Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge

[thegreenhowards]

2 hours ago, young37215 said:

Terrific video, O gauge can be really impressive. One minor observation is the locos rate of acceleration looked a little quick, one of the acceleration or top speed CVs looks like it do with tweaking down a little.  

I thought it looked fine at the time, but on looking back at the video, I see what you mean. I normally control that by ramping up the speed more slowly on the controller, but I could look at the CVs I suppose. Would it just be the standard acceleration CV and would that affect the sound file? It’s a Legomanbiffo sound file on a loksound V5 XL. I’ve already had to change the active braking CV, to increase the braking rate as I was using emergency stop too often!

 

Andy

[37Oban]

You could always say the smart acceleration is because the train is running seriously late and is trying to make up lost time!  Happened to me a couple of times from Queen Street to Oban in the mid-80's!

 

Roja

[thegreenhowards]

We’ve gone back to the 1960s today with a West Highland goods trains including a couple of the Bulk Alumina wagons which worked between Burntisland and Fort William. I need a good excuse to run these beyond Fort William to Glenfinnan - any ideas?!

 

I hope the shots below also show off the scenery on some of the boards I’ve been working on over the Summer.

 

 

 

 

I also took a video of the train doing a complete circuit of the garden.

 

Andy

[thegreenhowards]

As well as playing trains, I spent some time today wiring in my signal lever frame as below.

 

 

The lever frame has 14 levers, each operating a DPDT switch. These are connected to Tortoise point motors and Dapol or servo operated signals. The levers operate as per the original signal box diagram which is glued to the back of the baseboard as can be seen above. Levers 6,7 and 8 wee spare on the original but I’ve used 6 to operate the point into the loading dock which must have been hand operated on the prototype.

 

Jumpers from four boards plus into the lever frame using pluggable chocolate block connectors.

 

Andy

[young37215]

22 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

I thought it looked fine at the time, but on looking back at the video, I see what you mean. I normally control that by ramping up the speed more slowly on the controller, but I could look at the CVs I suppose. Would it just be the standard acceleration CV and would that affect the sound file? It’s a Legomanbiffo sound file on a loksound V5 XL. I’ve already had to change the active braking CV, to increase the braking rate as I was using emergency stop too often!

 

Andy

 

If you reduce the maximum speed then I believe the acceleration profile is adjusted automatically. On my Accurascale 37027 with its Loksound V5, maximum speed which is CV 5, has been reduced from 255 to 120. This creates a much more realistic effect when the loco is given full power from a standing start or is accelerated whilst in motion. Essentially you are creating the potential to use all of the speed settings on your controller by making this adjustment, unadjusted and to keep the unrealistic top speed down, I suspect you don't go beyond half power with the knock on effect being you miss out on the full range of sounds in the sound file.

 

My experience is that you need to trial different speed settings on CV5 to find what works best on your layout.  

 

  

[thegreenhowards]

11 hours ago, young37215 said:

 

If you reduce the maximum speed then I believe the acceleration profile is adjusted automatically. On my Accurascale 37027 with its Loksound V5, maximum speed which is CV 5, has been reduced from 255 to 120. This creates a much more realistic effect when the loco is given full power from a standing start or is accelerated whilst in motion. Essentially you are creating the potential to use all of the speed settings on your controller by making this adjustment, unadjusted and to keep the unrealistic top speed down, I suspect you don't go beyond half power with the knock on effect being you miss out on the full range of sounds in the sound file.

 

My experience is that you need to trial different speed settings on CV5 to find what works best on your layout.  

 

  

I’m not keen on reducing the top speed. It’s not that fast on these Heljan diesels, and I like seeing it blast round on occasion! I’ll have a play with CV3 to reduce the acceleration. If that doesn’t interfere with the sounds then great. If it does, then I’ll just have to drive more carefully.

 

Andy

[37Oban]

22 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

We’ve gone back to the 1960s today with a West Highland goods trains including a couple of the Bulk Alumina wagons which worked between Burntisland and Fort William. I need a good excuse to run these beyond Fort William to Glenfinnan - any ideas?!

 

Mm,  this a tricky one!  One possibility is that they've been converted to carry salt for a fish curing plant.  Or maybe the salt is for further shipment to the western isles for a similar purpose.

 

Roja

[thegreenhowards]

16 minutes ago, 37Oban said:

Mm,  this a tricky one!  One possibility is that they've been converted to carry salt for a fish curing plant.  Or maybe the salt is for further shipment to the western isles for a similar purpose.

 

Roja

I was wondering about a simpler explanation of either alumina being imported into Mallaig or a second Aluminium smelter being built west of Glenfinnan. Would either be remotely credible?

