Exchange Yard Sidings

[Izzy]

 

Exchange Yard Sidings 

 

It’s strange sometimes how the acquisition of an odd loco or piece of rolling stock can start the development of a layout. Having obtained an NGS Hunslet industrial shunter my thoughts have naturally turned to what to do with it. I have long thought about making a small/micro layout to replace Odds End, (the test layout built around various bits and pieces I made when first starting in 2FS), that could be placed on my workbench. Something to do the odd bit of shunting on, test locos or stock when other layouts are not available and so on. And just have a bit of enjoyment making it. I then thought I would share details of it’s construction in case it encouraged others to consider trying their hand at making a small and simple, and not too expensive, 2FS layout.

 

That the Hunslet body was blue started a line of thought about Blue Circle Cement locos and exchange sidings for cement works. I dug around for photos/info and read about the workings at the Blue Circle works at Claydon near Ipswich, the nearest location to me and one I had past many times during it’s working life. It was served by sidings off the main line north to Stowmarket and beyond, trip workings from Ipswich with coal for power and cement wagons and vans for the cement products produced. Needing to keep things small I decided that I could build an exchange sidings design based around the idea a resident Blue Circle shunter was used to transfer the wagons to the works, these being located a bit further away from the main line than was actually the case at Claydon. BR locos would of course bring and take them away, my thoughts revolving around the fact I had plenty of cement wagons, mineral wagons, and vans to use, along with a variety of green and blue era diesels.

 

So the Hunslet has now been finished in erstwhile Blue Circle livery. I say this because details of their locos seem scarce, it seems they didn’t have many, and images are thus few in number. Of those found the liveries varied and so I finished it in a manner I thought it might have been had such a loco existed in the timescale covered, the ‘60’s to ‘80’s.

 

When it came to having a name for the layout I decided that it had set that for itself. So it’s Exchange Sidings. As it had to sit on the portable workbench the overall length needed to reflect that. This had to include whatever fiddle arrangement was used. It couldn’t be very long so it balanced properly i.e. wouldn’t tip up when working the fiddle yard. Now I have long been an admirer of Ian Futers 3 point layouts and so wanted to try this with the concept of the fiddle yard sector plate acting as the ‘unseen’ half of the run around loop as is now quite common with small layouts.

 

These ideas and requirements basically set the size of what the layout could be. To have a bogie diesel loco with around half a dozen wagons needs around 16-17”, so this set the sector plate length at 18” for a bit of wriggle room. I did consider using the diamond jubilee layout challenge size for the layout itself, roughly 9”x 24”, having played around designing the odd one or two in Templot, but it felt too short with perhaps more width than needed when it was just going to be a few lengths of roughly parallel track. So I set the desired width at 7” and the length at 30”. Apart from the width all these sizes altered during the construction of the baseboard and sector plate to make allowance for the actual design finally used. I’ll detail this next post.

 

Bob

 

Edited March 10 by Izzy

[Izzy]

The baseboard.

 

This has been constructed from my now normal materials of mountboard and 5mm foamcore board but in a sandwich formation. It’s a new method of construction instead of multiple layers of mountboard. A layer of 5mm foamcore covered both sides and around the edges in mountboard. This produces a lighter but still firm baseboard and as usual is covered in a layer of cork. Since this was to be another single baseboard design I thought a cantilever style plug-in sector plate fiddle board could be tried. As this would also be serving as the run around I have made it with the idea all the tracks will be live and it will just be lined up by eye. I don’t want to have to faff around continually sliding locking bolts in/out for alignment and electrical connection when it’s part of the general action rather than just for train entry and exit from the scene. All the tracks being live isn’t an issue with DCC. I suppose a rotary control switch could choose a particular track but again it’s extra faff and I want to keep the sector plate as flat and simple as possible for storage. Just sit in or on top of the layout cover – more foamcore. That’s the idea anyway.

