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Herculaneum Dock


Michael Edge
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1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

We put it back together last week but it's not working yet, needs a few track repairs and I haven't tried switching it on yet. Should be OK for running sessions in a week or so.

Bring out the hammer (not the Hammer...)!

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Maybe I went on the LOR more than once in 1956! or maybe it was 1955.  My brother and I got parked at the grandparents in Oswaldtwistle for long periods in the summer holidays so trips on trains from Church station were looked forward to. You saw things that just didnt exist in rural Oxfordshire! I also was was nine in 1956.

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Ooops!

 

now delivered the correct stock box to Mike for Herculaneum (note ..must colour code stock boxes in the future!)  means the suburban (ex Gresley ) rakes will be full length and the "missing" brake vans are available!

 

Baz

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Working colour light signals now fitted to the Overhead railway, the original test lash up with the sensor unit fitted at the side didn't look very good below the railway so another solution had to be found. In the meantime Train Tech had produced separate signal heads which made the job a lot easier.

First test installation was Herculaneum Dock's down home signal.WP_20190311_09_52_39_Pro.jpg.bdcc3b4f6a7e966b0778f9606e9ff480.jpg

I cut a fairly large hole in the deck plates to fit the Train Tech sensor unit, the sensor itself is at the right, the three prominent terminals are to connect to other signals. It had to protrude up through the deck  otherwise it detected the edges of the hole rathe than the train.

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I then realised that the terminals could be cut off and wire solder to it from below and if the sensor was angled upwards a much smaller hole in the deck was needed.

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This is what it looks like from below, it's not completely hidden in the decking but high enough not to interfere with trains along the dock road below.

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The very fine wires supplied with the signal heads fitted inside the tube used to make the original dummy signals, the new heads are a bit bigger but once re-shaped they look fine.

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New signal head glued to the side of the post, hole ready in the deck for the sensor. I've left all the wires visible, this was an electric railway with cables all over the place so why bother to hide them? New connecting plugs have been fitted all along the railway as well (the signals need one wire connecting each one to the next), these are tucked into the girders on the viewing side of the layout.

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Each unit was temporarily fitted with BluTack to test it, then fixed with epoxy once it worked satisfactorily. There were a lot of problems along the way while fitting and wiring up but most of these were down to stray electrical connections. Generally speaking most model railways are made from insulating materials such as wood and plastic, this one is all metal and live to one rail as well....

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Once the lights were on a sighting problem was obvious and the canopy over the steps at Toxteth had to be cut away (as it should have been in the first place).

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Driver's eye view of the signal now.

All the above photos were taken while the work was being done on the bench, it's too difficult to install the LOR on the layout when it's in the shed (not impossible though) so it's all been packed away ready for Train West.

The Train Tech signal system works perfectly, each signal has one wire running to the next signal for full automatic operation, all are normally green, changing to red as the train passes, back to green when it passes the next one. No other wiring necessary, they simply work off the DCC power.

At Herculaneum Dock however there were some semi automatic signals, i.e. they could be overridden from the signal box. I though this was going to be easy since the signals are controllable as a DCC accessory - red or auto. This was easily set up but then it became apparent that returning to auto wasn't the same as returning to green, the diagram below shows what was needed.

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An empty stock train arriving from Dingle passes signal A which has to be held at red while the train shunts into the car shed - however nothing passes signal B now to reset it to green. Similarly when a train leaves the car shed it passes B and reverses over the crossover to get to Dingle, this requires B and C to be held at red. Passing D will return C to green but not B. This caused a great deal of head scratching and the only way I found to get round it, at the expense of a bit more wiring down into the layout, was to put interruptor buttons in the power supply to A and B, this resets them to green. Signal D is not reset by the next signal (there isn't one - it's inside the tunnel), it's just on a timer but it still needs a hold facility if the works train is passing it. The Ruston goes so slowly that the signal would return to green long before the train was out of sight. The down starter at Toxteth is also on a timer but here the trains disappear immediately.

Just have to hope it all works when we get to Train West now....

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That looks so good; seeing the corrugated  steel that the track sat on just jogged childhood memories, spot on! Like so many other things a shame the LOH did'nt last longer. Would it be an asset today?

    Hope you had a good w/e/at Wakefield your stand was busy every time I passed.

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On 05/04/2019 at 18:08, Michael Edge said:

Working colour light signals now fitted to the Overhead railway, the original test lash up with the sensor unit fitted at the side didn't look very good below the railway so another solution had to be found. In the meantime Train Tech had produced separate signal heads which made the job a lot easier.

Great stuff Mike. What a pity those things weren't around 30 years ago for Hartford...

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6 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

That looks so good; seeing the corrugated  steel that the track sat on just jogged childhood memories, spot on! Like so many other things a shame the LOH did'nt last longer. Would it be an asset today?

    Hope you had a good w/e/at Wakefield your stand was busy every time I passed.

We did, busy nearly all the time both days.

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New loco finished, MDHB Hudswell no 45 will be well out of period for the layout but I would like an example of all the dock locos. It might also foul the LOR structure, especially the bumpers round the columns, my Craftsman 02 does. We may or may not put this into production, it's been on display for quite q few years now but very little interest. The type is more or less confined to the MDHB locos but most were sold off for industrial use after the dock system closed, mostly NCB South Wales and at least one is preserved. Similar locos were supplied to Ford and still work at Dagenham but they don't have much detail in common.

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Livery will be green with wasp stripe buffer beams, these will be painted before the buffers and jacking brackets are fitted.

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