Collingwood - A Privatisation Era Southern Region Layout

[tjf4375]

Can't believe I've only just stumbled on this layout - fantastic modern image scene and great attention to detail.

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

So, it’s been over a month since the Great Electric Train Show and Collingwoods Exhibition Debut, so why I haven’t posted about it?

 

Well, the week after was essentially a post-mortem on the show and my team and I had discussions on what we were going to change in the future. And then I have just been very busy with other things, so my apologies and here is the assessment of the show!

 

Basically, it didn’t go as planned, and its going to take three posts to explain the story so far and what is going to happen.

 

But before I get into why, I’ll work through what I did between the last update that was the Hornby Magazine Photoshoot and GETS. Despite not being able to set up a fiddle yard arrangement (we hadn’t thought of the fiddle yards at that point), it gave me enough to run a couple of trains across the whole layout. As reported then there were a couple of track circuits not working, a point that wasn’t firing and a whole section of track not powered. So I spent a couple of days back in the flat making sure that all the track circuits worked and the points worked, but there were no major faults and just some loose wiring (although one track circuit needed a bit of a re-wire to take into account a frog juicer and a faulty detector). So, the faults on the layout were quickly fixed, so most of the work between the shoot and GETS was operationally based.

 

The first major operational thing that needed resolving was getting the signalling system off my laptop and onto the Raspberry Pi, and boy did I go through a roller coaster of emotions on that. I had started the process before the photoshoot, but I had a little trouble trying to update JMRI on the Pi I had, but once I decided to go back to first principles and start with flashing a new image onto the SD card, it was very easy to get the signalling and DCC control working on the Raspberry Pi and interfaced with the layout. It was the screen that was the problem!

 

My plan was to drive the screen on the public side using the Raspberry Pi and then use a Tablet via the JMRI web server off the Pi Wi-Fi network as the actual control panel. I then realised that a tablet was going to be too expensive, so I decided to use the laptop instead. Now, because I drew the panel too big, I have to use an Ultra-Wide PC Monitor as the screen, and this was the start of the emotional roller coaster. After spending a good 5 hours in an evening trying to get the Pi to the correct resolution, I did some research and found that my Raspberry Pi 3 didn’t support the resolution I needed but the Raspberry Pi 4 does. Que a 1am search for a Pi 4 and thus panic when I quickly realised that a Pi 4 was rarer than hens teeth. I then had a eureka moment at 2am that I could use my laptop to power the screen as a second screen (as I do when I’m working). A quick 6am test that it all worked and it did, very well (or at least for the  few minutes I tested it for, hint hint!):

 

 

Of course, to activate the signalling system, I had to complete the job that I had been putting off for a while, fitting wagons with resisters on the none pick up axles. I decided to use standard, but small, through hole resistors as I simply couldn’t use the SMD resistors that most people use. I had started by super gluing the resistors on and then painting over the ends with conductive paint to complete the circuit against the wheel backs. However, I found that after doing a couple of rakes and testing them, the super glue was fuming and basically covering the backs of the wheels in an essentially insulating layer before I could complete the circuit with the paint. So, then I changed to use contact glue and that has worked much better, I also found bending the resistors so that it is a tight fit in the back to back produces a slightly better circuit.

 

Two words of warning when fitting axles with resistors. Firstly, (this applies to SMD and through hole resistors but is more critical when using through hole resistors), check that there is enough space around the axle to accommodate the resistor. Hornby are the worst at this and actually I’ve had to withdraw a whole rake of Hornby KFAs (okay, there’s only three!) as I physically couldn’t add resistors. Second word of warning is when using through hole resistors, the wheel backs have to be flat, I had to exchange the wheel sets on a rake of Bachmann PNAs and a rake of Accurascale HYAs as they had shaped backs which means the legs of resistors don’t have enough metal to contact with and the conductive paint isn’t effective enough (or doesn’t seem to be) to bridge the gap. I also found that Bachmann wheelsets had the best conductivity whilst Dapol sets were very hit and miss.

