Aberdeen Kirkhill T&RSD

[Clifford Road]

Tip: get a Kadee height gauge - it'll save you loads of time and will ensure you get your heights spot on!

 

 

Thanks - i'll get one of those!

 

 

Regarding the uncouplers, we have a combination of No.308 permanent and No.309 electromagnets at various locations depending on whether we always want to uncouple there or not. One thing we found with the electromagnets is that we tend to get inconsistent operation. They will always uncouple, but they won't always force the couplings into the delay position, enabling you to drop a vehicle exactly where you want it. I'm not sure if some of our couplers are stiffer than others (I've tried lubricating them all with Kadee graphite grease), whether some are slightly out of alignment, or whether we just occasionally suffer from low voltage at some venues. It's probably a combination of all of these factors. The permanent magnets are more reliable in this respect.

 

 

Thanks for that - this may be a silly question, and ignore my ignorance! But with the permanent magents, does that uncouple every kadee that passes over it - or does it have to be slackened or 'jerked' to uncouple/release? I presume the numbers are the kadee part numbers?

 

Ta

Rich

 

 

[Dunedin]

But with the permanent magents, does that uncouple every kadee that passes over it - or does it have to be slackened or 'jerked' to uncouple/release? I presume the numbers are the kadee part numbers?

 

Ta

Rich

 

 

 

You have to take the tension out of the couplings by easing back and then drawing away, so just drawing forwards over them should mean they don't uncouple; likewise pushing back over a permanent magnet won'tcause you to uncouple unless you stop and draw forwards, but there is a 'but'. With free running rolling stock, a slight jerk when passing over a permanent magnet uncoupler can be just enough to cause uncoupling. Also we have uncouplers at the buffer ends of our roads for uncoupling the locos on arrival. We also propel the coaching rakes into the same roads and stop with the intermediate coach couplers at about the same point as where we uncouple the locos so to avoid the coaches uncoupling we use the electromagnets in these areas.

 

The numbers I quoted are the Kadee part numbers.

 

Glenn

[Clifford Road]

You have to take the tension out of the couplings by easing back and then drawing away, so just drawing forwards over them should mean they don't uncouple; likewise pushing back over a permanent magnet won'tcause you to uncouple unless you stop and draw forwards, but there is a 'but'. With free running rolling stock, a slight jerk when passing over a permanent magnet uncoupler can be just enough to cause uncoupling. Also we have uncouplers at the buffer ends of our roads for uncoupling the locos on arrival. We also propel the coaching rakes into the same roads and stop with the intermediate coach couplers at about the same point as where we uncouple the locos so to avoid the coaches uncoupling we use the electromagnets in these areas.

 

The numbers I quoted are the Kadee part numbers.

 

Glenn

 

Thanks Glenn, thats really kind and helpful of you - much appreciated.

 

Rich

[Flood]

Well we've been pretty quiet for the last month so here's a quick update.

 

The two sidings near the shunter's cabin originally terminated under the bridge and were not electrified nor connected to the rest of the trackwork. These have now been extended to take five coach trains and are now powered and join on to one of the roads in the fiddle yard. This gives us a bit more space for stock and room for an old tool van.

 

Next up has been the numbering of coaching stock. The sleeper rakes are nearly finished but the HSTs aren't started yet, oh well I've still got a bit of time in hand.

 

Also required is the testing of kadees (yawn). The spring in the gearbox of a No. 5 appears to have a 'soft' side and 'hard' side. By ensuring the spring is a particular way up will hopefully help the uncouplers move the kadees into the delay position when required. That's gonna be a real exciting weekend!

 

Finally I'm still toying with the best way to make a backscene to go between the depot building and the bridge - might take a bit more time that one.

 

No more new stock has been bought recently (we're both skint) but Lady Di finally got numbered and detailed today, just needs a bit of weathering to finish off. We'll be having a running session before the October open day at Mickleover so we may get some more photos up then.

 

Thanks for tuning in. If you've any comments then just fire away.

[Flood]

Glenn has created a Windows Live photo site with a collection of the best photos from Kirkhill, please see his link in the post below.

 

Photos taken by Glenn, me, Steve Gibbons and Andy Y.

 

It requires Microsoft Silverlight. I don't know if many people use that or not - I had to install it.

