at about 100mm higher than the main board level. I also laid the track that was to exit the station and form a long run behind the helix and eventually crossing from one side of the garage to the other on a viaduct. Some ply was also cut to go on the middle and LH boards.

 

In the set of photos below you can see the board in place ready to accept the track exiting the helix. This has 4mm cork as a track base.

 

In the fiddle yard and the parts of the layout that are not going to be seen I stick 2mm cork on the 10mm ply to deaden the sound of the rolling stock a little. On the main lines I usually use 4mm cork so that when you ballast it gives a nice shoulder.

 

For some reason I had an urge to ballast around this period so the long straight that runs behind the station at a higher level got the treatment. To tell you the truth, I´d never ballasted before so was quite happy with the results.

 

[witherbrow]

lovely bit of ballasting there

[McGomez]

Glad you liked the ballasting Witherbrow.

I have started using Z gauge ballast for the next bit of high level track. Personally I think it looks better.

[McGomez]

Looking back at my photos, autumn 2009 must have been a good period for working on the layout (or there wasn’t much happening at work and I was getting home earlier).

I started to loosely lay some track to get an idea if the curves were going to be OK and some offcuts of wood were placed where the platforms were to be sited.

 

 

 

November 2009 sees the majority of the main (station) level baseboards in place. My camera hasn’t got a wide enough angle on it to capture the whole width of the layout so I got a bit arty and did a collage of the three sides of the garage which shows the 3 distinct levels to good effect and hopefully by looking at the track plan below, gives a good idea of where it all goes too and comes from.

 

 

 

I even started to put signals on the plan which will please some people on RMWeb, (until they do a close up and see that there is not that much prototype fidelity involved) and added some scenery/building ideas too. Just ideas though. Still no scenery yet!

 

Oh, and the depot on the middle board was, and still is a figment of my imagination.

[McGomez]

Off on a bit of a tangent today.


During November, my wife had to go to Madrid for some reason or another so the kids and I went along and visited the sights.
First up my lads wanted to visit the Bernabeu which was surprising as they both support Barça (doesn’t everyone these days) and I support Leicester City (long story, don´t ask!!).
We then drove down to the Railway Museum at Delicias, and I thought I’d show you this photo I took. The sign as you walk in shows a familiar locomotive for the majority of you on here.








I presumed it was one of the class 50 sister locomotives that were sold to Portugal and the Spanish had managed to acquire one for testing purposes?
The Spanish Hush Hush locomotive that no one has ever heard of, maybe?
They’d ripped out the engine and replaced it with electrical gear and plonked a panto on top to see if it would be a bit more economic on the most steeply graded of routes here in Spain?

Enough of my true life Spanish stories and back to reality.
I just had to buy the last one they had in the museum shop. The Network South East livery surprised me when I took it out of the box though!!!




OK, OK. It´s only a joke. I knew you were going to ask.
I put it down to the heat or excessive refrigeration maybe ………

(Is this stuff really brewed by EMD?)




Ron Heggs, over on the topic, Manchester Central & Castlefield Viaducts - Modelling Structures
http://www.rmweb.co....ing-structures/
uses this brew to load test his fantastic structure modelling. (See post #87)
In Murcia we use it for the purpose it was brewed for and at 0,79€ the litre, it´s cheaper than buying water!!

[McGomez]

Sobered up enough today to upload 4 photos of my Xmas 2009 acquisitions.

2 Portland cement wagons courtesy of Electrotren. HO gauge obviously but couldn´t resist because of the name.

Photographed wedged between a Vi-trains class 37 and a Hornby PCA for height comparison.

 

 

 

The pictures below were taken on 4^th Jan 2010.

We close down at work between Christmas and New Year and I can only imagine the in-laws stayed with us for a few days as progress with the cork track bed has been amazingly fast.

I had some problems with the curved section of the high level line and this was fitted at a later date.

A tin of emulsion to paint the baseboards was bought. It was supposed to be similar to a track dirt sort of colour but when I got it home, it was nothing like it. So I bought another, and again it was completely different.

I didn´t fancy another trip to Leroy Merlin´s so I decided to mix the two and came up with a lovely shade of battleship grey. Not very prototypical.

This was applied to the majority of the baseboards so that when ballasting began, if any patches were left, they would not show up as a light shade of plywood.

 

On top of this I applied my one and only spray can of Railmatch, sleeper grime, just on the cork. I did this outside to avoid the fumes and foolishly did the 2 curved boards first before running out of spray. That is why there is a marked difference between the station board (un sleeper grimed) and the 2 adjacent curved corner boards.

