Redbridge Wharf by Winchester Railway Modellers

[eldavo]

Things have been quiet on this thread for rather a long time even though the team have been making progress. Lots of small bits and pieces of track laying and ballasting, some platform construction along with a considerable amount of wiring work all washed down with more planning work.

 

At the club AGM last October the Redbridge team set themselves a target of building enough of the layout this year to allow us to replace the existing 20ft x 9ft (Itchen Vale) 00 layout that is a permanent fixture in the club rooms. Itchen Vale is a 4 track roundy roundy which is used by members for casual running sessions so one of the provisos placed upon the team is that to replace it we must be able to support similar sessions. So we have to build all the Redbridge baseboards and fiddleyard boards and lay enough track for a roundy roundy before October. No small challenge.

 

If any club or individual would be interested in a 20ft x 9ft 00 gauge layout built on 4' bt 2'6" boards largely scenically complete and fully operational please get in touch.

 

To move things on we convened a baseboard building team for a couple of days last week and tackled some of the fiddleyard boards. We have decided to use a fairly conventional board design using 6mm ply sides, ends and top surface, 25x25mm softwood blocks in the corners and 3mm ply diagonal bracing rather than the foam core boards we have used in the scenic area. The reasoning behind this is that we will have boards with a tough top surface that will withstand the rigours of stock (and coffee cups) being plonked down on it and also allow us to simply screw down top-mounted point motors etc.  Numerous 57mm holes have been cut out to try and reduce the weight.

 

 

There are 4 simple rectangular boards 2'8" x 4' that make up the bulk of the fiddleyard area and these are now fully assembled. They need interconnecting bolt holes drilled and alignment dowels added then they will have a final rub down and an application of varnish to seal them.  In the background of the photo below you can also see scenic board B0, a foam core board, awaiting its 3mm cross bracing. This board is the one on the extreme righthand corner on the plan in post #19.  Not bad progress for a couple of days work.

 

 

We now have a bunch of odd-shaped boards to build that will form the 4 corners of the layout and the end curves.  Having very few rightangles they should suit the construction style of a few of our members!

 

Cheers

Dave

Edited August 29, 2017 by eldavo

[eldavo]

Nearly year since the last post. Hardly an active thread then!

 

Fortunately this isn't a true reflection of the clubs activities. The boys have been busy. We have all but one of the baseboards built, we've sold the old 00 layout, built and laid almost all the track and started the mammoth task of wiring it all up.

 

To keep the punters interested we will need a sizeable fiddleyard with some decent sized storage roads. A fair bit of thought was put into this and a Templot plan created to allow us to have custom point formations including quite a lot on the end curves to maximise the length of the roads. The team have been busy with their soldering irons and built all the pointwork using copperclad sleepers. Here's a view along the length of the yard...

 

 

To try and simplify things we are aiming to fit as many of the point actuator mechanisms on the top surface in the fiddleyard. In the photo below which shows the Southampton end fiddleyard approaches you can see we have some crude frog switching microswitches activated by the tiebars of some points.

 

 

At the other end of the fiddleyard we have to deal with trains entering from both the main line to Bournemouth and the Romsey branch. This requires some fancy stuff to allow some wrong line running on the Romsey branch but I suspect there ae one or two formations in there that are because someone wanted to build them!

 

 

More to come...

 

Cheers

Dave

 

 

[eldavo]

On the scenic side of the layout most of the progres has been underneath the board with fitting of point motors (Tortoise) and wiring up. In addition more has been done with building mock-ups to see just what we can fit and still get the right "feel".

 

The station platforms have been built and mock-ups of the station buildings knocked together. Some of the dimensions have been estimated from photos while others we can get from measurements of what is still in place. For the down platform shelter we were fortunate to find a set of drawings and photos in an old issue of Railway Modeller from someone who had made a survey.

 

 

 

 

At the Western end of the layout we will use a representation of one of the Totton flyovers as a scenic break to disguise the curves to the fiddleyard. Fortunately one of our club members has got enthusiastic about laser cutting and has produced the main structure of the bridge. In the photo below you can see the full width of the layout with the daughterboard fitted. The bridge will be sunk down about an inch and a half and sit on pillars in the river rather than floating above it!

 

 

Lots of work to do.

 

Cheers

Dave

 

 

 

[phixer64]

Looking really good, the viaduct looks superb.

 

Regards Jeff

[SouthernMafia]

Well it's been 2 years since our last update, so we'd better give you one!

