"The Plank" - Compact DCC with a Spanish flavour.

[Guest]

I know nothing of Spain's railways...

 

Thanks Alex. That makes two of us then!

I am enjoying this one, it does make a nice change from my usual 3rd rail London suburban stuff.

Although I travel to Spain a fair bit (not lately unfortunately), my limited knowledge of their railways is entirely courtesy of Google and the help of a couple of forum members who know more about the prototype than I ever will. Plenty of mistakes and compromises are being made, but as this is meant to be fictional, hopefully I can just capture some of the "feel" of the real thing.

"The Plank" is currently resting on the top floor of the house covered in a dust sheet, as I have zero room to do any modelling. Prior to getting the house back on the market, every room has fresh paint and carpets, so glues and paints are currently forbidden by the management...

The available stocks of Lego are getting a bit low, so I may have to keep my eyes peeled for a new supply if the other apartment block is ever to get built...

I am itching to crack on, but I guess patience is the order of the day.

Pete.

[lienbackwards]

https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/vialog-1450/storyThanks Stubby. Close. Very close! Ta for that.

 

torremolinos.jpg

 

Test.jpg

The typeface is Vialog, available from  www.fonts.com/font/linotype/vialog-1450/story

[Alex TM]

Hi again,

 

A friend of mine (also a middle aged man) is a lego-obsessive.  He tends to picks up boxes of the stuff from charity shops; that way he saves a fortune ....

 

Hope it's of interest.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

[Guest]

What in the name of Father Ted have they done to my station??? In Spain at the moment and caught the little train into Benidorm to be greeted by this...

 

 

I know I only freelanced Benidorm's station building for "The Plank" but I thought I made a half-decent approximation, especially the colouring and the distinctive roofline.

It's now covered from head to toe in punched aluminium sheet and resembles a giant cheese grater. Ugh.

I'll be the first to admit that Benidorm has more than it's fair share of ugly buildings, but you can now add one more to the list... I shall drown my sorrows with San Miguel...

[Guest]

After my little rant about Benidorm's station building being turned into some sort of bizarre "cheesegrater", I haven't forgotten about this layout. Far from it... after some reorganisation on the domestic front, I now have room to set up Cap Llevant* permanently, so today it emerges from underneath the dust sheets and makes the journey up a flight of stairs. Progress will be slow, as I'm working on this in tandem with another layout, but I have some ideas about what to do next. Being in Spain recently helped clear a few mental blocks. Catenary is, I think, a must. I quite like the idea of a little non-electrified secondary line and I have a couple of diesel railcars etc., but some of the things I want to run require knitting. I just can't quite bring myself to run AC traction without at least the masts, even if the actual wires come later... I just think it would look daft.

That brings me to a little dilemma. There is a certain style of catenary mast widely used in Spain that I rather like, and the only manufacturer is a little company called Ferro3D (thanks Andy for the heads-up). Disaster! Having got hold of a couple of samples, I really don't like them, see pic below. Being 3D printed, the detail just isn't there. They look like they've been coated in PVA and dipped in caster sugar. I just can't use them.

 

 

That brings me neatly on to Plan B. Or it would if I had a Plan B.

All I know is that I need some metal lattice-type masts, and I'm thinking about Viessmann etc. I don't need a great amount, so cost shouldn't be crippling. Problem is, all that is on offer is rather generic to the whole of Europe. I think I need to spend some time Googling Spanish catenary so I don't end up with something that looks completely wrong.

 

In other news, a complete Talgo set and a 3-car Class 592 has been added to the stock roster. Once I've blown the cobwebs away and given the whole layout a bit of a hoover, I'll take some pics.

 

* I think I've finally got used to calling it that, it can't be "The Plank" forever...

[Stubby47]

Could you cut these posts on a Silhouette and laminate them together?

[Guest]

Could you cut these posts on a Silhouette and laminate them together?

 

A Silhouette has long been tempting, but I'm not sure it would be worth the effort as it's not the masts that are the problem. A quick Google search turned up this...

 

 

...and the style of mast is near-identical to my eye and would look ten times better than anything I could cobble together. Rather, it's the distinctive arm that I don't think I'd be able to reproduce well enough.

[McGomez]

Hi Pete.

 

Sorry to hear about the poor quality of the 3D printed posts.

Have a look for a brand called 87Train.

They do metal versions but from what I can find, they seem to be out of stock everywhere I looked.

[Guest]

Have a look for a brand called 87Train.

They do metal versions but from what I can find, they seem to be out of stock everywhere I looked.

 

I'd forgotten about 87Train. Likewise, I can't find stock anywhere. Their website seems a little out of sorts, with images missing, and even the big German boxshifters have little or no stock.

I spent more time than I should yesterday Googling images of Renfe electrified lines. The catenary masts that I like are dominant, but I did find growing evidence of more "generic" masts, as shown in the image below.