[37Oban]

11 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

I was wondering about a simpler explanation of either alumina being imported into Mallaig or a second Aluminium smelter being built west of Glenfinnan. Would either be remotely credible?

Importing alumina into Mallaig and then transporting it to the smelter at Fort William could be a viable option.  A  smelter is extremely unlikely given the problems of transporation due to the terrain in the area and the two smelters at Kinlochleven and Fort William.  That's not to say it would be impossible, but smelters need a good head of water to provide hydro-electric power for the smelting process.  It's really worth researching the history of the two smelters and the areas their water supplies came from.  Both, and especially the one at Fort William, had extensive networks of narrow gauge lines.  The one at Kinlochleven used overhead electric locos!

 

The importation of alumina is a good excuse for more of the hoppers, and don't forget aluminium ingots could then be shipped to other parts of the country or even Europe as a cheaper alternative to rail bearing the distances involved so more opens and vans too!

 

Roja

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

I’ve now finished re-weathering the fish vans which I bought at Guildex and posted on here on 6 Sep. They’re a bit dirtier than I would have chosen, but I think it’s worked OK and they look credible.

 

 

 

I did a mixture of removing the dirt down the stanchions with a lot of rubbing, white washing over them and just heavy weathering over them. All the wagons then had a dusting of roof dirt from my airbrush.

 

Here’s a video of the fish train with a few other vans, which I also picked up at Guildex.

 

Andy

[thegreenhowards]

Some new toys came out to play today. I felt that my model of Glenfinnan needed a’Concrete Bob’, and when this one came up on eBay already ‘Legomanbiffo-ed’ I pounced. It’s a bit late for my chosen era in triple grey, but I’m rather fond of the livery, so I’ll make an exception - I’m not running a 156 to go with it though!

 

I also picked up a couple of Cargowaggons recently and a Heljan red stripe van and open. I’m running these together but I’m struggling to find prototype pictures of Cargowaggons mixed with the older stock. Can anyone confirm if they did work together? 
 

 

 

I’ve also done a video. I think this one sounds particularly good. Sound was fitted by BBMR and seems to have the decoder in the fuel tanks and a speaker where the decoder normally goes. 

 

Andy

 

[PaulRhB]

8 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

I’m running these together but I’m struggling to find prototype pictures of Cargowaggons mixed with the older stock. Can anyone confirm if they did work together? 

I’ve got photos in the ref folder of them with VDA, VGA, OTA and OBA? opens. Unfortunately not credited in my file but off the net. 

[thegreenhowards]

I’ve just been reading September 2023 Backtrack. It has a lovely spread of the Mallaig extension including pictures of 37423 in triple grey livery on a nice rake of four MK2s dated 2April 1988. I was pleasantly surprised by this as I thought the first triple grey liveried locos were after sprinterisation.

 

Can anyone confirm the dates of the first repaintings? I’ve looked on the cl37 website but it’s first mention of painting for ‘423 is into Mainline in 1989.

 

Andy

[David Bell]

The sound on that 37 is particularly good.

Cheers

David

[03060]

4 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

I’ve just been reading September 2023 Backtrack. It has a lovely spread of the Mallaig extension including pictures of 37423 in triple grey livery on a nice rake of four MK2s dated 2April 1988. I was pleasantly surprised by this as I thought the first triple grey liveried locos were after sprinterisation.

 

Can anyone confirm the dates of the first repaintings? I’ve looked on the cl37 website but it’s first mention of painting for ‘423 is into Mainline in 1989.

 

Andy

Info from Pip Dunn's book of the 37/4s :-

 

37423 first carried two-tone grey unbranded from Feb '88 before receiving R/f Metals decals and 'Sir Murray Morrison' name in May of the same year. It didn't go into the IC Mainline livery until Sept '89.

 

Regards,

Ian.

[thegreenhowards]

21 minutes ago, 03060 said:

Info from Pip Dunn's book of the 37/4s :-

 

37423 first carried two-tone grey unbranded from Feb '88 before receiving R/f Metals decals and 'Sir Murray Morrison' name in May of the same year. It didn't go into the IC Mainline livery until Sept '89.

 

Regards,

Ian.

That’s very useful, thank you. Does the book have that sort of information for all the 37/4s? If so, it’s on my shopping list!

 

Andy

[thegreenhowards]

2 hours ago, David Bell said:

The sound on that 37 is particularly good.

Cheers

David

Thanks. I think it’s the best in my fleet. I’ve fitted all the others myself but not this one. I must take it apart and work out what he’s done.