 

Firstly, the layout is due to go to the Brockenhurst show this May, very much as a work in progress (in the same way that my layout Portland went last year) and we'd like to thank Andy and the Brockenhurst team for allowing us to bring a far from finished layout along to a local show for a good test. 

We are a very aware that there is A LOT to do, but we will soldier on and if anything a date in the diary is good motivation to crack on and get it looking and operating as presentably as we can. 

(this is exactly what I needed last year and for anyone interested in what Portland looked like at the same stage this time last year 4 months before the show, take a look at my Portland thread)

 

Now, the layout.

 

Some will think not a lot looks different in 2 years! This is because the bulk of the work has been focusing on getting the layout operational. This mainly involved wiring up the fiddle yard, installing nearly 50 servo motors, and building the control panels. Dave Renshaw (eldavo) has been the mastermind behind all this - we have the capability to operate in both DCC (NCE gear) and DC, all of which is very complicated - although he tells us it's just two wires....some pics and hopefully some detail from Dave to follow.

 

Scenery wise, some major work has taken place at the Totton end and around the actual causeway to get this starting to look a bit more scenic-y.

The fabulous laser-cut bridge kindly built by one of our members has been sunk and installed in place. It sits across a board join so is removable. Behind this can be seen the original 1700s built 5 arch bridge, in the early stages of construction.

Some history on the bridges here

 

 

We have also constructed the road (what is now the A35 Redbridge flyover and Totton Bypass) and construction of the bridge over the railway, the view from which is this one: 

 

 

 

Obviously we have had to curve the line here when in reality it is straight but there's a barn wall in the way so we had no choice ! Note the cutaway board bottom left to accommodate our 0-gauge roundy-roundy which runs under the Totton end of the layout.

 

The "Romsey board" has been constructed and now sits in place. This is the tightest radius on the layout at 28" and 30" respectively.

 

 

At the Totton end fiddle yard, some fancy pointwork has been completed, and a rudimentary turntable to turn any steam locos in the freight and branch areas of the yard. Quite a bit of shunting will be required in the freight fiddle yard, and trains can access these lines from any of the 6 entry or exit points of the layout

 

 

Above you'll notice the gantry over the fiddle yard, labelled as follows:

 

Green 1-4 Down Mains

Red 5-8 Up Mains

Blue 9-10 Freight Receptions (Soton End - mirrored in foreground with Totton End - so 4 roads here)

Yellow 11-15 Branch (2 Down, 1 Reversible, 2 Up)

 

 

More to follow...

Edited January 26, 2017 by SouthernMafia

[SouthernMafia]

In the central area of the layout, work has been focused on building placement and a number of Kelloggs boxes have been moving around the layout, occasionally changing shape each week.

Some more substantial progress in this area has taken place recently, and we are starting to see some final structures of the Creosote works arriving. Some detail on these to follow.

 

 

The blue polystyrene mimics the traverser crane.

 

At the Southampton end of the layout, our clubroom daughter board has been constructed with track laid. At shows each of the front scenic boards has a daughter board attached to it (similar is size to this one) to give added depth to the layout. Most of it will be water and quayside stuff. When the layout goes to a show, this board will be replaced by another around twice the size and the sidings will continue at a more aesthetic angle.

 

 

The large space inbetween the sidings and the "elephant" lines (no idea why they're called this - effectively the lines that now run into Southampton Maritime) will be a large foundry, big enough to disguise the scenic break here:

 

 

Lastly, the Southampton end fiddle yard approaches:

 

 

The lines on the extreme left curve round into the Branch fiddle yard, then another diamond further up provides entry into the Freight fiddle yard. Note access is also provided for trains to/from the Elephant road into this yard, allowing us to simulate the line as a through freight road.

Edited January 26, 2017 by SouthernMafia

[SouthernMafia]

As mentioned, focus has been primarily on wiring the layout up - I dread to think how many miles of wire have been used! The layout does work, and we have just about had a train run round in DC, however a few niggles with DCC currently which Dave is fiddling with. Here's a few images of the FY control inside bits, and our main scenic side panel:

 

(The guagemaster controller is a temporary solution, hence the messy looking croc clips)

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by SouthernMafia

[PhilH]

Good stuff Rich, nice to see progress on this.

 

Going to be a cracker I think.

[SouthernMafia]

Notes on the buildings and creosote works from a fellow WRMer..