 

I found I could complete a rake of 8 wagons (16 axles) in just over an hour, so it wasn’t as mind numbing as I thought. I also managed to only have a single short circuit which did produce a couple of sparks and a very short very small fire which was quite spectacular but didn’t cause any damage.

 

Here is what a wheelset looks like when finished:

 

 

The next signalling related job was finish off adding the RFID Tags to the stock, a simple job. However, I found that the RFID system simply wouldn’t read a tag. I initially found some dry joints, but having fixed those, I still couldn’t get it to read a tag. So, I decided to stop and not waste time when I had other things that really needed to be done, I’ll get back to what I did to bypass it later.

 

I moved my attention to the final signalling / operational component on the layout itself. This was to get the single line direction switch working and the Cassette Length Indicators. Again, in theory, a simple job, and again I couldn’t get the CBUS input module that these were connected to to go into the ‘FLIM’ programming mode. Again, I decided to stop and not waste time and find an alternative.

 

Whilst I thought of an alternative, I got down to the largest infrastructure piece to complete (well, that I could complete). As my plan was (note was) to run a lot of freight rakes through a single sequence, but I couldn’t afford to create the required number of cassettes, I came up with a different solution. My solution was to create a single ‘freight’ cassette for each end and then change the trains as soon as they ran onto the cassette. I also wanted to have way of doing this that all the freight was set up ready to go instead of fishing stuff out of the stock boxes and trying to rail everything in the middle of a busy show. So, I created this:

 

 

The black shelves are standard B&Q modular shelving that I was using to place the signalling screen above the backscene. In the middle is a two level ‘Shadow Fiddle’ yard consisting of a couple of wooden shelves with 8 tracks made out of some second hand code 100 PECO track which Dad and I have been given by friends and neighbours over the years. The idea was that this would allow stock to be rolled on and off to change trains. I did know that this was a little bit of a gamble, but it was simple and cheap to make as an experiment.

 

So, once I had finished this, I turned my attention to the alternatives to the RFID system for the Train Describers and the Fiddle Yard Cassette Length Indicators. I then had a eureka moment yet again. I was planning on use a sequence and that meant I had to have some sequence cards for the drivers / fiddle yard operators to follow. I realised (inspired by Black County Blues!) that if I mounted this on a ring binder type ‘flip’ bracket above the backscene so that one side was facing the driving end and the back side was facing the other fiddle yard, I could print the cards such that when you flip them, the rear of the sequence card would show to the fiddle yard operator at the other end the length of cassette and the signaller the head code of the train to insert into the train describer. Super simple and effective, and it bypassed the complex logic that would be needed to clear the cassette length indicators automatically as flipping cards would naturally change the indication.

 

I had initially planned to build the bracket, but it needed to be truncated triangular shape and I was sure I could buy something that would do. After a few hours searching, I found what I needed, Menu Display Holders:

 

 

I think I’m going to keep this arrangement, at least for the cassette length indicators, sometimes you need a KISS solution when dealing with a complex layout!

 

Of course in the middle of all of this, Dad was constructing the Fiddle Yards (by converting the fiddle yards from my previous Norwood Road Layout) and the cassettes and I was still fitting stuff with DCC decoders and / or sound decoders.

 

We had planned to have a pre-show weekend with the full layout set up, but cost and timing were against us, and we decided that we were satisfied that the problems would be minimal. We were wrong and that decision would really bite us at GETS.

 

The next post will be on the show itself.

 

Simon

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

So, GETS…….

 

The fundamental problem with the whole weekend was time, and you’ll see what I mean.

 

It stemmed from events in the preceding couple of weeks. In that we started off having a set up crew of three, but a bout of COVID meant that we were one person short over the whole weekend.

 

So, we end up with one two people setting up, which we thought wouldn’t be a problem as we would get there as early as we could, which ended up being 15:00 on the Friday, knowing we had until 21:00 before being kicked out.

 

Other than actually setting up the layout, the biggest job was ‘just’ fitting the fiddle yard to the layout and the front facia boards. We thought this would be a very simple and quick job and then we could spend the vast majority of the evening cleaning out some of the sticky points and testing the layout and stock.