 

Andy

[03060]

32 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

That’s very useful, thank you. Does the book have that sort of information for all the 37/4s? If so, it’s on my shopping list!

 

Andy

Highly recommended Andy if you can still find a copy, it will be £30 well spent, full of useful information and lots of great images (quite a few on the WHL.) First published 2020.

 

.... and yes ... that's a BSOT on the front cover ! ... oh, sorry ... wrong thread LoL !

 

[young37215]

11 hours ago, 03060 said:

Highly recommended Andy if you can still find a copy, it will be £30 well spent, full of useful information and lots of great images (quite a few on the WHL.) First published 2020.

 

.... and yes ... that's a BSOT on the front cover ! ... oh, sorry ... wrong thread LoL !

 

 

On sale with Eastfield Media at £23 including P&P!

[thegreenhowards]

16 hours ago, young37215 said:

 

On sale with Eastfield Media at £23 including P&P!

Thanks Rob,

 

Duly ordered.

 

Andy

[thegreenhowards]

The only steam engine I had for this layout was K1, 62052. But that has been playing up, with a burnt out decoder and more recently the valve gear fell to bits! But on Sunday, I visited the ‘O Gauge Get Together’ at the Severn Valley Railway and having only bought two wagons and thinking I’d been good in the exhibition, I discovered the Stanier Mogul Fund shop at Kidderminster which had bought a large collection of Eastern/ LNER locos and wagons. My wallet is now considerably lighter with three locos and several wagons weighing me down!

 

The best of this bunch is another K1, professionally built from a Piercy kit and with a lovely ABC helical  gearbox. It runs very smoothly and quietly. I was told that the owner of the collection had no layout, and I don’t think this is a good thing as it means the locos haven’t been fully debugged. The valve gear came undone after a couple of circuits! Luckily this was an easy fix as I found the nut and reattached it with a touch of the soldering iron to keep it in place.

 

Anyway, after all that I gave it a proper train to pull - my fish vans as head traffic on a maroon rake of stock.

 

 

I’m sure I’ve seen a similar formation in one of my books but can’t find it now. I can find a long string of normal vans on the front of a passenger train and a couple of fish vans with the same, but not a long fish rake with passenger. Can anyone else remember where such a photo is…if it exists!

 

The sun is quite difficult at this time of year with the station area in shade for much of the day, so I offer another photo on the unsceniced side but in full sun.

 

 

No video as it’s not DCC fitted yet, so no sound!

 

The loco will need renumbering to a Fort William example. I may sell the old K1 which has American pick ups, so not ideal for DCC. In which case it will take the 62052 identity. Otherwise probably 62034. I think the preserved one was renumbered to 62052 and 62034 at some point for the Jacobite so I could run these in preserved mode as well.

 

More diesels next time for the kettle haters!

 

Andy

 

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by thegreenhowards

[thegreenhowards]

This is the final sequence from my recent spell of operation as the layout was put away before the rain on Thursday & Friday. I suspect that might be it for the year and I will use the poor weather to work on the scenery.

 

Anyway, as a finale I decided to try a passing move. Here we see 37264 on Turbots heading West passing 37051 on Mark 1s.

 

 

 

Concrete sleepers in Turbots has become a bit of a cliche in O Gauge following Al Tait’s excellent article in the Gauge o guild Gazette and his Facebook images. But they do look good and there was a view of Turbots loaded so loaded in the video of the Mallaig line which Andy (@Mallaig1983)  posted recently here.

 

 

I also did my normal video of the passing manoeuvre.

 

 

Regards

 

Andy

Edited October 15, 2023 by thegreenhowards
Adding link to Andy’s video

[Jeremy Cumberland]

I love your layout and of course you can operate it in whatever way you want, so please don't take this as criticism, but I couldn't help notice that your two trains crossing weren't signalled correctly. The obvious error is clearing the down starter before returning the up home to danger - in real life the interlocking would prevent this, since the two signals require the west end points to be set different ways. The delay in clearing the starter for the up train, while not wrong in itself, seems odd.

 

Here is a description of the usual sequence, seen from the point of view of the signalman.

 

Before accepting a train (any train, whether it is crossing another or not), the signalman needs to check three things:

• The points are set and locked for the train to enter the station
• The line is clear to the starting signal
• The home signal is at danger.

It doesn't matter how the points or signals at the far end are set, and the signalman can of course accept trains from both directions at the same time, with each end of the station set for the arriving train, and all signals at danger. After accepting a train, the signalman must not remove the FPL from the facing points not must he allow anything to occupy the line up to the starting signal (he can't, for example, admit another train wrong line at the far end).