 

Photographer David Gubler at railpictures.net. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons non-commercial 2.5 license.

 

Armed with that shred of evidence in my favour, I managed to get hold of enough of the Viessmann masts that (to my eye) look identical to those in the photo above. At just a couple of quid each, they won't break the bank. I also managed to get hold of one of those "tensioning masts" with the pulleys and concrete blocks. I now need to do some research and figure out how it all goes together, as catenary takes me a long way out of my comfort zone! The wires can come later. From what I can gather, the arms just clip into the masts, so I may even try to fabricate new arms in the style of the Ferro3D/87Train catenary.

 

[Ian Morgan]

Look at using EZ Line for the knitting. It is available in green, to depict corroded copper. The big thing is that it is stretchy, so it moves a long way, allowing track cleaning, etc without damage. You have to fix pantographs to a position just below the 'wire' though.

[Guest]

Look at using EZ Line for the knitting.

 

Thanks Ian, the wires are a long way off yet, I'll be happy with just cosmetic masts until scenery and lineside infrastructure is more progressed. I can just imagine me damaging something leaning over to add a litter bin to the far platform...

 

Speaking of masts, the job lot of Viessmann masts arrived from Rails of Sheffield - a secondhand bargain, they were sold as "used" but have never been opened. No doubt someone traded them in. I need to research catenary because it occurs to me I know more about particle physics... The loop platform will be electrified as well as the main, and I don't even know how to "wire" a diverging route. Do I just position a mast where the wires diverge and loop two wires around one side of the mast? So many questions, so little knowledge! I definitely need to go and learn a bit about catenary.

 

I'm still waiting for the Renfe AVE S-102 Talgo to arrive. It might possibly look a little daft running around as a short set (I don't have the room for the full set which would take up over 7 feet) but I couldn't resist something that looks so mesmerisingly weird. Plus it was cheap, and I like cheap. The prototype (and so therefore the model) has a massive overhang ahead of the front bogie. The platform has only the slightest curve, so I'm hoping all will be well and the unit doesn't bang its nose on the platform edge...

 

Questo file è sotto la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 2.0 Generico

Edited October 5, 2018 by Pete 75C

[Guest]

The high speed Talgo S-102 by Electrotren has finally arrived. I really do like this and find it very iconic. How appropriate it will look crawling through the station is something I will worry about on another day...

 

 

As feared, there is a problem that has to be fixed. Platform clearance is extremely tight which is my fault entirely - I really should have left an extra couple of mm. In the case of the S-102, a couple of mm might not have been enough. If anyone remembers, the height of the main platform changes and the overhang of this unit "rides up" in one direction. In the other direction, it pretty much rubs along the platform edge which simply isn't good enough. Even though the curve is slight, I'm going to have to rebuild the main platform a little further back and keep it at one constant height. That will be the next job, then...

 

 

Having made the decision a while back to definitely add overhead wires, some new stock has appeared in the form of EMUs which will be the everyday "normal" for this layout.

 

 

I also managed to pick up a 3-car Class 592 DMU by Electrotren which has been out of production in this livery for years. I managed to find a new one in stock in a model shop in Athens of all places. Dating from (I think) 2009 it was heavily discounted and proved a bit of a bargain. I'd never really thought of Cap Llevant as a junction station, but I can imagine the DMU laying over in the loop platform before heading back to some imaginary non-electrified destination.

 

 

 

 

 

[bensanchez43310]

The high speed Talgo S-102 by Electrotren has finally arrived. I really do like this and find it very iconic. How appropriate it will look crawling through the station is something I will worry about on another day...

 

plank_076.jpg

 

As feared, there is a problem that has to be fixed. Platform clearance is extremely tight which is my fault entirely - I really should have left an extra couple of mm. In the case of the S-102, a couple of mm might not have been enough. If anyone remembers, the height of the main platform changes and the overhang of this unit "rides up" in one direction. In the other direction, it pretty much rubs along the platform edge which simply isn't good enough. Even though the curve is slight, I'm going to have to rebuild the main platform a little further back and keep it at one constant height. That will be the next job, then...

 

plank_080.jpg

 

Having made the decision a while back to definitely add overhead wires, some new stock has appeared in the form of EMUs which will be the everyday "normal" for this layout.

 

plank_077.jpg

plank_078.jpg

 

I also managed to pick up a 3-car Class 592 DMU by Electrotren which has been out of production in this livery for years. I managed to find a new one in stock in a model shop in Athens of all places. Dating from (I think) 2009 it was heavily discounted and proved a bit of a bargain. I'd never really thought of Cap Llevant as a junction station, but I can imagine the DMU laying over in the loop platform before heading back to some imaginary non-electrified destination.

 

plank_079.jpg

 

Good fleet there, all looks great, I must get my hands on an s102...