 

However, where we thought we could do those jobs in parallel, even with only two people, it turned out we couldn’t. Then we discovered that the fiddle yards, having been 2mm lower than they needed to be so that we could use screw adjustors, were now 2mm too high and we couldn’t lower them. That was a heart sinking moment, even to the point that we considered going out to buy a saw to remove a few mm of the legs. This, fitting the curtain and a prolonged battle getting the DCC to integrate with the layout (entirely due to the way that the USB ports are labelled on a Raspberry Pi!), meant that we very quickly soaked up our set up time to the point that we had to leave at 20:00 to desperately find dinner without testing any stock other than a quick run to test feeds. We also found a broken wire on one line on the harbour board which required running a new wire which we didn’t have.

 

Fear not I thought, we had 2 hours in the morning to fix the feed fault and I knew that trains ran across the layout as they had at the photo shoot.

 

Saturday Morning came and one of our crew for the day had come with some spare wire to fix the feed fault (or as it turned out two faults and a dodgy track joint!). But again, by the time we had done that, cleaned track and added on the info boards, I only had time to get out my multiple units and a single freight train and then the show was open and I hadn’t had time to clean out two points which weren’t fully firing (the one at the end of the single line and the facing point into the bay).

 

I tried running my Voyager over these points and discovered that they really needed looking at and I could only use the routes between Southampton and Portsmouth and forget using the Bay and the Single Line, which meant the sequence was out the window. Luckily had accounted for this and I could set the signalling to work automatically on those routes.

 

This was where I realised that the photoshoot had lulled me into a false sense of security. I had only actually ran a couple of trains during the shoot and they had run fine, so I had made the assumption that as they ran fine, everything would. That was an incorrect assumption.

 

My thumpers kept derailing at the RRAP, one of my Class 450s hit one of the platforms (thanks to an incomplete job of removing the 3rd rail shoes), my Voyager hit something on the front harbour bridge and several of my locos didn’t have reliable pickups. So, we ended up running 4 units and my oil train for all of Saturday, but even then had a location where everything was de-railing (and not a location that could be bypassed!).

 

Once the show closed on the Saturday, we managed to resolve the constant de-railing location and a couple of other issues, but we were so tired we couldn’t fix everything.

 

The Sunday Morning, we tried to fix the points so we can run more of the layout. We fixed the bay point, but upon trying to fix the single line point, the operating wire of the point fell out and was lost forever (we searched and searched but didn’t find it) and we couldn’t get a replacement. However, I realised that we could still run stuff along the single line if we turned stuff back in Platform 3 as there is a route for that.

 

We were lucky on the Sunday in that on the Thursday before the show we only had the 3 of us for a 5-man layout, but a colleague and his son came to the rescue and in the end we also had @Tim helping in the afternoon. A big thank you to them!

 

The Sunday was a lot better as we could do more with the layout although we still didn’t use the stone terminal (although I had the time to actually put a stone train in there for aesthetics!).

 

We had a couple of constant issues, including inertia rates which were slowly gotten used to. I also had an issue were the phones we used for control kept dropping off the Wi-Fi and the laptop kept stalling / reloading the panel every so often. I think this is due to the amount of traffic on the Pi Wi-Fi as we had six phones connected when we should have only had two connected at any one time and I probably shouldn’t be use the Wi-Fi to do both signalling and track control simultaneously.

 

The cassette fiddle yards we found were okay, but we thought there was a better way of operating a fiddle yard on the layout.

 

Okay, that was a run-down of the basic problems we had, but what about the positives.

 

A positive is that we did run trains and put on a show and I don’t think people really noticed the problems we were having, at least by the time Sunday came around. But I did spend the whole show basically embarrassed and angry that we weren’t putting on the show I had hoped for or promised in the show guide.

 

I’m pleased to say we had lots of very nice and complimentary comments throughout the weekend, which at least a dozen people instantly recognising it as Fareham (which considering about 2/3s of the layout is fictious, is pretty good!).