[Dunedin]

I just tried to test the link and to use it you seem to need a Windows Live i.d. - that's fine if you have one like I do, but if you don't, this link should not require you to sign in:

 

https://cid-f8465c75...=umM8cNsSwPY%24

 

It looks best if you click on "Full Screen". The comments sometimes take a while to load, but they give an explanation of the photos and draw your attention to some of the details in the shots. Hope it works!

 

There's also a flyer for anyone who wants to read a condensed, potted version of what this layout is all about: Aberdeen Kirkhill Flyer 3.pdf

[trisonic]

Sorry, either seems to require me to download some Microsoft program......

 

Best, Pete.

[trisonic]

However this thread contains some information that I find very useful - thank you very much!

 

Best, Pete.

[Flood]

Due to Trisonic having to download a file to see the previous photo site (and possibly this is the case for quite a few people) I have bitten the bullet and created a fotopic site for the layout.

 

http://aberdeenkirkhill.fotopic.net/

[trisonic]

Due to Trisonic having to download a file to see the previous photo site (and possibly this is the case for quite a few people) I have bitten the bullet and created a fotopic site for the layout.

 

http://aberdeenkirkhill.fotopic.net/

 

 

Sorry about that, it goes against the grain for an Apple man.......

 

Superb pictures! Lovely layout. Rewarded investigation indeed. Thank you, again.

 

Best, Pete.

 

 

[Temeraire]

Nice one Flood, great pictures and memories from Members Day!

 

Website duly favourited (is that a word?) keep the pics coming.

[pitbull1845]

I'm at work and its blocked, will check it when I get home!

Cheers

Scott

 

Edit- Worth the wait, great photos, its one of my favourite layouts.

[P.C.M]

Due to Trisonic having to download a file to see the previous photo site (and possibly this is the case for quite a few people) I have bitten the bullet and created a fotopic site for the layout.

 

http://aberdeenkirkhill.fotopic.net/

 

 

Hi Flood,

Some great pics on your fotopic site, some I had'nt seen before. I do like 37033 with its yellow Highland Rail sticker, nice. Next time I am on my Fotopic site which I haven't updated in ages, I will add you to my links section.

 

Cheers Peter.

[47401]

Thanks for the link: I have made it a favourite as well.

 

Briiliant set of photos of a brilliant layout!

[Dunedin]

I have a little production line going at the moment: I'm in the process of repainting vehicles to form another two rakes to add further variety to Kirkhill (that way I can give Graham some work to do reshaping the schedule):

 

• Four Replica Mark 1 FOs plus Replica Mark 1 RBR. These are being repainted into InterCity livery to form a Bounds Green InterCity Charter rake together with four Mark 3 sleepers and a BG. When finished with their white roofs, these should look quite smart, not to mention different.
• Five Mark 2s - 2 x Bachmann Mark 2Z TSOs, 2 x Airfix Mark 2D TSOs (one of which will be a TSOT) and an Airfix Mark 2D FO - all into ScotRail Express livery to form an additional push-pull set. (Alex Carpenter of ABC Models is painting up a DC Kits DBSO as I write this (well, maybe not right at this moment, but you know what I mean). These vehicles wont actually all end up in the same set, but will allow others to be reformed, giving us a set closely resembling that which worked EC241 diagram. This was formed of various left-overs and varied considerably from one month to the next in its formation, but usually had at least 2 x Mark 2Z TSO + Mark 2A BSO + Mark 2D TSOT + Mark 2A FK (either 13456 or 13461) + DBSO.

Well all vehicles have been primed, the FOs have had the exec dark grey applied and have tonight had the first coat of exec light grey. The Mark 2s have all had the first coat of exec light grey - I'm doing those in the opposite order to the Mark 1s because the roof and window detail influences the way they need to be masked.

 

The RBR was already in InterCity livery and we thought it might not need a repaint, but predictably, the shades didn't match those going on the FOs, so it got added to the line late and hence it's lagging behind a little.

 

As of last night, the state of play was:

 

Mark 1 FO:

 

Mark 2Z TSOs (the wine is disappearing quickly!):

 

Full line up:

 

The plan (or maybe it's more of a hope) is to have them ready in time for the Mickleover Model Railway Group Open Day on 2nd - 3rd October when Kirkhill will be exhibited next - only three weeks to go!!

I'll keep you updated with progress.

[7APT7]

Hi dude...

 

What Air Brush & Compressor do you use for all your re-paints, weathering... etc!

 

Its all looking great, love all the photos you take... they are great...

