York station in the 1950's.

[Harry Lund]

I digressed today from track laying to install two signal gantries, delivered by Absolute Aspects on Monday.  As with all of their creations, they are works of art!

 

1st photo is the board at the southern end stripped of anything that could fall off when tipped.

 

 

The signals locate into DIN sockets fitted under the baseboard.   Once the holes for these were drilled and filed, the board was gently slid out (it is wedge shaped) and turned on its side.   2nd photo shows the board with the two gantries slotted into place.

 

 

With the board located back into its normal position and parts replaced, a few photos of the gantries in situ.   Wiring up us 'work in progress'.   

 

Giles

 

Giles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

They really are the business !

 

 

Left to right, top picture signal numbers

111, 109, 107 / 104, 101,99, 97

 

All 3 aspect with route indicator and shunt signal

 

 

 

 

[Harry Lund]

Thank you Michael.   The aspects and shunt signal all work, just not wired yet.     The route indicators are dummy.    I have shied away from working ones for 3 reasons.   1.   The working dot matrix type are much too big in 4mm, and don't look right.   2.  They are very fragile - the first signal delivered was Y161 on platform 13, 4 aspect, shunt plus RI, and it didn't take long for me to brush it with an arm and damage it.  And 3.   It is going to be tough enough to configure iTRains to get these working, and working RI's on top would be a step too far in terms of both hardware and software.   Giles

[Michael Hodgson]

I think that's the right answer - working dot matrix type in 4mm is still pushing the limits of what the technology can do but I suspect it will become feasible within a decade or so.  In any case route indication is complicated by the fact that you've had to take a few liberties with the station approaches to fit the layout in.  This means that some route indicators would probably have to differ from the prototype as the next signal may be something other than it was on the prototype

 

I've watched all of the iTrain videos, but I've still not got my head around around how it handles UK signalling.  I'm convinced it will do the job though when correctly configured.  You might need to use the iTrain forum for assistance if you hit problems - they seem to be pretty good at sorting out what people have coded up wrongly. 

[Harry Lund]

Back to tracklaying at the Southern end.   Its tough going but getting there.  I'm keen to have the trains running again!

 

The photos show track at various stages of construction - templated, cut to length and shape with wire droppers threaded, and track after gluing and ballasting.   Still to go are soldering rails to glued DCC concepts sleepers at board joins, rail cutting, wiring, DCC detectors, and point motors under the boards, tidying up the ballast bare patches, creating shoulders and cess, and weathering.   

 

The two Gresley coaches are in the Up Goods/Clifton Loop.   The A2/2 (or A2/3 I can never remember which) is at the entrance of the south shed.   In reality, this had 3 roads and a few other sidings in front, but I only have room for a illustrative portrayal.

 

Off to the left are the baseboards for the Up Main Fiddle Yard (6 through and 3 kick back sidings) above, and the Scarborough out and back line at the lower level (4 roads).

 

 

This is the last major junction to be built and installed.   It didn't exist in reality, but is needed for layout operations.   

 

 

And finally, the helicopter view from the station itself, across the lofting section.

 

 

Giles

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David Bell]

Absolutely brilliant. The sweeping curves look really good.

Cheers

David