 

 

 

The start of the viaduct board can be seen bottom right in the lower set of photos.

[McGomez]

The 10^th of January sees track laying marching onwards.

Just wondering if I hadn’t upset the missus and was living down in the garage at this stage?

 

The 3 photos below are of Portland South Junction. The light coloured cork is roughly where the platforms will be positioned.

 

 

 

 

The following 3 photos show Portland North Junction curving away from the station before going under the high level line. This end of the station has a 2 road bay platform.

 

 

 

 

Below are photos of the North Junction in relation to the fiddle yard below and showing how the tracks curve round to meet the viaduct board.

 

[Mike W]

Excellent layout & pics Andy, thanks for posting them all. Very interesting to see historic pics of a layout coming together and the woodwork & specs of the helix are very interesting.

 

Am looking forward to more!

[McGomez]

Thanks for the comments Mike.

I should have put it down in writing as I was going along 2 years ago but unfortunately I was too busy reading RMWeb!

At least this is a bit more condensed, I suppose?

 

Regards

Andy

[McGomez]

This photo is dated 31^st January 2010. What does it tell you?

 

That´s right. We have a full circuit up and running!!!!!

Not the helix route but the exterior tracks that run via the viaduct.

God how the kids loved me.

 

 

 

 

 

We had British trains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had Spanish trains.

 

 

 

We even had a class 24 on air conditioned MKIId stock. (Luckily managed to snap this one at dusk, by the look of it).

 

 

 

We even had sound!!!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X45wMQmGEnc

 

 

Could life get any better?

[McGomez]

February, March and April 2010 were used to test the layout as I have found little evidence in my photo album of any further tracklaying progress and as a consequence of this fettling I made a change in the South Junction.

 

The curve leading away from the class 24 and into the 2 crossings in the picture above was far too sharp so I altered the trackwork as can be seen in the image below.

 

[McGomez]

During February, I purchased a Spanish diesel made by Mehano.

 

In the photos below you can see a size comparison with a Bachmann 37, the novel packaging design (the body comes separate from the chassis), the chassis with 8 pin blanking plate located on the side of the loco with room for the decoder at one end and a speaker at the other.

 

The bottom picture shows a friends loco, double heading the completely prototypical rake of UK PCAs. (I presume you are used to the mix by now?)

 

These locos are the heaviest I have ever encountered at 800g and are prototypically low geared and smooth runners. Mehano went bust at around this time and so the Spanish importer dropped the price to below 100€ which is good for a decent Spanish model (Low volume=high prices...... We don´t have it all over here, see!!!) and in the end they were going for 70€ approx. The only problem is that Mehano never got around to making the up to date RENFE colour scheme of white with purple stripe as seen in the photo below the model images of the double-headed butane tanks heading for Madrid.

 

 

 

 

This series of locomotive was built using some reconditioned parts and the engines from the original 333,0 series (see 333,062 above) which were built in the mid 70s and based upon the Danish MZ class diesel. As you can see they are the UKs class 67 big cousin. Made in the same factory in Valencia, originally belonging to Alstolm and now Vossloh.

 

I used to work by the Murcia-Madrid line on one of the first climbs out of Murcia and they made a fantastic noise (16 cylinder, 2 stroke engines) hauling the clinker (cement) wagons or butane tanks that originated from the port of Cartagena.

 

[McGomez]

May 23^rd 2010 and the high level line hits the curve that will bring it down and link up at the North Junction before entering the station.

 

 

 

Whilst over on the other side of the garage, a mock up of the route of the railway leaving the South Junction on its way to the fiddle yard via the middle board was placed in situ.

 

 

 

Around about the same time I knocked up a small off cut on this side of the layout. The idea being to have a small PW yard or virtual quarry. The area is just below the PCAs and at a slightly lower level than the main line.

 

[McGomez]

Looking back at these ramblings, I see that I have not been showing off my signature fleet of BR blue, late 70s/early 80s.

 

Hope this picture below, taken on 30th May 2010 remedies that to some extent. It also shows the “main†lines at the front of the station board tacked in place.

 

[rob D2]

Nice work,

I wondered if there was much interest in Spanish trains and railway modelling in general in spain ?Never seen much in the way of model shops there and when I did they were mainly R/C.

 

I'm quite interested as every summer we go off to the in-laws who live on the british enclave near mazarron and normally take a day trip on the train to Lorca or the other way to Murcia.

[Brush47337]

Wow.

Enjoyed a long read through this - and am now late for work. Thanks.....!

