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Invermire (was More first ventures in O Gauge)


mike knowles
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Top notch work on the brake van Lord F!

 

A nice coat of Blue/Grey paint will finish the BG nicely too..... ;o)

 

Mike, would you like a rake of coaches for the "test" session? I think I might be able to lay my hands on 3.....? He heh.

 

Cheers.

 

Sean.

 

 

Yes please

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right, the test/running session referred to in post #75 took place last night.

Since the last test session we have laid and wired the track along the two sidings on the harbour front so we are now able to run the full length of the three boards we have assembled (about 14 feet).

The testing went extrememly well. All the stock used ran smoothly through the pointwork, encouraging given that the point blades were only set using scotch blocks (bits of plastic wedged in place) and also the various whhelsets in use Heljan, Slaters and Easibuild. Again it shows the advantage of using O-MF standards.

Some photos to keep you amused.

 

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The Penguin of Doom tends his coaches.

 

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Next job is to complete the trackwork on this third board (the run round loop/incoming lines). After that there is only the fourth board to do - the station area and this only consists of three lengths of plain track. However we are already considering an extension!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sean (aka The Penguin of Doom) brought his Class 26038 and coaches to the club last week which are now replendent in their newly applied paintwork. I know Sean has posted a couple of photos on his thread but I thought they also deserved some exposure on here.

Just for the record the 26 is basically a Heljan model though the body was purchased as an unpainted pre production sample. The two Mark 1 coaches are Easibuild kits and the Mark 2 coach is two Triang Big Big coaches merged together with additional detailing. All have been painted using aerosols cans purchased from the company who used to do them for JLTRT. Although they aren't 100% finished yet I have to say they look absolutely superb, I hope the layout will do them justice.

 

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  • 1 year later...

Hmmm, over a year since I last posted anything on here!

Well work has been progressing steadily, all the trackwork on the three boards we are currently working on has now been laid. A start has also been made on the laborious task of painting the chairs and rail sides. See photos below.

 

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Whilst initial testing had been carried out using temporary wiring and wedging of the point blades with off cuts of sleeper material we then needed to get the points fully operational and the permanent wiring installed.

Tie bars from JLTRT have been employed, a simple two part etch glued together with a paper gasket between them to provide electrical isolation. I know some people dismiss the use of rigid tie bars soldered to the point blades but so far they have worked fine, hopefully the slow motion of the point motors should minimise the risk of failures. See photo below.

 

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Under the baseboards now.

The points are operated by Tower Pro SG90 servos attached to mounts available as kits from MERG, as are the servo control boards. The mounts contain small SPST switches to change frog polarity. An additional switch can also be fitted to give visual indication of route setting on a control panel if required. See photos below.

 

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For the power feeds to the track, droppers wires were fitted to each individual piece of rail (soldered to the bottom of the rail prior to fitting it). Note only one dropper wire is fitted to each length of rail, fitting numerous wires to each rail (for safety’s sake) just seems to cause additional work and shows an admission that your soldering isn’t up to scratch! Well that’s my opinion for what it’s worth! These dropper wires are then soldered to lengths of OO flexitrack glued to the underside of the baseboards which act as bus bars, to me much neater then wavy length of bare copper wire. A seven pin din plug provides connection to the power box (containing a Lenz 5amp transformer and LX100 base station. A Lenz LA150 panel provides connection for the hand throttles. See photo below.

 

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Inter board connections are via pluggable terminal strips, the male halves fastened to the boards and fly leads made up using the female halves. Saves the hassle of soldering wires to 25pin din plugs. See photos below.

 

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The control wiring for the points (and to be fitted yet signals) runs through to a bank of switches, temporarily mounted at the moment. See photo below.

 

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When time permits these will be housed in a purpose made signallers desk which will be positioned at one end of the layout as done previously on our OO layout Batterby North End. See photo below.

 

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So now we have 3 fully operational boards which contain all the pointwork for the layout so in depth testing can now be carried out (playing with trains if you like!)

Next to do is lay and wire the trackwork on the fourth board (just three lengths of plain track in the station area) and then construct the fiddle yard board.

I will keep posting updates but don’t hold your breath whilst waiting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The wire used throughout is 7/0.2 (i.e. 7 strands of 0.2mm wire). We obtained ours from that well known holiday camp/electronics supplier but other sources are available.

To minimise the risk of wire breakages particularly on the fly leads which do receive an amount of handling, the end of the wire is stripped of insulation for a few mm then pushed in far enough for the screw on the terminal block to grip the end of the insulation (the screw penetrates the insulation and still makes contact with the wire). Not had any failures yet!

 

Hi de Hi!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Craig, sadly not as the layout is being based around Wick, Thurso, Kyle of Lochalsh areas which were dmu free, however had that not been the case you would certainly be seeing and hearing rattling windows and rasping exhausts along with the coughing and spluttering of Sulzer type two's!.

 

Rob

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Rule 1 Rob, rule 1, a reason for everything, you could get a 131 parcels bubble like Mr Morgan on West Kirby Town, they where Eastfield based so could make a journey to the end of civilisation to pick up some parcels.

 

Happy modelling

Craig

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Fear not Craig Rule 1 certainly applies to us!, the class 131 parcels unit is an option we've looked at and I've also wondered how far north the Derby Lightweight ultrasonic test train got.

 

Rob

 

They went anywhere and everywhere .... well in my world anyway

I've been told that Easy-build are working on a Class 101 Railcar kit. I'm looking forward to that one!

 

They sure are  :locomotive:

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  • 4 weeks later...

Since the last post we've now got all the track laid and wired on the 4th board (the station area) so all the trackwork is now completed.

Now whilst we are very grateful to Hessle Town Council for providing us with warm and secure clubrooms on a permanent basis at very reasonable cost the one downside is each room is relatively small. As a result we can only erect three of the boards at any one time. Similarly the guys building the 4mm layout based on Bridlington but called Cayton Bay have a similar problem and like us they have just completed laying their trackwork.

So the decision was taken to hire the large hall for one day so we could fully erect both layouts and give them a thorough test.

Below are some photos from the test day, firstly the 7mm layout which appears to have acquired the name Invermire. (Apologies for the non prototypical  mix of unfitted, vacuum braked and air braked freight stock and the Class 14 was just visiting for the day!)

 

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Next some photos of Cayton Bay just for the record.

 

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Finally even the narrow gauge group took advantage of the day!

 

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The day proved to be really rewarding and although a few issues were encountered these should e relatively easy to sort.

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