 

keep it up, ben

[Ian Morgan]

Where the overhead comes together above a point, one wire will continue down the track while the other one will rise up and to the side of the track, and anchor to a mast, possibly with a pulley and a stack of weights.

[Guest]

Good fleet there, all looks great, I must get my hands on an s102...

 

Almost half price at Rails of Sheffield, and they have a handful left. https://railsofsheffield.com/products/33745/electrotren-e3528-ho-scale-high-speed-train-ave-s-102-renfe-operadora

It is inappropriate for this little layout, but I never could resist a bargain.

I continue to make geographical errors with stock (eg: Unit A wouldn't have been seen with Unit B and Unit C didn't run in that part of Spain etc etc), but then I'm not entirely sure where in Spain Cap Llevant is meant to be. I had originally thought Costa Blanca/Costa Brava but I guess it could be anywhere.

 

Where the overhead comes together above a point, one wire will continue down the track while the other one will rise up and to the side of the track, and anchor to a mast, possibly with a pulley and a stack of weights.

 

Excellent, Ian. That's really useful, thank you.

When I purchased some Viessmann catenary items recently, I picked up a couple of tower masts with pulleys/weights. I wasn't sure if I'd use them or even how to use them. They're visually stunning though, and should make a very nice feature.

 

Edit: I've just been through the photos I took at Benidorm back in October 2016 and found these two shots of the masts with weights/pulleys. A slightly different scenario, these masts terminate the catenary from the Alicante line as northwards, it's diesel only. I believe this has changed again, as I think the wires have been extended as far as a new station just the other side of Benidorm allowing the trams to travel further.

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2018 by Pete 75C

[Enterprisingwestern]

Almost half price at Rails of Sheffield, and they have a handful left. https://railsofsheffield.com/products/33745/electrotren-e3528-ho-scale-high-speed-train-ave-s-102-renfe-operadora

It is inappropriate for this little layout, but I never could resist a bargain.

I continue to make geographical errors with stock (eg: Unit A wouldn't have been seen with Unit B and Unit C didn't run in that part of Spain etc etc), but then I'm not entirely sure where in Spain Cap Llevant is meant to be. I had originally thought Costa Blanca/Costa Brava but I guess it could be anywhere.

 

 

Excellent, Ian. That's really useful, thank you.

When I purchased some Viessmann catenary items recently, I picked up a couple of tower masts with pulleys/weights. I wasn't sure if I'd use them or even how to use them. They're visually stunning though, and should make a very nice feature.

 

Edit: I've just been through the photos I took at Benidorm back in October 2016 and found these two shots of the masts with weights/pulleys. A slightly different scenario, these masts terminate the catenary from the Alicante line as northwards, it's diesel only. I believe this has changed again, as I think the wires have been extended as far as a new station just the other side of Benidorm allowing the trams to travel further.

 

benidorm_2016_01.jpg

benidorm_2016_02.jpg

 

The wires have been extended to the new station by the bus station, and they don't look overly high going across the main road TBH, I doubt the open top bus will be going that way!

Came into your favourite cheese grater station last night, currently a bus service from El Campello to Crueta whilst they replace a viaduct,

If you need any close ups just shout out.

 

Mike.

[Guest]

I've cleared the old platform away ready for the rebuild. Thankfully, the station building is unharmed, ready for reuse. The canopy is also safe, although I couldn't save the canopy supports, so they will need to be replaced. I can't remember what glue I used to fix them into the old platform structure, but the stumps had to be chiselled out! Everything on or around the road that could be removed has been removed, as I know what I can be like in demolition mode...

Next step is to refix some spare cork sheet to bring the levels up, then I need to make absolutely sure that I have the clearance right before fixing the new platform edging in place.

 

 

 

[colin penfold]

Well you know which vehicle to use to mark out the clearances - the duck-billed plat emu

[Guest]

Well you know which vehicle to use to mark out the clearances - the duck-billed plat emu

 

The platypus already has a couple of pencils taped to it.

Taken out of context, I'm sure that's animal cruelty...

[colin penfold]

don't know if it would help you at all but amongst the Dapol special offers this month are catenary wires

 

https://www.Dapol.co.uk/index.php?route=product/special

[Guest]

Thanks Colin, but I'm not sure if they'd be compatible with (or even close to) the Viessmann masts.

I've bought such a huge amount of Viessmann masts/wires etc from Rails of Sheffield recently, that I'm kinda committed now. Whoever traded in their unused Viessmann stuff in bulk to Rails has done me a huge favour as the price I've paid is a fraction of the RRP.

 

Don't forget that this is just a scenic test track and I might try and up the realism if/when there's another Spanish layout (in Spain?)... I'd still like to use the 87Train masts in the future if stock becomes more readily available. The Viessmann stuff is a compromise, but a very cost-effective one whilst I'm learning.