 

This looks exactly like the "fantasy sketch layouts" for dream rooms that i bet every one on here has sketched out many, many times.

 

Congratulations to you for not only designing it - but for designing and building it so well. Your detailed "how I did it, nuts and bolts assembly shots" will prove of great value to many for years to come.

 

Looking forward to following from here.

 

I wonder if you have ever lost a train though, in all that track - and sent one round only to hear a sickening crunch when the "live one" runs into the back of a stationary one - you forgot was out there somewhere?

 

I hope you don't plan on moving house anytime soon!

 

Stuart

[McGomez]

Hi Rob.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

There are nowhere near as many railway modellers in Spain as there are in Britain. And don´t look for the translation for “trainspotter†either. Enthusiasts do exist but they are not looked upon as anoraks, as in the UK. Saying that, I don´t think they are classed as completely normal either !

 

Quite a large percentage who do model, follow the German scene and a large chunk of those use the Marklin AC system of control. A Spanish friend here has a Marklin based layout. I´m not great fan as it makes a hell of a noise with the contact strip rubbing over the studs in the middle of the track.

 

Saying that, I have seen some fantastic Iberian themed layouts. I look at this forum on which there are a few. If you can, have a look at;

 

http://www.forotrenes.com/cms/

 

http://www.forotrene...php?f=6&t=21509

 

 

 

As for private model railway websites. Forget it. These are the only ones I have in my favourites.

 

http://www.lamaquetadeesteban.es/

 

http://www.mimaqueta.es.tl/Inicio.htm

 

 

As for shops here in Murcia, there is Hobby Modelismo close to El Corte Ingles. It isn’t the cheapest of places but at least you can get hold of a bag of ballast and plasticard. Surprisingly they stock some Farish wagons.

 

I don´t know if they are still open, but there was a shop called “Kits†quite close to El Carmen station in Murcia but the railway range was pretty basic. There are a couple of shops in Cartagena too, one of which is an Aladdin’s cave type place that I can´t remember the name of at the moment and the other called Stukka (mainly R/C planes obviously).

 

The best place for model shops is Barcelona and that is where the biggest group of railway orientated modelling can be found.

 

The prices of stock here is above that of the UK manufacturers, simply because of the quantity of sales I presume. A new Electrotren locomotive can set you back between 160€-200€. A lot more than a brand new Hornby loco. Saying that, Hornby seem to be playing catch-up with their prices. I wouldn’t complain about the detailing or the running qualities though. Both are top notch.

 

There is also a fair bit of re-badging of French and German wagons and coaches and passing them off for similar Spanish types which doesn´t go down well.

 

 

If you´re coming over this summer, it may be a good idea to give Lorca a miss. It is like a bomb site with buildings still being demolished due to the earthquake.

 

 

 

Hope that gives you some insight into Spanish modelling?

[McGomez]

Hi Stuart.

 

 

Firstly, say sorry to your boss from me but I´m sure he knows trains come first ;-)

 

I´m glad you like the design. I´ve always been a layout doodler but up until now I´d only ever built a double oval on an 8 x 4 ft board. The decoration got as far as cardboard tunnels. When the opportunity came to build a layout around the 3 walls of the garage, I took it from there, bit by bit, very slowly. That is my style. As you´ve seen above, I have 2 lads of 11 and 13 (and a wife) and I don´t seem to have that much free time.

 

I didn’t have any idea that it was going to turn out as it has. I just hope I can manage the scenery well and bring the whole thing to life. It´s the small details that make a layout, like your scrapyard with the bent class 47 in it. Brilliant idea.

 

With regards loosing trains. Yes. It can happen. Accidents occur when you are showing off and trying to run too many trains at once. I can assure you. We’ve had 8 trains running at once before and it certainly requires a bit of concentration. I´ve got an NCE power pro and that red emergency button has come in handy for sure.

 

We have no plans at all to move thankfully. Although you never know what´s around the corner!

 

 

 

 

 

[McGomez]

By mid June 2010, the missing track section on the high level line is at last being sorted.

 

As can be seen, I don´t hold the track down with pins through the middle of the sleepers as this to me is unsightly. It is not a new idea and I can’t remember where I picked it up but I place the track pins on the outside of the sleepers. When the time comes I will glue the ballast in place between the rails, then remove the pins holding the sleepers down and then finish off the outside bit of ballast. If you ballast the track in one go, it can be difficult to remove the pins afterwards or the ballast breaks up.

 

I also like to see a bit of cant (hopefully the spell checker won’t let me down there!!) on my curves and to achieve this I place 1mm plastic offcuts every 100mm or so, on the outside of the curves. Hopefully you can see this on the bottom photo.

