Ipswich in OO - Station, stabling point and top yard in 1985

[Izzy]

Going back to the 309’s and the first day photos it’s interesting, and very helpful, to see that the 10 car set consisted of a re-furbished 2-car unit (605) made up to 4, while the rest are two original sets, the 621 4-car reduced to 3 and another 2-car made up to 3. 
 

Bob

[Clive Mortimore]

6 hours ago, Izzy said:

Going back to the 309’s and the first day photos it’s interesting, and very helpful, to see that the 10 car set consisted of a re-furbished 2-car unit (605) made up to 4, while the rest are two original sets, the 621 4-car reduced to 3 and another 2-car made up to 3. 
 

Bob

Hi Bob

 

There was a period in the early 80s when the Clacton trains were still running as ten car while some platforms, notably Shenfield were lengthened to take twelve car trains. At the same time more hauled coaches were being modified to run within the AM9 sets and the buffets had been withdrawn. This resulted in some three car units.

[Izzy]

1 minute ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Bob

 

There was a period in the early 80s when the Clacton trains were still running as ten car while some platforms, notably Shenfield were lengthened to take twelve car trains. At the same time more hauled coaches were being modified to run within the AM9 sets and the buffets had been withdrawn. This resulted in some three car units.

 

Yes, thanks Clive, I've used this period to allow the production of a pre-refurb 2mm blue-grey 2-car 309 set running with either 1 or 2 extra coaches as a 3 or 4 car set, but until this shot appeared I had never seen a photo of these occurances. Shows what a wonderful resource RMweb is.

 

Bob

[Dagworth]

On 01/01/2023 at 06:07, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I might be needing a 8' diameter helix or part thereof, are you cutting the circular boards yourself or using an outside contractor?

 

Feliz Ano Nuevo.

 

Mike.

I’m building the helix in sections of straight board rather than a circle, it’s a lot stronger and more efficient in materials. 
 

The three smaller boards of each helix are a strange shape but are actually a square with two corners chopped off 

 

Frame laid on the construction jig 

 

each frame then gets cross members, uprights and finally the spars that will support the trackbed 

Pandora is helping 

 

track bed is cut from strips of plywood 

 

Can’t do anything without her assistance today 

 

and finally track, building up three layers takes a long time! 
 

 

Helixstowe junction 

 

Andi

[Dagworth]

When your helix springs a leak. 
 

 

The two concrete sleeper tracks are the Norwich main lines, the wooden sleeper is the Lowestoft/Felixstowe branch. The extra track feeds into the back of what would be the London Road ballast depot so that trains shunted in there can actually disappear. There is about 20 feet of siding space before it joins the Lowestoft road so a lot of shunting won’t need to access the fiddle yard at the bottom of the helix. The track at the bottom is from the junction in the previous post and splits to the two fiddle yards, one passenger and one freight. 
 

This point is some 200 millimetres above the junction below, and two laps of the helix, about 50 feet of track distance. 
 

Andi

Edited January 12, 2023 by Dagworth

[Fat Controller]

On 19/12/2022 at 22:46, Dagworth said:

Not being a steam man can anyone tell me what that tender is and what would be a suitable model to start from to  build the snowplough?

 

Also what is the well wagon behind the snowplough, and what is the other wagon? I have in my head that they were ZRVs and I know that they were used for coils of steel wire.

 

Andi

Looks like the wagon could be a KRV; basically a fitted Plate, with sides removed and longitudinal baulks forming two cradles. Used to carry rod-in-coil ( https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcoilplate ) Some retained the sides and were called KEV, whilst there was a 10' wb one based on a 5-plank open

[Dagworth]

East Suffolk Junction is complete, and with that all track except for the fiddle yards is now laid. 
 

This is the top of East Suffolk Junction, the line that comes from the exit of the goods yard/reception roads and links across to the East Suffolk line. 

 

 

And these are the crossovers that allow trains to access the Down Main to Stowmarket etc. from the yard exit. Those Peco surface mount point motors take me back about 40 years to building layouts with Hornby settrack points and their point motors. 
 

Now do I build the rest of the legs, the fiddle yard boards, or do some wiring?

 

Andi

Edited February 18, 2023 by Dagworth

[Dagworth]

A very rare situation where the lack of insulation between the two points is possible (and even desirable) 

Both points are peco code 100 electrofrog and the layout is DCC although that wouldn’t have any bearing on the wiring in this case 

 

 

What is the situation? Any guesses 

 

Andi

 

 

[RFS]

IRJs to the left and right are out of sight?