 

I had lots of interest and questions regarding the signalling system, The signalling system was, to me, actually the most surprising thing of the weekend. IT WORKED PERFECTLY!!! I was expecting faults simply because of unexpecting timings of things happening compared with my testing and real life, but the only noticeable problem was a fault in the code for the route from the single line to the bay which was my fault and has since been fixed. Other than that, and a very brief time of a track circuit showing occupied when clear, it worked absolutely perfectly all weekend and I’m very happy about it.

 

Of course the layout looked fantastic, even if I do say so myself and I had lots of interest for future exhibitions (more on that in the next post). Thanks to the problems, I only managed one photo of the panel in actions:

 

 

But, Timara Easter took a couple of photos during the course of Sunday:

 

 

 

Simon

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

Final post on GETS which is the next steps for the layout.

 

The biggest next step to take on the layout is to test all the stock. This is going to be slightly tricky as the fact is the cost of setting up the layout in its entirety is cost prohibitive as it needs to hire a hall and hire a van. However, I can get the two halves of the layout up in the flat, so we think we can test the stock sufficiently and there were only a couple of places that seemed to be problematic.

 

The next big step is to really look at how we operate the fiddle yard and this is linked to the operation of the layout. Our initial thought was to convert the Portsmouth (Harbour End) to a traverser, this would give us 8 roads at one end and 8 cassettes (4 passenger and 4 freight).

 

Although we never had the chance to test my ‘Shadow’ Fiddle Yard idea, we discussed it and everyone thought it wasn’t a good idea for changing trains. So this meant that I was now limited in the number of freights I could use. So, I have now devised a much shorter sequence that uses 4 passenger and 4 freight cassettes at each end. This means that I can have 7 freight trains on the layout and I will instead swap freight trains between days at a two day show.

 

However, after some maths and drawings to design the traverser, I have realised that it isn’t really possible without great expense, so instead we have decided to preserver with the cassettes, but build some more and do a lot more work in alignment and powering them (adding alignment was a job for the Friday, but was cancelled in the end!).

 

The next change to be made to the operation of the layout is in how the signalling is controlled. For GETS, I had two drivers / fiddle yard operators and a signaller, my proposal is to do away with the signaller. Instead, I’m going to wire up some buttons that the drivers can set the routes (or more preciously, combinations of routes) themselves via the logic which I had already created for the Automatic Route Setting.

 

There are three main reasons for this:

 

1. Reduces the crew from 5 people to at most 4 people and possibly three people, which is the major issue with the layout, I’m struggling in finding a crew to operate the layout, so any way of reducing the crew needed is a good thing
2. Allows drivers to set routes when the signaller is busy talking. There were several times during the weekend that I was explaining the signalling but the layout had stopped as the drivers were waiting for me to set routes, so allowing the drivers to set routes should make the layout operate more consistently.
3. Keeps the WiFi Traffic down to just train driving and should make that side of things more reliable.

 

I will still have the signaller’s workstation set up, just in case, but it won’t be manned all the time like it was at GETS. This of course will mean I will have to get the RFID system working reliably to support the head codes being generated automatically as I won’t have a signaller to insert them.

 

Those are the two major changes to the layout before GETS, the rest of the changes are all stock related. The biggest complaint I had from my operators, quite legitimately, is that the inertia on my stock was far too inconsistent. I had recognised this as a problem before the show, but didn’t have the time to really go through the stock and I thought that the slow speeds would reduce any problems, but I was clearly wrong!

 

So, I have come up with a plan…

 

First is that I’ll have to set the braking and acceleration rates such that all the trains will brake from a specified speed step to stop in the same specified and easily identifiable distance.

 

The specified speed step will be equal to a scale 20mph (the linespeed through the layout), or at least a good visual representation of 20mph. I will then display this speed step on the sequence card (I won’t limit the top speed in the decoder so I can run the locos on other layouts at higher speed).

 

I will then set the braking rate so that the passenger trains will brake to a stand in 4ft and the freight brake to a stand in 5ft.