 

Regards

Jamie

[briantwigley]

The microsoft gallert worked with no aggro for me, superb photos, really great layout and outstanding attention to detail!

 

Ryan

[Dazza 50 015]

[quote)

 

Tip: get a Kadee height gauge - it'll save you loads of time and will ensure you get your heights spot on! (quote)

 

 

Hi, im looking to buy Kadee couplers for my stock, but every shop i have been in and phoned dont sell them? Is there a dedicated website that you buy these and the under track magnets from???

[7APT7]

[quote)

 

Tip: get a Kadee height gauge - it'll save you loads of time and will ensure you get your heights spot on! (quote)

 

 

Hi, im looking to buy Kadee couplers for my stock, but every shop i have been in and phoned dont sell them? Is there a dedicated website that you buy these and the under track magnets from???

 

Hi mate

 

I have used on many times http://www.northwalesmodels.com is name is Barry, he has an eBay show to, I have found him to be one of the best I know to get many items like you need as I have bought Kadee Couplings from him to...!

 

Hope that Helps...

 

Jamie

[Flood]

Hi, im looking to buy Kadee couplers for my stock, but every shop i have been in and phoned dont sell them? Is there a dedicated website that you buy these and the under track magnets from???

 

Hi mate

 

I have used on many times http://www.northwalesmodels.com is name is Barry, he has an eBay shop to, I have found him to be one of the best I know to get many items like you need as I have bought Kadee Couplings from him to...!

 

Hope that Helps...

 

Jamie

I've used North Wales Models a few times for the Kadees on our stock for Kirkhill. They sell the multi packs of No. 5s, very useful for a layout like ours. The permanent magnets and electro magnets have been bought from Totally Trains (oh well) and from a number of exhibitions. Again, North Wales Models may well stock them.

 

The height gauge is Kadee 205, I've just found it on the North Wales Models site. The uncouplers are Kadee 307 for the electro magnetic and Kadee 308 (square) or Kadee 321 (long and thin) for the permanent.

[Dunedin]

Hi dude...

 

What Air Brush & Compressor do you use for all your re-paints, weathering... etc!

 

Its all looking great, love all the photos you take... they are great...

 

Regards

Jamie

 

Hi Jamie,

 

I use a fairly basic "Aztek" airbrush - I bought it in Hobbycraft about 6 years ago now, but they are still available and you can get spares for them. If you Google Aztek, you'll find plenty of suppliers for them. It gives great results as you say - and it has all the features of much more expensive types at a fraction of the cost: gravity feed for the paint, internal mixing and you can adjust both the flow of paint and air. The one I bought only came with one nozzle which I later discovered was intended for enamel paints, but there is a range of nozzles available for both enamels and acrylics and for covering large areas or small detail jobs, so plenty of flexibility with the 'brush too.

 

My compressor is a "Revel Starter Class" - again one of the most basic you can buy but an awful lot easier than using aerosols or spare tyres!

 

Glad you like the photos - more coming up.

 

Glenn

[Dunedin]

I said I'd give you an update on progress of the various coaches in the paint shop (AKA my garage), so here goes:

 

The Mark 2Zs are now complete as far as paint is concerned - they've just had a coat of gloss varnish to prepare them for the decals to be added (ScotRail logos, numbers and the blue/white stripes):

 

 

The Mark 2Ds need the roofs painting, body-ends and the FO needs its 1st class yellow band completing - these were the two TSOs last night:

 

 

The Mark 1 FOs for the IC Charter rake need the 1st class bands and body-ends to complete, then they will be ready for varnishing and decals as with the Mark 2s above - again state of play last night:

 

 

The 4th FO had to have a small amount of re-work on the bodyside so that still needs its roof painting white; the RBR (not shown) is in a similar state - red banding, roof and body-ends still to paint.

 

I've also sprayed the roofs of three of the four sleepers white (the 4th will remain black as not all IC Charter sleepers had white roofs in '88):

 

 

The sleepers need new "INTERCITY" and "Sleeper" decals adding before the roofs go back on - these arrived today from Fox Transfers.

 

Given the amount still to do before our Mickleover open day, I've had to revise my intentions to getting as many of the ScotRail Mark 2s finished as I can and the remainder to follow in October. We still have to clean and test the layout yet!

 

Further photos to follow as the coaches move towards completion.