Edited January 15, 2023 by RFS

[AndyID]

Top and bottom tracks are both sidings.

[Lemmy282]

Live overhead return through both rail. Tramway?

 

Nigel L

[Dagworth]

Part of Ipswich helix, so off scene hence the track pins, peco points, surface motors etc. 
 

The top point in the photo is a trap point so its frog never needs to change polarity as nothing should ever go through it in normal position, there is a board joint to the right of the points which acts as the insulation for both frog rails of the lower point. If anything does cross the board joint to approach the trap when it’s not set then I want it to cause a short and bring things to a halt quickly. I could have just ignored the trap point and let short circuits acts to stop any spads but some trains down this part of the helix will be propelled so a spad may not necessarily cause a short hence the solid stop block and walls to prevent stock jumping four foot to the floor. 
 

Andi

[RFS]

With all those soldered rail joints, will the trackwork cope with a 40C heatwave next summer without buckling?

Edited January 17, 2023 by RFS

[Dagworth]

On 14/01/2023 at 21:22, Dagworth said:

Now do I build the rest of the legs, the fiddle yard boards, or do some wiring?

I built legs, 14 sets - well I built 11 sets as I’d already built the first three - four of them are deliberately lower as four boards are deeper where the scenery goes down well below track level. 

Now onwards to wiring, and the first thing I found was that I’d wired the DCC connection to board three with the wrong gender of multipin at each end. Short work to turn them around and then gap some sleepers (must remember to do them before wiring!) and now 47583 is happily posing in the carriage sidings with lights on. 

 

 

Andi

[billywhizz]

Nice work Andi. No wonder there is a timber shortage at the moment!!!

[Dagworth]

Apologies for the lack of progress updates, I’m busy wiring it all up at the moment so not really very much to show. 
For those strange people who like to see what goes on underneath here’s board 5 approaching wiring completion. 
 

 

This is the busiest board of the whole layout for wiring as it has five signals as well as nine points, some of the signals need ten inputs to control them. 
 

MERG servo mounts are used for point motors, with MERG servo4s to control them, the red and yellow bundle of wires go to a track circuit module of my own design, and all the veroboard pieces will go to signals eventually. The thick red and black wires at the top of the photo are the DCC buses, 6 in total for power district separation. The bus connections are still to be added, the 37pin D connections at each end carries smaller cross-board connections while the one in the middle goes to the computer control. Lots of notes of what things are written on the board itself, and all the connection details are written down (a first for me!) 

 

The big holes top and bottom are where the scenery will be below track level. 
 

Andi

[Clive Mortimore]

On 16/02/2023 at 15:19, Dagworth said:

Apologies for the lack of progress updates, I’m busy wiring it all up at the moment so not really very much to show. 
For those strange people who like to see what goes on underneath here’s board 5 approaching wiring completion. 
 

 

This is the busiest board of the whole layout for wiring as it has five signals as well as nine points, some of the signals need ten inputs to control them. 
 

MERG servo mounts are used for point motors, with MERG servo4s to control them, the red and yellow bundle of wires go to a track circuit module of my own design, and all the veroboard pieces will go to signals eventually. The thick red and black wires at the top of the photo are the DCC buses, 6 in total for power district separation. The bus connections are still to be added, the 37pin D connections at each end carries smaller cross-board connections while the one in the middle goes to the computer control. Lots of notes of what things are written on the board itself, and all the connection details are written down (a first for me!) 

 

The big holes top and bottom are where the scenery will be below track level. 
 

Andi

Hi Badge

 

Power Districts ?????? Us Luddites call them sections.

 

I take it it is the Norwich end of the station?

[Dagworth]

1 minute ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Badge

 

Power Districts ?????? Us Luddites call them sections.

 

I take it it is the Norwich end of the station?

It is, just north of Ancaster Road bridge. 

 

Remind me again that DCC is only two wires???

 

Andi

[Enterprisingwestern]

7 hours ago, Dagworth said:

It is, just north of Ancaster Road bridge. 

 

Remind me again that DCC is only two wires???

 

Andi

 

Don't get Clive started!!

 

Mike.

[Clive Mortimore]

6 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Don't get Clive started!!

 

Mike.

El Sr. Dagworth y yo tenemos un acuerdo sobre el funcionamiento de DCC y DC. Mientras me dé un controlador con una pequeña perilla para jugar, estoy feliz.