 

As the first train arrives at the station, it needs to be cautioned or stopped at the home signal, because the next signal (the starter) is at danger. I have no idea how cautioning was carried out in practice on the West Highland line in your era - the rule book says that the train must be brought "quite or nearly to a stand" - but in other areas I recall seeing trains barely being checked. However, what is important is that the driver sees the home signal at danger; this is his cue that there is a signal at danger ahead. Your locos have sound, so you probably want to whistle for approaching a home signal at danger (partly this lets the signalman know that the driver has seen the signal, but I can imagine a driver thinking it is to wake the signalman up). Perhaps someone knows what codes were used on the West Highland (they appears not to have been universal) - they are probably in the sectional appendix.

 

When the home signal is cleared, the first train enters the station. If the second train turns up during this time, it has to be stopped. Unless there are exit trap points, which there aren't at Glenfinnan, only one train at a time can enter a passing loop.

 

The driver of the first train surrenders the token. The signalman should confirm with the guard that the train is complete (or check the tail lamp, if the position of the signalbox and the length of the train allows). The signalman will also check that the back of the train is clear of the points. The signalman will then do the following:

1. Put the home signal back to danger
2. Return the token to the instrument and bell Train Out of Section
3. Obtain Line Clear for the second train and withdraw a token
4. Reverse the points for the second train to depart
5. Clear the starter for the second train
6. Clear the home for the second train
7. Clear the distant for the second train (if the second train hasn't yet passed it, and if the distant isn't fixed).

There is some possible variation in this sequence, but (1) has to come before anything else. Note that as soon as the signalman has the token for the second train, there is unlikely to be any reason for his not clearing both the home and the starter.

 

When the second train arrives, much the same thing happens, with the addition of returning the distant to danger (if cleared). This can be done any time after the train has passed it; I am used to not seeing it returned to danger till immediately before the home signal is returned to danger (ie after the signalman has got the token from the driver), but the rule book says to return distant signals to danger as soon as they are passed by a train. Of course, this time, there is no home and distant to clear, because the first train is already in the station.

 

As each train leaves, the signalman will bell Train Entering Section to the next box. He will put the starting signal to danger behind the train - the rule book says "immediately the last vehicle of a train has passed", but there's no hurry in this situation and sometimes this is quite leisurely. Of course, all the time the signalman is dealing with handing the token to the first train, perhaps walking to the far end of the platform and back, he can't at the same time bell Train Entering Section or return the starter to danger for the second train, so he will do these when he gets back to the box.

 

The points at each end will probably be returned normal (and locked) as soon as the starter has been returned to danger, although there is no obligation on the signalman to do anything with the points until he is asked to accept another train. Perhaps, for example, if the signalman knows the next scheduled train is a down, and it isn't crossing an up, he will leave the west end points set reversed.

[thegreenhowards]

Hello Jeremy,

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed response. I really do appreciate constructive criticism like this. Your first point is a schoolboy error that I should have spotted….especially as the video has chosen to show that exact moment for its a still image! Annoyingly I won’t be able to redo this now until the Spring unless we have a very mild and dry spell. I’m blaming multi tasking for that error - trying to be cameraman, two drivers and signalman is clearly too much. RMT wouldn’t approve!

 

The other issues you raise are, to a non signaller, slightly less obvious. But I do want to get it right. I know that you wrote a similarly detailed piece back in the Summer when we were discussing the diagram below but I omitted to reread that in my haste. I’ve never really understood why a driver has to be brought to a stand at the home before entering the station. Surely he has to be ready to stop at the starter signal and that should be sufficient? However, I know it happens (to my frustration as a passenger), and my role is to replicate signalling practice rather than question it, so I need to do it right on Glenfinnan. I presume that this is only the case if trains are crossing? I.e. if the starter is pulled off then the home can also be pulled off and the driver can enter the station without stopping at the home. 

 

I am using the signal box diagram below with my lever frame to control the signalling. Levers 4&12 are point locks which do nothing as yet, but I’m intending to wire them so that they electrically lock the points. I need to have a think about whether I can electrically prevent pulling off the starter while the home at the same end is off.

 

Your 7 point list is very useful. I think I may need it on a crib sheet behind the lever frame. I won’t be doing any bells though - that’s a bit too ‘signalling hard core’ for me!

 

Andy
 

[03060]

24 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

 

 

 

Just for clarity in understanding Jeremy's description am I correct in thinking that :-

 

In the Mallaig direction Signals 15 is the Distant, 14 the Home and 13 the Starter ....

... and in the Fort William direction Signals 1 is the Distant, 2 is the Home and 3 the Starter ?

 

Regards,

Ian.