 

Simply because the platforms & passenger cassettes are 4ft long and the freight cassettes are 5ft long.

 

I’ve already done calculations and I think that I need CV values of 63 for passenger and 75 for freight.

 

In the meantime, I have added some more stock to the layout! First is a Network Rail Class 31 to power my NR test train with its DBSO (I have seen pictures of 31-powered test trains in Fareham):

 

 

Also, the Revolution IPA Car Carriers have arrived for the diverted Southampton to Heywood Car Trains:

 

 

Finally, I went a little mad and brought the new Kernow Royal Scotsman Class 37, just because I love the livery:

 

 

This will replace my older Bachmann Class 37 on my Quidhampton China Clay rake. I established that the loco lasted in Royal Scotsman Livery until 2008 and was transferred down to Eastleigh in 2008. I assume that it got repainted as part of the transfer, but I think it wouldn’t be entirely impossible that this it would have got around the Southern in Scotsman Livery!

 

You’ll also notice the the new limited edition Kernow Transit van.

 

Simon

 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by St. Simon

[5BarVT]

37 minutes ago, St. Simon said:

Instead, I’m going to wire up some buttons that the drivers can set the routes (or more preciously, combinations of routes) themselves via the logic which I had already created for the Automatic Route Setting.

Isn’t that how the real railway used to work?

Stop at signal.

Get down to SPT

Press call button (which seems to operates signal controls).

Watch signal clear as signalman answers phone.

(Conversation which may or may not be printable!)

Climb back into cab and proceed.

 

Paul.

 

[St. Simon]

11 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Isn’t that how the real railway used to work?

Stop at signal.

Get down to SPT

Press call button (which seems to operates signal controls).

Watch signal clear as signalman answers phone.

(Conversation which may or may not be printable!)

Climb back into cab and proceed.

 

Paul.

 

Haha, very good!

 

Simon

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Isn’t that how the real railway used to work?

Stop at signal.

Get down to SPT

Press call button (which seems to operates signal controls).

Watch signal clear as signalman answers phone.

(Conversation which may or may not be printable!)

Climb back into cab and proceed.

 

Paul.

 

You missed out the usually inevitable -

Wait aspect Driver'

[Siberian Snooper]

Is there a model railway club in your area, that you could approach/join,  that has enough space that you could set up the layout for a few weeks, to get things sorted and also provide the odd extra operator or two. I appreciate that it will probably reduce the amount of access time to club nights, but on the plus side, once the layout is set up,  it's time you won't have to spend, on further nights.

 

 

[St. Simon]

4 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

Is there a model railway club in your area, that you could approach/join,  that has enough space that you could set up the layout for a few weeks, to get things sorted and also provide the odd extra operator or two. I appreciate that it will probably reduce the amount of access time to club nights, but on the plus side, once the layout is set up,  it's time you won't have to spend, on further nights.

 

 

Hi,

 

Sadly not, all the local clubs rent properties that aren’t big enough to accommodate the layout.

 

But, my office has a meeting room large enough and is empty on the weekends and I’ve managed to get permission to use it :)

 

Simon

[The Pilotman]

22 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

You missed out the usually inevitable -

Wait aspect Driver'

I always started off with, “sorry, driver”…. 🙄

[5BarVT]

3 hours ago, The Pilotman said:

I always started off with, “sorry, driver”…. 🙄

Especially on nights!

Paul.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

Especially on nights!

Paul.

'Signalman in toilet' - seen over the years in more than one Train Register Book😇

[phil-b259]

On 13/11/2022 at 21:09, 5BarVT said:

Isn’t that how the real railway used to work?

Stop at signal.

Get down to SPT

Press call button (which seems to operates signal controls).

Watch signal clear as signalman answers phone.

(Conversation which may or may not be printable!)

Climb back into cab and proceed.

 

Paul.

 

 

Still happens today (though its usually a 'train waiting at signal' GSMR message that, err, how shall we say, alerts the signaller that their attention is required)

[phil-b259]

On 14/11/2022 at 12:43, The Stationmaster said:

You missed out the usually inevitable -

Wait aspect Driver'

 

Based on the conversations I have heard its "wait for a change driver"

 

Logical, because a signal displaying a red aspect is still displaying an aspect - and by implication a driver waiting for an aspect to be shown must be standing at a blank signal, an event which should never be allowed to happen...