[Guest]

The new platform edging is in place and this time I've done it with brain engaged. I've run a variety of stock through both the main and the loop and clearance is no longer an issue, with Duck-Face no longer wanting to climb up onto the platform. I've had to alter the clearances on the loop, even though I'll probably run no more than a diesel unit through here. The loop platform will be "under the wires" too, so it makes sense to make sure everything can run through. A particular issue was where trains leaving the loop towards the level crossing meet the platform edging of the main platform. The 3-car 470 EMU has ridiculously long carriages (I'd never noticed before) and the overhang made clearance here really tight... again, no longer an issue.

Having had to rip up the platforms, I've got the opportunity to make some cosmetic alterations. I want the higher platform to look like it's a recent rebuild, so I want to differentiate between the high and the low. The short section of low platform where the station building is situated will have a tiled top, and the newer higher section of platform will have a completely different concrete interlocking tile top. Having studied some photos of modern RENFE stations, I'll also add the yellow line to the high section only.

If I'm honest, the platforms would have needed surgery having decided to add overhead wires, so now is an ideal time to get mast positions figured out.

In other news, I've finally bitten the bullet and bought the Electrotren model of 269.604.5, seen below in a rather nice evening photo. There are numerous photos online of this loco pulling short coaching sets in different liveries, so loco + 3 coaches is plausible.

Photos to follow when there's something worth showing.

 

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

[paulbb]

Glad you are using 'full' catenary, as why spoil the ship for a hap'orth of tar. Watched this thread with interest and its clear that modellers dont need a lot of space to build a convincing railway and also learn a lot on the way. Presume the station siding is an inspection point for EMUs. What about a small extension module for say local scrap traffic with EAOS wagons; one or two tracks (tuning fork') might work OK. Is this a traffic carried by RENFE?

cheers Paul

[Guest]

Glad you are using 'full' catenary, as why spoil the ship for a hap'orth of tar. Watched this thread with interest and its clear that modellers dont need a lot of space to build a convincing railway and also learn a lot on the way. Presume the station siding is an inspection point for EMUs. What about a small extension module for say local scrap traffic with EAOS wagons; one or two tracks (tuning fork') might work OK. Is this a traffic carried by RENFE?

cheers Paul

 

The whole layout is loosely based on Benidorm. VERY loosely, as the prototype is metre gauge tram-operated, so nothing like the layout. The siding was originally a copy of the DMU stabling point at Benidorm, but minus one track. I've no plans to add wires to the siding. The inspection pit is very similar to the small one at Benidorm, and it will eventually get some kind of weather protection in the form of a steel-frame canopy, open on one side. I also quite like the idea of a 4-axle tank wagon parked at the buffer stop for refuelling, although I've no idea how prototypical this would be. Facilities will be minimal, so perhaps just refuelling and the occasional overnight light maintenance. Realistically, it's just somewhere to park some stock for a little added visual interest.

I have often thought of extending the layout, possibly into a "roundie" but maybe also adding another scenic section. The more I think about it, I'm actually quite happy with it the way it is, simple and compact. I've probably got enough on my plate adding the wires, without harbouring thoughts of extension, at least just yet.

 

[Guest]

I had a sneaking suspicion this might happen...

I might have accidentally got a bit carried away when I was removing the platforms and taken the track up as well. Oops.

Truth be told, I was having a real issue with the catenary mast positions. I hadn't left enough room here, the alignment was wrong there etc etc... The biggest issue was just beyond the level crossing at the corner of the supermarket building. I need to plant a mast there, and it's one of those tensioning pulley ones. Was there enough room? Of course not.

Also, having extended the roadway a while back, I was never really happy with the extra "lump" of baseboard I'd screwed on. It looked like an afterthought because it was. So now, instead of having a layout 8 feet long by 1 foot wide with a slightly wider lump at one end, I have a layout that's still 8 feet long but it's 10 iches wide at the left end and 18" wide at the right with the front edge one long straight line. I think it looks much better and by happy coincidence, it allows an extra siding for DMU servicing/stabling, as per the prototype. These two sidings are not quite parallel with the running lines which, imho, adds a little visual interest.

Back to square one? No, I don't think so, but instead of a step forwards, I have definitely taken a few steps backwards. I'll upload a couple of photos when all the track is down and the new platform edges added. It won't look "hugely" different, but it should make life easier for me. All buildings etc have been saved and will go back in place, so I haven't been a complete idiot. Matter of opinion, I guess!

A big box of almost impossible to find (in the UK) Spanish scenic items have been ordered from El Taller del Modelista in Torrelavega which is rapidly becoming my one-stop mail order shop. I must visit one day. Hopefully by the time this arrives, I will have the track back down and the new platform edging in place so the rebuild can begin in earnest.

Edited November 3, 2018 by Pete 75C