Enderslie - 009 in the West of Scotland

[nightstar.train]

Enderslie is a fictional village somewhere on the West Coast of Scotland, served by the Enderslie Valley Railway. The layout is set in the 1990s. Enderslie is an important small port, providing vital links to nearby islands, as well as fishing. It is located at the end of a long and steep valley. Due to the geography of the area the roads are poor and mostly single track, so the railway still provides the main means of transport of goods and people in and out of Enderslie. It also serves a train ferry in Enderslie that provides the vital link to the islands. 

 

That's the story behind my layout. The name Enderslie is derived from my 3D printer. It's an Ender 5 Plus, and I live near the village of Elderslie, near Paisley. So I mashed the 2 together and got Enderslie. My plan is to 3D print as much of the rolling stock and scenery as possible. There are loads of files freely available on sites like Thingiverse, and what I can't find I will design myself. 

 

So here is the track plan, I drew it out full size on some packing paper using some of the buildings I printed and Peco templates (excuse the wobbly edges of the picture, that's an artefact of the iPhone panorama mode. The boards are in fact straight and rectangular). It's 50cm x 300cm overall, not including the fiddle yard which will make and L shape off the back right.

 

 

On the left is the harbour and train ferry. The train ferry will be removable and act as small second fiddle yard. There is a small siding next to the ferry berth that will probably serve a fuel depot. There is another siding along the edge of the other section of harbour and a small provender store. This will serve the fishing boats. The harbour will be about 4cm lower than the rest of the layout, with the water level about 2cm lower again. The track for the harbour runs along the front of the layout and climbs to the middle. Above this slope is the station. It has two platforms, the longer one at the front having a run round loop. Behind the station is a post office with a siding and platform to receive the mail. Next to the post office with the smaller siding is a general store. Goods will come in in wagons, and I'm planing to have some sort of railcar as a shop vehicle that can go off into the hills and islands to deliver supplies.

 

Moving further right there is the exchange siding for the harbour which joins into the run round loop, and two holding sidings for the harbour. I have since made a slight change to the plan as i wasn't happy with the harbour being directly accessible from the main line. I'm moving the points for the holding sidings and harbour branch to be the other side of the point joining the mainline. This will mean the holding sidings and the harbour branch are only accessible from the head shunt. So trains will come into the exchange siding, then the harbour engine will take the wagons and sort them into the sidings and take them down to the harbour. 

 

Further right, in the middle of the second board, is a turntable and engine shed. Whilst the railway will be diesel worked there is a steam preservation society, and there will be steam specials running regularly. I'm also thinking of making some removable signs for a steam gala as an excuse to run them as well. So this will be the base for the steam engines. Then finally the mainline will run into a tunnel under a hill at the back, and a siding will curve around to the front serving a watermill and barn. The mainline will curve sharply under the hill and I'll add a fiddle yard at the top right. Minimum curve radius on the layout will be 9" and most curves will be that size. 

 

So that's the plan. This is the first layout of this sort I've built. I'm hoping to maybe exhibit it one day in the future. I'm a member of the 009 society and the Scottish group have been having fortnightly zoom meetings. I'm hoping that this will drive me forward so I have progress to show each time, and help me finish the layout. 

 

Next on to making the boards.

[nightstar.train]

So on to baseboard construction. I'm making the baseboards out of 6mm ply. I've never made boards like this before. I'm hoping they'll be fairly lightweight. I decided on a size of 50cm x 150cm per board, as this will allow the two of them to fit in my car. So a trip to my local wood shop and i have three sheets of ply, each cut into 3 pieces.

 

 

Quick fit test and it looks good.

 

 

I chopped the large boards into strips on my table saw. This will form the ribs. 

 

 

I (rather foolishly) decided to make the much more complex left hand board with the harbour first. So i traced out the outline of the harbour from my plan and made a template to cut the board with. 

 

 

Then cut them out with my jigsaw.

 

[nightstar.train]

I decided to make the ends of the boards out of 18mm ply. This will offer some protection in transit and help keep the boards square during construction. I also had a pair of baseboard alignment dowels that I'm using to make the boards line up nicely. There will be 3 bolts holding it tight. 

 

 

I drilled out lots of large holes in the beams to remove some weight and to allow the cables to run through. I also cut slots in the beams so they will fit together in a tab and slot design. So here is my kit of parts, ready for assembly.

 

 

 

This is the frame assembled. I decided on an integral backscene. The tab and slots worked pretty well and I glued and nailed it all together. Hopefully it will be strong and resist warping. 