[The Pilotman]

3 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Based on the conversations I have heard its "wait for a change driver"

A variation on a theme. The phrases I was most familiar with were “wait for a change of aspect”, “wait for the road”, “wait for the signal” or “wait for the board”. 

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

Apologies for keeping a little quiet for a while, but I have been very busy on Collingwood!

 

But let’s re-cap a little, the story so far…

 

Whilst the layout worked for the most part at GETS, I still had some issues to work out before the layouts next outing, and that’s what we have been sorting out since.

 

The first major thing to do was to chop an inch off the bottom of the fiddle yard legs so that the fiddle yards are actually the correct height. We have also installed some cassette alignment (well, we did that as part of a test weekend, more on which in a second).

 

The second major thing, although not a direct problem at GETS, was to modify the signalling system so that the train drivers at each end could set their own routes rather than have an extra crew member act as signaller. I had already allowed for Automatic Route Setting within the signalling system, but this was based on the RFID system rather than being done by the Drivers, so the logic was already there, all I had to do was create the physical buttons:

 

The Portsmouth End:

 

 

The Eastleigh / Southampton End:

 

 

I think the buttons are self-explanatory really, but these panels allow the drivers to set all but 4 routes on the panel. These being the routes in and out of the yard (which are set by combinations of yard acceptance switch and TRTS plungers) and the shunt routes in the middle of the junction (these are manual moves only and won’t be used during a sequence). The panels also incorporate the ability for drivers to cancel routes in case the Train Operated Route Release (TORR) doesn’t work, set up the automatic working for the through routes between Southampton and Portsmouth as well as an acceptance plunger as part of the cassette working in the Fiddle Yards.

 

Obviously, this has had some minor updates to the signalling screen:

 

 

Which, I am now pleased to say can be displayed on the Ultra-Wide PC Monitor directly from the Raspberry Pi. I was very lucky to get hold of a new Raspberry Pi 4b+, which is the only model to cope with the larger resolution of the Ultra-Wide Screen, over the Christmas period.

 

Now, you might be asking yourself why couldn’t I have used the RFID system as intended? Well, put simply, I couldn’t get the system to work reliably. I even built a new concentrator as I thought I had damaged the previous one, but I couldn’t get it to read tags either at all or reliably when I could. I had a glorious evening where I could get all the tags I had read and assigned to the trains via one reader, but when I tried again later on in the same evening, I couldn’t get anything. So, for the moment, I have abandoned use of the RFID system until MERG can update its RFID System. I have kept the logic just in case, but it won’t be used at Basingstoke. This won’t actually be problematic at the show, it’s just going to be disappointing that the Train Describers won’t function nor will we have proper station announcements either.

 

Once I had finished all the necessary infrastructure upgrades, I had a minor scenic upgrade to make with the addition of more of the orange army near the RRAP:

 

 

In the future, I am planning to have a lookout protecting the gang that will have a lookout flag when a train approaches, watch this space…

 

One of the aspects of operation which my crew advised me to radically overhaul was the operating sequence. My original sequence was to see freight and passenger trains swapped out over the course of the sequence to simulate the pass of the years and changes in operating companies, liveries, stock etc. My crew said that this was going to be impracticable and I should stick with the same trains for whole day. I therefore decided, to try and allow as much of my stock to run as possible during the course of a show weekend, to have two sequences, one for each day during a weekend.

 

To avoid cases where I get impossible situations with different era trains, I once again did my era correlation of my stock to see what stuff matched:

 

This gave me two eras, one being 2007 / 2008 and 2017 / 2018. This allows me to maximise the stock I have available, although doesn’t quite cover all of it. I must point out that I’m not being exact, I’m only preventing totally impossible situations rather than implausible ones, so I’m not bothered if my Royal Scotsman Class 37 didn’t get to the Southern to haul the Quidhampton Slurry Trains, I’m only ensuring that the 37 and the slurry trains existed in the same livery at the same time. I hope that makes sense?

