Faux Malton

[MichaelW]

Hi Jeff,

 

2mm finescale?  Not quite...  It will be run with N-gauge stock, so we can't go fully finescale, but the plain track will be 2mm Association Easy-Track (N gauge wheel-sets run quite happily on it).  Pointwork will be relatively standard N-gauge - made with finer rail but with normal flangeways.  It's the same combination that Eldavo used on Waton for the 2010 challange - and looks pretty good too!

[Physicsman]

Hi Jeff,

 

2mm finescale?  Not quite...  It will be run with N-gauge stock, so we can't go fully finescale, but the plain track will be 2mm Association Easy-Track (N gauge wheel-sets run quite happily on it).  Pointwork will be relatively standard N-gauge - made with finer rail but with normal flangeways.  It's the same combination that Eldavo used on Waton for the 2010 challange - and looks pretty good too!

 

I know very little about N gauge, and had never heard of this Easy-Track stuff until Jason posted on Andy's Glenfinnick this afternoon.

 

I doubt that I'll ever model N gauge - because of the huge amount of loco/rolling stock in 00 - but I'm going to watch this project now. I like the idea of building the whole thing up from scratch (just as I like what Andy's doing with proprietary Peco stuff).

 

If Eldavo's done what you're doing, that's recommendation enough!

 

Jeff

[MichaelW]

It's been a while since I've posted an update here, mainly due to lack of time rather than lack of things to write about.  I met 50A of this parish at the Pickering Show, and after a good chat about the layout, I thought I ought to post an update...

 

The point work being built in the last update was completed in fairly short order, appeared to work well, so we proceeded to stick it down in position:

 

 

The following meeting we added a another piece of track:

 

 

And the meeting after that we added some temporary wiring, which resulted in the first loco running:

 

 

With the permanent way gang continuing to produce more track (both copper-clad, and 2mm society easy-track, attention turned to the left end, and building the raised track bed for the branch line.  My worries about clearance proved to be groundless:

 

 

By this point, enough track had been laid to allow quite a significant run.  All of it temporarily wired to prove that the combination of finescale track and N-gauge mechanisms would work (but only when the gauge is narrowed at the points:

 

[MichaelW]

With the left end cleared for the permanent way gang, progress was fairly rapid.  First the track was built to the plan (here shown lain in place for checking):

 

 

This was soon laid over a couple of meetings:

 

 

Progress was still being made in the fiddle yard, with more track being built and laid, most weeks having more track appear:

 

 

With the permanent way gang making noises about the lack of track-bed at the right hand end, the construction crew moved their attention to that end.  First figuring out where the various levels need to be:

 

 

Then starting on building the upper level track bed:

 

 

And eventually ending up with a glued down support for the track bed:

 

[MichaelW]

I arrived at the club this evening to find that the permanent way gang were once again racing ahead building track and pointwork.  We now have all the pointwork required for the upper level, and a lot of the plain track.  Once again, their main complaint was the imminent shortage of rail to work with.  By the end of the evening, two more lengths of track for the centre fiddle-yard board had been finished:

 

 

This means there are now 3 more lengths of track ready to be fixed down, and scope for only another two before they need the next board to be ready.  The pointwork visible at the back of the board is the crossover that sits at the right hand side of the scenic section.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the crossing and access point to the sloping fiddle yard that appeared this evening.

 

While all this activity was happening at one end of the layout, I was busy preparing the next board ready for track laying.  All but one of the remaining pieces of support for the upper line were glued in place, and the trackbed for the upper fiddle yard was carefully cut and checked for fit:

 

 

The two sets of points are roughly where they need to be to, but before the surface can be fixed in place, the track for the lower loops needs to be built and put in place.  Considering the earlier comments, I'd better go and order more bits...

[d winpenny]

Glad to see the layouts still coming along well

 

David

[MichaelW]

Thank you David.   Though I think most of the credit should go to John and Martin, who are generally working hard by the time I drift into the club...

[Physicsman]

Nice work, Michael. And it's always good to see step-by-step progress photos on a thread.

 

It may not be my gauge, but techniques carry over.... Keep the posts coming!

 

Jeff

[MichaelW]

Thanks Jeff.  I shall endeavour to keep them coming...