 

 

Attached the piece that will form the water of the harbour. The harbour will sit on top of this on small risers. I trimmed off a corner to allow room for the point motors. 

 

 

Then I added the main layer of board. The gap at the front is where the line will descend to the harbour. The front piece is actually cut on an angle to allow this. 

 

 

Finally I added the harbour section on risers, and the slope down to the it. I'm pretty pleased how it turned out. I do wish I'd started with the right hand board though, which is just a flat surface. There was a lot of learning process for me, and I coupled that with having to make a much more complex board with different height ribs and a sloping front. 

 

 

I have since decided that the backscene is way too high. I was struggling to get my arms over it and reach the main station area when on those trestles. So I'll be slicing 15cm off the backscene later. 

[aleopardstail]

that framing looks industrial strength, can't see anything moving, and seriously nicely done for such a complex shape in such a small area.

 

very nice indeed and definitely full marks for wood butchery, makes my "no accurate measurements were harmed, or even seen, during construction" look garbage

 

😀

[5BarVT]

As soon as I saw your layout name I thought of Elderslie. Thank you for explaining the derivation of Enderslie.

Paul. 

[nightstar.train]

Well it's been an awfully long time since I did any work on this. House renovations and the general chaos of owning a pair of children have been getting in the way. I have since completed the second board and have now finally made a start on track laying. 

 

First four points fixed down. The far point is the crucial one and sets the position of the whole layout up. Station building roughly plonked in position. Made of three sections here, I realised I had room to add another section for the finished article. 

 

 

After a few evenings work the whole town section has been finished. The station building has been glued together and painted. I'm going for a BR Scottish region look. The end of the runround loop on the left needs finishing. I've decided I'm going to add a bit of board back in here and the end of the loop will curve back to a right angle to the backscene and go to a goods shed. Also need the exchange loop at the front and mainline putting in. But they span both boards so I'll put them in when the other board is attached with some alignment pieces to ensure they work well when the boards are taken apart and put back together. 

 

 

Close up of the station. Really pleased with how it's come out. It's from Thingiverse by Mike's Railway.  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4727163

 

 

 

[nightstar.train]

A bit more progress on my layout. One important job I've tackled is to make a pair of controllers. I had looked at Gaugemaster controllers, which are very good, but are at east £35 each. So I've decided to build them myself. I shall try these home built controllers for a while and if they're no good then I will buy a pair of Gaugemaster ones. The home built ones have only cost me about £5 for the pair as I bought all the components off Ali Express. 

 

This is the circuit I'm using. 

 

 

It's a simple circuit using a variable voltage regulator. However this can only go as low as 1.5v, so the 2 diodes in series with the output are to reduce the voltage further to about 0. There is also a thermal fuse rated at 1.5a in case something stalls or shorts out the track to prevent a complete overload of the voltage reg. 

 

One advantage of this circuit is that it uses a 12v DC power supply, as will the rest of the layout. Using Gaugemaster controllers would need a separate 16v AC power supply. This does restrict the output of the controllers to about 9.5v, but that's more than enough. At that level most locos are going like a rocket! 

 

Built up out of stripboard and popped in a case looks like this.

 

 

And here are the two controllers completed. 

 

 

 

I've also started the wiring of the first board. 

 

 

 

I'll be using the MERG CBUS system for my layout. This is a two wire bus system where everything is controlled by various modules. The control panel will contain modules to take switch inputs and to display LEDs, and these inputs are passed down the bus to the modules that then move servos, switch relays, turn on signals etc. On this board so far is a USB interface (bottom right) that is required to program the modules. There are then two Servo modules (top right and bottom centre), and an output module (bottom left). The servo modules have 8 servo outputs plus 8 inputs. They will drive the points and crossing gates, and the inputs will be connected to micro switches on the points to sense position. The output board has 16 outputs and will switch relays for the sections on the layout. The first block of 8 relays is the blue board with the white wires coming out. Finally the chunky green connectors on the bottom right will connect to the other board and to the power supply. 

 

Next job will be to mount the relays and wire up the power supply so I can start getting the points to move. 

[5BarVT]

4 hours ago, nightstar.train said:

This is the circuit I'm using. 

 

 

It's a simple circuit using a variable voltage regulator. However this can only go as low as 1.5v, so the 2 diodes in series with the output are to reduce the voltage further to about 0. There is also a thermal fuse rated at 1.5a in case something stalls or shorts out the track to prevent a complete overload of the voltage reg. 

That circuit has worked well for me as my running in on d.c. controller.  I haven’t used the volts drop diodes and haven’t had any issues as nothing moves at that voltage.  But it’s not connected and turned down for any length of time.

Paul.