 

I’ll do another of my train run downs later to give the list of the revised rakes in the near future.

 

Speaking of stock, the major issue my operators faced at GETS was the inertia rates, particularly the braking rates of my stock and I hadn’t set up everything as a consistent direction. So, over a couple of evenings, I went through everything and removed all braking inertia and made all the freight and passenger stock have consistent acceleration inertia. I also ensured that I noted which way the stock ran in forwards so that they all went on the layout in a consistent manner.

 

The next job was to test all the changes and stock to ensure that I had a stress free Basingstoke Weekend, where I can hopefully rely on the layout.

 

I was extremely lucky that Network Rail Design Delivery’s Office in Reading has a meeting room 32ft long, perfect for the 29ft length of Collingwood and that I got permission to use it over the weekend just gone. I’m also lucky in that I can get discounted van hire through work as well, making a test weekend a more financially viable occasion than it was just after GETS.

 

I’m equally extremely grateful to two members of my layout crew, @Graham_Muz and @WhiteRoseRambler who were happy to not only help play trains but also move the layout from my first floor flat down a very narrow (but layout compliant!) staircase into a van and into the meeting room:

 

 

(Note that the layout doesn’t have its lighting rig up as I didn’t really need it for the weekend, but it will have it at Basingstoke)

 

I’m very glad to say that all the upgrades worked fine as did most of the stock with only some minor adjustments to be made (mostly cutting off of guard irons and sandpipes to prevent fouling of the third rail). The only issue that we haven’t resolved is that of my two first batch Dapol 73s, which despite working fine on the test train and the fitted of additional pick-ups, didn’t work totally reliably like everything else.

 

A small issue we discovered is that it seems that my Class 07 can’t actually move an 8-wagon rake of stone hoppers (a necessity to shunting the yard) without spinning its wheels, so it is likely that I’ll have to get my Hornby Class 09 DCC fitted which I am dreading. If there is a service to do this that anyone recommends, please say!

 

We also had some new stock to test, mainly the KMRC SWR Class 159, Accurascale 92’s and MK5s, which all worked fine, although the 159 (and my GWR 158) had to be modified due to the keeper plate on the motor bogies was lightly rubbing on all my 4ft equipment.

 

So, with the test weekend over, the layout is now in storage until it’s next show:

 

The Basingstoke Model Railway Exhibition 2023 – Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th March 2023 – Aldworth School, Basingstoke.

 

I’m really looking forward to the show and I’m now confident the layout will be working far better than it did at GETS with a much larger variety of stock on display!

 

Simon

Edited February 14, 2023 by St. Simon

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

Here are some photos from the Test Weekend:

 

DB Schenker Class 60 No. 60044 ‘Downlow’ crosses Collingwood Junction with 6M38 the Southampton Docks to Garston Car Carriers:

 

 

6M38 is seen again passing over Collingwood Inner Harbour:

 

 

GBRF Class 92 No. 92032 ‘Institute of Mechanical Engineers – Railway Diversion’ is seen through Ocean Aggregates’ hopper house passing Fareham on its way to Eastleigh to delivery some brand new Caledonian Sleeper MK5 Coaches for testing purposes with Class 73/9s. The Class 92’s having only recently (fictionally) been cleared along the South Coast due to upgrades to Third Rail power and frequency based AC Track Circuits:

 

 

EWS Class 37/4 No. 37401 ‘Royal Scotsman’ in the attractive Royal Scotsman Claret Livery pauses at Collingwood with 6Y34 Willesden to Quidhampton Ball Slurry Empties:

 

 

EWS Class 60 ‘60014’ interrupts 6Y34 progress as it hauls 6Y32, the Fawley to Holybourne Oil Tankers, across Collingwood Junction:

 

 

Once 6Y32 is clear of the junction, 6Y34 can head to Eastleigh where it has to overnight due to the engineering work at Southampton Airport Junction:

 

 

More to come soon...