[Dagworth]

I'm still busy with wiring (It's a long job!) so not really much to show. 

 

One of the things I've been thinking about though is communication from one end of the layout to the other (it's 60ft long!). There are TRTS switches in the fiddle yards that ask the signaller for a road out but all they do is flash an indicator on the panel that tells the signaller that something is ready to depart from the fiddle yard but not what it is. We did one show with Dagworth where we had some wired headset comms to talk to the fiddle yard but that made it very difficult to talk to people who didn't have headsets and the cables were a real nuisance to everyone inside the layout. I'm thinking that the ideal would be a wired telephone system from one end of the layout to the 'box at the other but I have no experience of wiring of telephone systems at all. I don't need any form of dialing, just something akin to signal post telephones. All the fiddle yard would have to do would be to pick up the 'phone which would light a light at the panel to indicate someone was trying to call. 

Anyone here know anything about how they are wired? Ideally it would be a couple of long lengths of cat5 cable rather than part of the layout structured cabling. 

 

Anyone able to assist?

 

Andi

[2E Sub Shed]

Hi

 

Couple of ideas for using corded phones as intercom.

 

Simple system using two wired phones Simple Intercom

 

More elegant approach, I have used a pair of LinkSys VOIP adaptors for an internal phone system at home, however uses obsolete unit, most on eBay may be "knock-offs"   Link to "how to"

 

 

 

[Dagworth]

I knocked one of the boards into another recently and damaged a section of track, Peco bullhead is quite delicate. 

 

Ten minutes later it looks like this 

 

That is the same piece of track, the rails cut and drawn out of the sleepers, straightened, and threaded back into the sleepers. A few damaged chairs but on this part of the yard I would’ve surprised if the real ones weren’t damaged too. 
 

I thought I’d have to lift and replace, but very happy that I could repair it instead. 
 

Other work continues with more wiring, this is the underside of board number 7 

 

Onwards…

 

Andi

Edited March 30, 2023 by Dagworth
Typo

[Clive Mortimore]

On 23/03/2023 at 17:21, Dagworth said:

I'm still busy with wiring (It's a long job!) so not really much to show. 

 

One of the things I've been thinking about though is communication from one end of the layout to the other (it's 60ft long!). There are TRTS switches in the fiddle yards that ask the signaller for a road out but all they do is flash an indicator on the panel that tells the signaller that something is ready to depart from the fiddle yard but not what it is. We did one show with Dagworth where we had some wired headset comms to talk to the fiddle yard but that made it very difficult to talk to people who didn't have headsets and the cables were a real nuisance to everyone inside the layout. I'm thinking that the ideal would be a wired telephone system from one end of the layout to the 'box at the other but I have no experience of wiring of telephone systems at all. I don't need any form of dialing, just something akin to signal post telephones. All the fiddle yard would have to do would be to pick up the 'phone which would light a light at the panel to indicate someone was trying to call. 

Anyone here know anything about how they are wired? Ideally it would be a couple of long lengths of cat5 cable rather than part of the layout structured cabling. 

 

Anyone able to assist?

 

Andi

Have you considered SHOUTING VERY LOUDLY ?

[LNERGE]

On 23/03/2023 at 17:21, Dagworth said:

I'm still busy with wiring (It's a long job!) so not really much to show. 

 

One of the things I've been thinking about though is communication from one end of the layout to the other (it's 60ft long!). There are TRTS switches in the fiddle yards that ask the signaller for a road out but all they do is flash an indicator on the panel that tells the signaller that something is ready to depart from the fiddle yard but not what it is. We did one show with Dagworth where we had some wired headset comms to talk to the fiddle yard but that made it very difficult to talk to people who didn't have headsets and the cables were a real nuisance to everyone inside the layout. I'm thinking that the ideal would be a wired telephone system from one end of the layout to the 'box at the other but I have no experience of wiring of telephone systems at all. I don't need any form of dialing, just something akin to signal post telephones. All the fiddle yard would have to do would be to pick up the 'phone which would light a light at the panel to indicate someone was trying to call. 

Anyone here know anything about how they are wired? Ideally it would be a couple of long lengths of cat5 cable rather than part of the layout structured cabling. 

 

Anyone able to assist?

 

Andi

I can sort you out a signalbox telephone concentrator. This will allow lots of phones being able to talk to one place but not act as an exchange.

Edited March 31, 2023 by LNERGE