 

If you were wondering about the HST rake and the placement of the buffet, I was waiting on Hornby to release the MKIII first class coaches to complete the set. Don´t remember what had happened to the rear PC either. At least it isn´t a Spanish loco on PCA tanks!!

 

[McGomez]

July 2010.

 

Spain won the world cup = Depressed.

 

A Brit with 2 young Spangles is not good for your football mojo. They took the “meado†constantly. Completely mixed up I went plane spotting – twice!!!! Yep. My 2 like planes more than trains. Wierdos!

 

 

 

Luckily I pulled back from the brink and went to see some of this afterwards.

 

“The Duckâ€.

 

 

 

And this.

 

More class 67s!

[rob D2]

Interesting stuff Andy,

 

I would love alittle spanish based layout,is there much freight around murcia ? we actually took the train last year to the end of the line seaside resort beyond lorca (name forgotten), some interesting gradients/curves on that line.

 

I always have a look at that marshalling yard as well,as you come out of murcia west bound,seems quite busy.

 

I see the lads like ALC airport -interesting approach there, full instrument landing system,but some strict 'step down altitudes' to avoid the hills.Fun in daylight, PIA as night!

 

I'll be landing there as pax on 7th Aug for my 2 weeks roasting time !

[McGomez]

Hi Rob.

Unfortunately there is very little freight around these parts and due to the economic downturn even less at the moment.

There is a train of butane tanks that runs 2 or 3 times a week in the winter months from Cartagena to Madrid and as mentioned previously a container train from Madrid to Alicante that splits at the small yard just west of Murcia.

In the good old days when houses and flats were being built there was a train of clinker, from which cement is made. This was transported once again from the docks at Escombreras, Cartagena to near Madrid.

The town you say at the end of the Lorca line is Aguilas. There is actually a wagon repair facility there but I have only ever seen 1 train of wagons on their way back to the centre of Spain after repairs. Check out the 20 axle wagon though.












My kids would know more about the step down altitudes you mention I´m afraid. The only thing I know is I can see the marker lights of the planes in the far distance as they come over the mountains from my house. It must be at least 30km away though.



As for your 2 weeks roasting. The oven door was left open today as it is around the 37º mark today.

Have a good holiday. I´m going to the cool of Holland.

[McGomez]

Back to the model for now.
We stayed at home during August 2010. Holidays in Spain. Just like in the old days.

This is when I really got stuck in to finishing the woodwork and track laying.

Below can be seen the track layout exiting the station. The marked points were to take trains that were coming from the slow platforms or the goods loop at the back of the station onto the correct “down“ line.

On the real railway you often see tracks that even though they are running parallel to the fast lines they are lower or higher. Don´t ask me where but I´m sure there are examples all over the place. As the baseboards are pretty much open plan I decided to lower the “down†goods loop slightly. Just 10mm lower. Hopefully it should give a less uniform look? We´ll see.








The area I describe as the PW yard/virtual quarry had the baseboards screwed in place. There is probably a bit too much gradient as trains enter this yard but I have now tested it and it seems to work OK.




Over on the North side junction, the curved board that would bring trains down off the high level line had been linked up to the station level baseboard.

The first photo below shows the approximate position of the points.

The curved board was cut from a piece of 1220mm wide ply. This was a mistake as the radius was too small. It was here that I had a buffer touching problem with 2 Heljan Cargowaggons during testing and some swearing was allegedly heard as they fell to the floor taking 3 Bachmann VGAs with them!

Luckily a cardboard box broke the fall but the couplings and the bogies came adrift from both cargowaggons. The VGAs escaped unbelievably. Luckily the Cargowaggon bogies are a quick snap fit back in place. In my opinion, Heljan coupling fixings aren´t the best design in the world but for the moment they are back in place and until the curve is sorted, they are banned from entering the high level line via the North Junction. The strange thing is that the helix presents no problem for them and it is more or less the same radius? Maybe a glitch in my track laying?



In the image below right, you can get an idea of the gradient. Being truthful, the gradient is a bit too steep and there is a bit of a kink, divet or whatever you want to call it right in the middle of the curve. Although it has been tested at high speed in both directions and gave no problems (except for the Cargowaggons) I´m sure I will be looking at sorting it out soon.



In these 2 photos below, you can see the sweeping curves that come from the station. Looking at the left hand photo, from left to right you can see
 

• Link line from slow lines that joins with the up fast.
• up fast.
• down fast.
• down goods loop.

The photo on the right shows the opposite view.