 

Last nights meeting was agreeably quiet.  With none of the permanent way gang attending (apparently going away for the bank holiday was more appealing   ), I was able to get on with some serious construction work.  First off, I took a couple of boards off the layout so I could get access to the back of them.  The benefits of single skin ply construction were blatent, the only problem I had was their bulk in the slightly restricted confines of the N-gauge room (nothing to do with room size, just how much stuff is in there...).  With access to the back of the end board of the fiddle yard, I got the last piece of the support work fitted, and could then add the tops I'd cut to size on Tuesday.  Looking rather better trussed than a chicken, I put this to one side for the glue to cure:

 

 

I then set about the two lengths of track the permanent way gang had left lying around, after a successful search for a suitable piece of wood (2by1 being just a little too narrow to use to hold two tracks in place), I glued these down on the centre board.  No photo I'm afraid, I was too busy coming up with novel uses of innocent words having realised I hadn't intended to put the top on the fiddle yard bridge before the track was layed...

 

Having recovered from that, I couldn't find any more useful bits of wood to assault (and all my clamps were in use), so I started making fences for one of my own layouts...

[MichaelW]

Another productive evening saw the construction workers sign off the final fiddle yard board, and a little more track laid.  

 

Having released the board from the restrictive confines of the clamps, we refitted it to the layout, and added cork to the new top.  Unfortunately the levels weren't quite right at the join, so a card ramp was needed to lift the cork to the right height.  With the cork on top you almost can't tell that there was ever a problem...

 

 

With all the points that have been waiting for a baseboard to appear, we soon had bits of track lying on top of the board, and were trying to figure out where they should be positioned...

 

 

Elsewhere, the two lengths of track fitted on Friday were checked for alignment by the permanent way crew (apparently I did well enough not to get any sighs or tuts), before they proceeded to lay the final piece of built up track.  This means that the left end of the high fiddle yard is now complete, and is awaiting wiring up.

 

 

Finally, the right end board was put somewhere a bit more useful for getting the tops prepared (though I suspect the slope may defeat the attempts at gluing... 

 

[MichaelW]

Two updates in a day! Will wonders never cease?   

With construction work on the hidden boards coming to an end, I decided I really out to restart work on the scenic boards. This stopped at christmas when my railway room became a store-room during the upgrade of the bathroom and heating system (the bathroom was upgraded from dodgy floor with holes in to complete floor, and the heating from partially working to fully working with mains hot water     ), and the parts for the baseboards got stacked at the far end. I finally managed to clear the room of stuff a couple of weeks ago, and tonight I found time to sort through the bits, and start work on the boards.

First off, I had to put the bits back into piles for each board - preferably with each board having a front and back, and four cross pieces - all of which should be the same length.  I managed this (mostly...), and unlike last time, thought to mark them up before I lost the intended arrangement:



On the right is the 1/5 scale mockup I made of the baseboards 18 months ago to test the visuals, I'd found it in the clear-out, and it's already proved quite useful as a check that I've got things right when marking up the cross pieces. I started marking up on board V1 (the left most when looking from the front), which is the most complicated as it holds the station throat, the start of the rising link line, the branch line, and a river, oh, and has two different heights of cross piece to accommodate the rising hillside at the back. All these have been marked on each cross-piece, along with ground level, allowing the sides of embankments / cuttings to be worked out:

 

I'm not yet convinced that I have got it all right, but this looks to be a good start...

Edit: Yes, the high side does switch ends between the first two and last two cross pieces - the non-marked side will be the outside when built
 

[MichaelW]

After the excitement of managing two posts in a day, it's gone a bit quiet round here.  That doesn't mean nothing's been happening, just that I've been a bit busy and haven't got round to writing it up...

 

Well, having had a week off for the club meeting, we got going again with a vengeance last week, and spent most of Tuesday evening watching our tame S&T engineer making an almost unnoticeable bit of progress:

 

 

All is revealed when looking under the board:

 

 

It took a while to fit, but it's the first we've had chance to play with, and it works quite well.  The point needs a little fettling to make the movement smoother, but the Cobalt switches it and holds it in place quite well.  Having used our solitary borrowed Cobalt, more were required, so I ordered some from Liverpool way that evening.

 

By that Friday we had a few more Cobalts ready to install, but no sign of the track ordered two weeks before, or the tame S&T engineer, so we started to look at fitting the mainline track on the right-hand boards before fitting the raised track-bed (erm....)  Having trial fitted the curves on the fiddle yard board, it was clear that there were clearance issues, which would be easy to fix if someone hadn't fitted the raised track bed over the area a couple of weeks before.  Instead, out came the rasp and after quite a bit of work, the clearance was a little improved.  It was obvious that some more testing would be required...

[MichaelW]

Tuesday's meeting saw progress on four fronts.  