[P.C.M]

Hi Dunedin,

That's some coaching stock project you have on the go there. Are you going to spray the Blue/red white lines or use transfers?

 

I have had a bit of a look through the thread as I was looking to see what DCC system you use, as I am thinking of going DCC and have a fiddleyard to terminus with Kadee uncouplers similar to you. So was wanting something easy to control so I can stop on the uncouplers and ease up.

 

Cheers Peter.

[Flood]

 

 

Hi Dunedin,
That's some coaching stock project you have on the go there. Are you going to spray the Blue/red white lines or use transfers?

I have had a bit of a look through the thread as I was looking to see what DCC system you use, as I am thinking of going DCC and have a fiddleyard to terminus with Kadee uncouplers similar to you. So was wanting something easy to control so I can stop on the uncouplers and ease up.

Cheers Peter.

Not sure if Glenn will see your post straight away so I'll answer it as best I can.

We use Fox transfers for both the ScotRail and InterCity lining. However we use the weathered ScotRail transfers as the blue is accurate on those (F4228) and the ex-works InterCity transfers (F4208).

Our DCC controller is the Gaugemaster Progidy Advance 2, we've also got a Prodigy Express as a back up just in case. We find the Progidy system very easy to use with excellent slow speed control (all the chips in our locos have back emf to help) and the programming of CV values is very straight forward.

For CV29 the following values are used (Lenz chips):

1: reverse loco direction
2: 128 speed steps
4: allow DC operation
32: allow extended addresses (over no. 127 I think)

For example.
47712 runs the opposite way to all the other 47s. I set program CV29 to 32 to allow extended addresses. Then I change the address no. to 712 (changing the address removes the DC operation value so that's why I don't do all the values in one go). Back into CV29 and set to 39 to allow all four options.

26025, a normal loco. In this case I would first change the address to 25 (as this address number is below the limit needed for extended addresses then don't use value 32 in CV29, it won't work). Into CV29 and set to 6 (value of 2 for 128 speed steps and value of 4 for DC operation, no need for reverse direction or extended addresses).


Once the chip has been programmed you only need to enter the loco number, usually change the speed to 128 steps by pressing the SPD STEP button, press enter and then turn the dial. For even more control there are '+' and '-' buttons to change the speed one notch at a time. It'll store the last ten loco numbers used and these can be accessed using the RECALL button.

I only started using DCC properly when we built the layout so hopefully this shows have easy it is to use. Edited May 12, 2013 by Flood

[P.C.M]

Not sure if Glenn will see your post straight away so I'll answer it as best I can.

 

We use Fox transfers for both the ScotRail and InterCity lining. However we use the weathered ScotRail transfers as the blue is accurate on those (F4228) and the ex-works InterCity transfers (F4208).

 

Our DCC controller is the Gaugemaster Progidy Advance 2, we've also got a Prodigy Express as a back up just in case. We find the Progidy system very easy to use with excellant slow speed control (all the chips in our locos have back emf to help) and the programming of CV values is very straight forward.

 

For CV29 the following values are used (Lenz chips):

 

1: reverse loco direction

2: 128 speed steps

4: allow DC operation

32: allow extended addresses (over no. 127 I think)

 

For example.

47712 runs the opposite way to all the other 47s. I set program CV29 to 32 to allow extended addresses. Then I change the address no. to 712 (changing the address removes the DC operation value so that's why I don't do all the values in one go). Back into CV29 and set to 39 to allow all four options.

 

26025, a normal loco. In this case I would first change the address to 25 (as this address number is below the limit needed for extended addresses then don't use value 32 in CV29, it won't work). Into CV29 and set to 6 (value of 2 for 128 speed steps and value of 4 for DC operation, no need for reverse direction or extended addresses).

 

 

Once the chip has been programmed you only need to enter the loco number, usually change the speed to 128 steps by pressing the SPD STEP button, press enter and then turn the dial. For even more control there are '+' and '-' buttons to change the speed one notch at a time. It'll store the last ten loco numbers used and these can be accessed using the RECALL button.

 

I only started using DCC properly when we built the layout so hopefully this shows have easy it is to use.

 

 

Hi Flood,

Thanks heaps for the info that's really helpfull, I was going to ask what decoders you use but you have answered that too. I am still learning about DCC and don't want to go backwards with regards to how my loco's run. I have seen some problems with other peoples DCC layouts, and controlability.

 

Cheers Peter.