 

"Several starts were made on the big creosote pressure vessel building with various plastic H sections & I beams, but these turned out to be too bendy to support an open sided building. Brass has now been used for the permanent (?) shell, with Eldavo Renshaw 3D printed roof trusses added on top. The smaller/ similar buildings at either end will house the sleeper hole boring and chairing machinery, albeit cut down to fit the available space.

 

Tony P was asked to check if there was room to include the narrow gauge pointwork into/out of the creosote pressure vessels, but decided it was quicker to just build them; and yes, they fit perfectly.

 

Next up will be a proper version of the current cornflake packet mock up of the Machine Shops seen at the Totton end.

 

The blue foam creation will eventually morph into an overhead crane that transverses the whole yard, used for furtling among the stacks of sleepers next to the offloading point on the quay; and for shifting lengths of rail in/ twiddly bits of finished pointwork out of the Machine Shop.

 

….and then there are the sawmill, timber drying shed and large foundry buildings at the other end of the scenic section to start thinking about."

[eldavo]

Following on from young Richard's posts I'll try and give a bit of an overview of our emerging control system a.k.a "The Wiring".  There is quite a bit of it!

 

As Rich's pictures show we have a fairly conventional control panel for controlling the shunting operations around the creosote plant and sleeper works itself. This uses toggle switches to operate the tortoise motors and we have LEDs to give some sort of route feedback.  There is a twist in that the reception and departure roads, known as The Elephant siding(s) are usually under the control of the works operators but can be given over to the mainline control panel for movements into and out of the yard.

 

We are using Arduino micro controller boards extensively with all points in the fiddleyard being operated by servos controlled by Arduinos.  We also have a few Arduinos controlling logical operations like switching the frog polarity of some of our more complex track configurations and interlocking between control stations.  In the future our signals (and some animations!) will also be controlled by Arduinos.

 

As we have all this computing power scattered about the layout it seemed appropriate to use it to cut down on some of the wiring.  All the Arduinos communicate with each other using the I2C (normally pronounced I squared C) protocol which the Arduino supports natively and uses only 2 wires. With 40 something points in the fiddleyard this has reduced the number of wires needed to each baseboard significantly.

 

The following is a simplified schematic of our control system...

 

 

We are building two main control panels, one to control the sleeper works and one to control the fiddleyard and movement of trains on the main running lines.  The fiddleyard control panel provides a route setting capability and contains an Arduino node that is the bus master for I2C communications and issues commands to all the other Arduino nodes. Anywhere else on the layout where we need to control things there are Arduino nodes mounted under the baseboards. In addition there is a slave Arduino node in the fiddleyard control panel that controls section isolation when we are running in DC mode and another one in the sleeper works control panel to handle interlocking and use of the reception/departure roads.

 

The following is schematic of the fiddleyard and main running lines for the layout. The sleeper works is not included. I think this shows pretty clearly why we need some route setting smarts in the system as nobody could be relied upon to switch all the pointwork individually under exhibition conditions...

 

 

The fiddleyard is separated into areas, down main (lines 1-4), up main (lines 5-8), freight operations (lines 9 and 10 with associated sidings) and the Romsey branch. There could be a fair few trains to oranise in there.

 

Ill try to give an explanation of the complexities in the fiddleyard control box shown below...

 

 

It does look a bit busy but it's not that complex honest!  The vast majority of the mess is wiring between the 9 25-way D shell sockets and a bunch of tag strips just to keep things organised.  At the top you can see the two black boxes of the NCE PowerPro system that was generously donated by Roger (Doolish). This is a 10 amp system so is far more than we will need as it will provide track power only.  The output from the DCC system is fed through a pair of relays at the top right which serve to isolate it completely from the track feeds if the layout is run in DC mode.

 

Switching between DC and DCC modes is via the pair of 9-way D shell sockets and plug in the lower right corner.  There is a similar setup in the sleeper works control panel so that unless both control panels are set up for DCC we shouldn't get DCC power to the track and fry any stray DC only locos! When in DCC mode the track feeds to the fiddleyard are fed through the overload protection board (green thing below the righthand NCE box).  There are 3 MERG overload protection boards in the sleeper works control stack that seperate the scenic sections into manageable districts (up, down and sleeper works).

 

In the bottom left of the box is an Arduino node and a set of 8 relays...

 

 

This set up allows us to isolate roads 1 to 8 when in DC mode.  Each relay is defined as an accessory, just like all the points, and so can be switched as part of the route setting scheme via the I2C communication bus.