 

Monday evening revealed a card from my friendly postman inviting me to visit the delivery office to pick up a package - a rapid bit of thinking resulted in the conclusion that it must be the track components. This conclusion was confirmed on my way to work the following day when I collected it. I found a note inside apologising for the holiday induced delay, as I'd had a holiday in that time too, I couldn't really complain.  Unfortunately, having taken it in the house when I got home, I promptly forgot that fact and left it there on the way to the club....  

 

Fortunately the permanent way team had pooled their resources and when I arrived they were both beavering away making more track.  By the end of the evening our tame S&T engineer had produced enough track to complete the upper fiddle yard on the center board:

 

 

Our point builder extraordinaire was putting the final touches to his latest construction, one of the point fans for the bottom yard, and soon completed it ready for testing:

 

 

I carried on where I'd left off on Friday, testing for clearance around the bridge on the right fiddle yard board.  With a selection of long and wide rolling stock, we managed to find a position for the curves that would give clearance. Just. Well, almost...  1-2mm is not really enough, and after a bit of thinking, we decided the easiest way would be to cut out the offending bit of wall.  Cue a couple of minutes drilling, a few minutes using the drill as a router, a quick play with an unnecessarily large saw, and finally a quick bit of drill abuse (well, it was the closest tool to hand when I needed to knock out the wood I'd cut...).  Once again the rasp was brought out to tidy up after my efforts, and we could check for clearance.  No photos of rolling stock, but the fit of the track, and the abuse the board has been subjected to are clearly visible:

 

 

As track construction is progressing so well, two things are starting to be notable by their absence: wiring plans, and scenic boards.  I think I know what I'll be doing for the next week or two...

 

 

 

[d winpenny]

More great progress guys keep it up

 

David

[MichaelW]

Time for another in this irregular series of updates...

 

The curved track under the bridge that featured in the last set of updates got itself stuck down during the following meeting, and by the time I'd dragged myself away from the dinner table and arrived at the meeting after that it had been soldered to the board joint, and the rails cut.  This allowed the fiddle-yard board to be reconnected to the rest of the fiddle-yard, and more track construction / laying to be done...

 

 

 

As the intention is to get the top circuit running first, I think this is about as far as the trackwork in the lower fiddle-yard will get for quite a while.

 

The end board, now with its first track on it, headed back to the woodshop to have trackbeds cut and fitted for the high-level.  First, the two outer parts were done, then as the quartermaster kept forgetting to bring the next supply of trackbed, the permanent way gang got hold of the board to lay the inner track of the lower circuit.

 

 

Unfortunately, now that it's been glued down, the curve looks wrong, and may drift a fair way off its intended course (which I think was my fault for interfering...)  This will need a bit of thought to correct,  but as it is a minimum radius curve, it does need to follow the design, otherwise it will start getting very tight in places...

 

Ignoring this problem, I cut the final piece of trackbed tonight, leaving it ready to be fitted once the bottom track is in and we're satisfied that the curves are right...

 

[MichaelW]

Last night we reached a fairly important milestone, with the right end-board finished, the full set of fiddle-yard boards could be put together again:

 

 

Since the last time I posted, we've fixed the slightly iffy looking lower inner curve, added the outer lower curve (with a little bit of shuffling to create the clearance needed to get Mk3 / Mk4 coaches to pass safely) and added the missing bit of the upper level.

 

Having glued the inner track down quite firmly, we had to add a few extra sleepers in some places to allow us to slew the track across to give a consistent curve.  A 12" tracksetta proved to be invaluable in the process of correcting the curve (laying it by eye didn't work...).  Once we were happy with the new alignment, we fitted the second rail, with the aid of track gauges.  In light of the problems we had with the inner curve, we fitted the outer using the tracksetta to ensure we didn't go too tight anywhere on the curve, and only glued down ever 6th or 7th sleeper to leave us a bit of flexibility.  Turned out to be a good thing as we had to move the curve outwards a bit to give us the clearance we needed.

 

Having glued down the final piece of the upper track bed last week, last night we laid the cork on it, and then fitted the end board to the rest of the layout, which let us start looking at how to lay the pointwork at that end of he fiddle yard, and where the curves should sit to connect them all up safely:

 

[MichaelW]

Another evening at the club, but not much to show for it.  I would have taken pictures, but I'm assured that pictures of droppers aren't that interesting.  Having had a chat about one of the other club layouts, and thoughts of a replacement (which started with "how are we going to transport it"  ), I returned to work on the droppers for the middle board - fitting, but not soldering into place, almost all the missing ones.