 

Simon

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

More photos:

 

EWS Class 92 No. 92036 ‘Bertolt Brecht‘ heads to Eastleigh with 6G11, the Tonbridge to Southampton Airport Parkway loaded Ballast Train:

 

 

Just weeks into the new South Western Railways Franchise, newly repainted Class 159 No. ‘159016’ has a ‘paint drying run’ out from Salisbury to Collingwood:

 

 

 

 

A pair of the ubiquitous South West Trains Class 450’s cross as they pass over Collingwood MCB-OC Crossing:

 

 

Arrive Cross Country Class 220 No. 220017 stands at Collingwood with 1M36, the Southampton Central to Manchester Piccadilly service, diverted via the Bay at Collingwood to get around the Plain Line Renewal Works at Southampton Airport Parkway:

 

 

The Voyager then heads North, passing one of Collingwoods SPAD Indicators:

 

 

Simon

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

Final Lot:

 

The local Collingwood P-Way Gang are disturbed by a Network Rail Test Train:

 

 

That heads for the Bay at Collingwood to turn back:

 

 

 

Ocean Aggregates Pet Shunter sits rests next to the Hopper House at Collingwood Stone Terminal:

 

 

South West Trains Class 73 No. 73235 stands in the Bay at Collingwood on Route Learning duties whilst flanked by the companies Class 450s. 450127 has arrived with 2E28, the Southampton to Portsmouth & Southsea Local Stopping service, whilst 450073 carries out station duties 1T30, the Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo via Basingstoke Semi-Fast:

 

 

EWS Class 66 No. 66135 heads 6O46, the Garston to Southampton Docks Car Carriers through Collingwood Junction:

 

 

Simon

[5BarVT]

Like the Newbie lineside.  Who is it?

35 minutes ago, St. Simon said:

it is likely that I’ll have to get my Hornby Class 09 DCC fitted which I am dreading

I DCCd a Hornby class 08 without difficulty.  Not sound though.

Paul.

 

 

 

[St. Simon]

1 minute ago, 5BarVT said:

Like the Newbie lineside.  Who is it?

I DCCd a Hornby class 08 without difficulty.  Not sound though.

Paul.

 

Hi Paul,

 

Not sure who could be the blue hat, I suppose it could be me :)

 

What decoder did you use for the 08? Did you you remove the socket?

 

Simon

[5BarVT]

Hi Simon,
It was a DCC Concepts M2 - no longer produced, which had a harness so not trying to get pins plus decoder in, can’t remember if that was significant or not.  Too many screws on the underside of the loco to take the lid off tonight:  I’ll post a photo when I have time.

Paul.

[5BarVT]

Hi Simon,

Photo as promised.  Slightly tricky getting the body off - now ive got to work out how to refit the cylinders at the front that obstructed the body fixing screws!!!

FYI front is to the right: 8 pin plug in socket, decoder on top of motor, stay alive behind radiator (in speaker space?).

Something like a DCC Concepts ZNmini4 looks like it might work physically (haven't checked the electrical spec).

Paul.

 

[tjf4375]

An absolutely cracking layout. Particularly impressed with the track work, and love that shot of the level crossing!

[St. Simon]

On 15/02/2023 at 10:57, 5BarVT said:

Hi Simon,

Photo as promised.  Slightly tricky getting the body off - now ive got to work out how to refit the cylinders at the front that obstructed the body fixing screws!!!

FYI front is to the right: 8 pin plug in socket, decoder on top of motor, stay alive behind radiator (in speaker space?).

Something like a DCC Concepts ZNmini4 looks like it might work physically (haven't checked the electrical spec).

Paul.

 

Thanks Paul, I’ve done some more research and I think I can see how a decoder, speaker and stay alive in! I’ve opened mine up and I can see what you mean about the front cylinders!

 

On 15/02/2023 at 12:31, tjf4375 said:

An absolutely cracking layout. Particularly impressed with the track work, and love that shot of the level crossing!

Thank you, remember the Level Crossing also works!

 

 

Simon