 

In the top centre of the control box is the "master" Arduino node...

 

 

This is the Arduino node that issues instructions to all the other Arduinos in the system.  It has route setting logic in it that allows it to set up any of the 150+ possible routes around the layout and to check for conflicts.  Currently it is capable of having up to 5 seperate routes active (assuming you can find 5 that don't conflict). It also has a couple more tricks up its sleeve.

 

The master node also has a constant feed from the DCC system seperated out from the defined districts. The code on the Arduino monitors all DCC messages flowing and can respond to accessory decoder requests. A DCC message requesting a change to any of the points on the system will be picked up and converted into an I2C message to the Arduino node controlling that point, signal or any other device.  This allows us to control any part of the layout through the DCC control handsets.

 

Just as a final twist all the routes through the system are defined with a DCC accesory address so that you can set any route through the handsets as well.  That's just as well as we don't yet have an actual control panel for the fiddleyard!

 

Cheers

Dave

[PhilH]

Interesting. About six foot above my head but interesting.

[SouthernMafia]

Told you it was just 2 wires..

[eldavo]

As was mentioned in earlier posts the pointwork in the fiddleyard is switched using servos controlled by Arduino microcontroller boards. Our intial servo control boards were based on the design of board I had used on my layout Waton and soldered up on Veroboard.  After playing around with a couple of boards we ran into a few problems.

 

First up we we encountered Arduinos not working, arbitrarily restarting or just plain doing odd things.  After spending some time looking for software errors we eventually identified the problem as voltage drop.  The layout has both 12 volt and 5 volt DC supplied from a PC power supply to all the baseboards.  Initially we had supplied the servo control boards from the 5 volt supply but after checking we found that we were getting a voltage drop on some of the boards which are server by long cables.  We didn't spot the problem sooner as some of the Arduino boards are more tolerant of supply voltage than others so the problems were intermittent.  To solve this we rejigged the boards adding a 5 volt regulator and feeding them from the 12 volts supply.

 

After getting the Arduinos stable the next problem became apparent, the I2C messages didnt always get through between the Arduinos.  Again this was narrowed down to the length of the cables in the layout.  The I2C protocol was originally conceived to link integrated circuits or modules less than a metre apart whereas some of ours are 7 or 8 metres apart.  Luckily there are chips known as bus extenders that can solve the problem and they are cheap if you get them direct from China.

 

Having got things basically working we than had a rethink about the way we were building the Arduino modules.  Soldering up circuits on Veroboard takes a bit of practice and a fair bit of care if you want something reliable.  As we needed 8 or 9 servo control modules it was decided to try etching up a custom circuit board.  The circuit isn't complex so how hard could it be?

 

The schematic for the boards was drawn using EagleCAD...

 

 

The circuit has an Arduino Nano module at its core along with an LM7805 voltage regulator and the snappily named P82B715P bus extender chip. There is a bank of 6 switches which are used to set the I2C node address, a couple of pullup resistors for the local I2C bus, 4 LEDs and a bunch of connectors.  The board is capable of controlling 6 servos and 4 logic outputs that provide either 5 or 0 volts.  The direction of throw of the servos or logic level delivered by the logic outputs can be reversed and other settings tweaked using a push to make switch.

 

From the schematic diagram a singled sided circuit board design was created again in EagleCAD...

 

 

This board layout was printed onto glossy magazine paper (from the Gauge O Guild Gazette) and transferred to the copper side of some circuit board using a hot iron.  This was then etched using Ferric Chloride and given a clean up before drilling the 100+ holes using a 1mm drill.  The result is shown below...

 

 

Component positioning info and connection legends were then added to the non-copper side of the board again using laser printing and toner transfer with a hot iron.  This side of the board was then given a coat of clear laquer before the various components were eventually soldered on.  A completed board is shown below...

 

 

All looks pretty simple from this side!  The 3-pin connections for the servos run down one side with 4 screw terminals for the logic outputs at the top. The Arduino module sits in the centre with the voltage regulator, address switches, bus extender chip and power connections to the left.  To avoid having to fit a large expensive 5 volt regulator to cope with the potentially 6 amp demand from the servos the servos are fed direct from the layout's 5 volt supply while the Arduino and other circuitry are fed from the 12 volt supply via a small 5 volt regulator.  The 6 pin power connector also hosts the 2 connections to the extended I2C bus.

 

Hopefully these boards will prove to be reliable...

 

Cheers

Dave

 

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

We've been busy building more bridges...

 

 

One more to come (the original 'Redbridge') which sits low relief on the wood at the back

[PhilH]

Going to tick all the boxes for me, long passenger trains running through, lots of shunting,interesting buildings/processes to look at, something for everybody.

[SouthernMafia]

We've started adding that magic rail that makes the trains move...

 

 

Method as detailed here

Painting and weathering to come.

 

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

A major milestone reached for the club today with a successfull test outing to our local village hall for Redbridge. Generally all went well and this is the first time the entire layout including 6 daughter boards has been erected. Some more photos to follow:

 

 

5 weeks until Brockenhurst and still lots to be doing!

[Doolish]

More photo's

 

Plug in mains and

 

 

then run trains

 

 

Very succesful day - next Brockenhurst

[SouthernMafia]

Redbridge Wharf made a successful 'work-in-progress' debut at the Brockenhurst exhibition last weekend, and was well received by both punters and exhibitors. We met ex-workers and locals who knew the area well, all seemed impressed with how we had captured the location, and the interest generated by the layout as a whole.

 

As with any debut show we expected problems, and we certainly got them! But a number of us were on hand to fix/alter/bodge whatever decided to stop working/do something completely different, and generally the layout ran well.

As we were running it was difficult to capture photographs with moving trains in them due to the low level light, but some members did take photos of how we have progressed with the scenics, which still have a long way to go but we are starting to see the character of the layout develop.

 

Lots to come away with from the show, but a hugely positive experience for the club and we look forward to taking it on the road again soon.

 

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

Despite the lack of updates on here things have been progressing well on Redbridge, with focus on completing the mammoth task of creating Southampton Water. It's a slow job but will look great when finished. We are using the method as detailed in this video:

 

 

We are also close to having a fully operational layout after the Control gremlins have been conquered and we are testing a variety of more interesting routes rather than roundy-roundy. We hope to have trains running via the Romsey line for our next outing, something we couldn't achieve in time for Brockenhurst this time last year.

 

Speaking of next outing, we have the privilege of taking Redbridge to the Southampton show in 2019, about as local as we can get! We are looking forward to being able to show off the layout to punters from the local area who I'm sure will recognise the location and operations we have tried to capture.

 

In the meantime, my latest addition to my fleet had yet to have a good run, so out it came for a session on Redbridge.

 

[Marcyg]

Great looking layout. Many memories of the area, mainly Southampton Central waiting to get a train back to Portsmouth, which on a cold winters evening is a wholly unpleasant place to be as the wind rips right through the station! I'd love to build a layout from where you've modelled right up to the tunnels at Central. I'm sure it would be colossal though

[eldavo]

Another long gap since the last post. The scenics department has been busy and huge progress has been which is just as well as the January deadline is approaching rapidly.

 

As timber was shipped in to Redbridge from overseas we had to have some barges being unloaded alongside the wharf...

 

 

There are also a lot of little details and cameos being added...

 

 

The scenic daughter boards have been removed from the clubroom to somewhere a little less dusty and dryer so that coats of PVA and varnish can be applied to the water areas. Just these scenic daughter boards are larger than some of my layouts!

 

 

There's a huge amount yet to do so I better quit browsing RMweb and start wiring a control panel.

 

Cheers

Dave

Edited October 13, 2018 by eldavo

[eldavo]

The less pretty progress is typified by this chaotic mess...

 

 

This is the underside of the main fiddleyard control panel. The external view is (will be) clean and simple allowing any of 300 odd possible routes around the layout to be set up using 2 or 3 presses of the 38 route setting pushbuttons.

 

The panel is about 50% wired up. Every route setting button has a red LED alongside it which provides immediate feedback to the operator, these are all in place. The pushbuttons will be added last. These pushbuttons are monitored and the red LEDs are controlled by the Arduino processor at the bottom right which is connected to a bunch of shift register chips.

 

The majority of clutter on the panel is the wiring of groups of LEDs that provide feedback of the routes currently set. These are colour coded to show up, down and yard shunt routes. Of course it's at this point that I discover I have underestimated the number of LEDs required, I only ordered 200!

 

Lots to do.

 

Cheers

Dave

[PhilH]

Looks like a bit of an Enigma....

[Oldddudders]

Looks like a bit of an Enigma....

.... where variations are a way of life!