 

 

 

 

The size is 30” to the rear of the bridge while the sector plate is now 20” in total length with the sector being 18”. Width is still 7”. The total baseboard depth is 2" with another 2" to the top of the pillars. Internal depth is 40mm, just enough to take my hacked servos 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This just pushes into place and will also make the electrical connections for the track feed. The main board is now 36” in total length to give a 6” bed for the sector plate to sit on. So this section is lower by the depth of the fiddle board. This is again a mountboard and foamcore sandwich, but the sector plate is 4-layer deep mountboard as is it’s mating section which butts up to the main board. The front edges overlap each other, the sector plate undercuting the mating over-cut, to keep the sector plate down i.e. to prevent it rising up and loosing vertical track/rail alignment. Both these are of course radiused to that for the 18” radius curvature. I marked and cut one layer, then used that to ensure the rest matched up. The over/under cut is 7mm with a 1-2mm clearance between them. The pivot is just a round headed brass wood screw. After initial cutting and fitting the lips were both sanded down a bit with aluminium oxide sandpaper to get a nice jerk free running fit that wasn’t loose. That would stay where put given the set-by-eye track alignment to be used. All seems well so far….the proof of the pudding will be......as they say

 

 

 

The total length of the layout with fiddle fitted is 50"

 

A bridge? Well what else to hide the exits. Contrived. Oh yes. But it will also help hide the pillars needed for the cantilever part. These hold down the sector plate so need to have enough strength to take the strain of the weight imposed. It is hoped the sector board can also cope with this aspect and not bend and sag past that 6” support base. As said this is all experimental. To see how it all works and copes given the lightweight nature of the construction. The pillars were of course set so the sector board just slides in between them. To keep both horizontal and vertical alignment. Made and fitted after the making of the sector plate as this seemed the easier approach. Done in two stages. The sides first, and allowed to harden off/set properly and then checked, followed by the parts that make the cantilever, that hold the board down. Again glued into place and given plenty of time to set fully. The board was pushed in/out every few hours during the day to make sure it stayed the same, that nothing shifted. My experience with this type of baseboard construction using these materials is that over time the glue joints and the materials themselves become stonger/harder/stiffer as the moisture lessens. As with any paper/wood based material.

 

But working with mountboard and foamcore like this can allow easy construction given it’s done just using scalpels and rulers on a cutting board. Nice and easy indoors with little or no mess of any kind. Just a bit of patience on occasion while the glue fully cures off with some joints, so overnight with things like the cantilever supports. As ever a glue like Anita’s Tacky PVA has been found to be best. The Range now do their own version which seems the same. Ordinary wood glue type PVA is too slow and too wet/runny to work I have found. Allows parts to move out of alignment and so ruins whatever has been done, which then needs re-moving/re-doing and can wreck things altogether. Although it was used to stick the cork down. This is used because it makes a good top surface on which to lay the track I have found but also acts as a barrier to prevent any liquid such as the Woodland Scenics scenic cement used to fix the ballast in place affect the mountboard.

 

Track design next time.

 

Bob

 

Edited March 3 by Izzy
add a few measurements missed off

[Izzy]

 

The Track Plan

 

As the idea was just to use three points the basic track plan didn’t take too long to generate. There has to be, or I want there to be, a run around loop so I can use it with just one loco if I choose. So that means it’s that plus two sidings. But the actual formation has only just been decided after trying a few different designs in Templot. Printing them out, testing with rolling stock etc. It was only three sheets of A4 a time, so it wasn’t too onerous.

 

In order to help decide the basic way it would all work I have drawn up a full plan of how I imagined the sidings would exist alongside the main line both sides of the bridge. I also imagined there was a low bank between the running lines and the exchange sidings after the overbridge. All rather contrived but it all helped to set the scene in my mind. I made the assumption all points would be trailing. There would be a fairly long headshunt along the running line, and the line to the cement works would come off the loop. This then bought up an interesting revelation as regards the operation of how trains arrive and depart the sidings. Which would depend on the direction they arrived from, and departed too. In the down they would be propelled backwards both in and out, while in the up they would be as you normally see, loco first.

 

 

 

Two basic designs have been drawn up. One uses a twin arch bridge with the tracks thus well spaced and the other a single arch with the tracks in a pair. I placed stock on both in turn and couldn’t decide which was best, would be more likely to have existed in real life. The reason for the twin arch was the idea this might hide the fiddle yard better, make it not quite so obvious. With this plan I also spaced the sidings out at the minimum distance used for sidings of 15’2” (so 31mm) rather than the minimum standard 11’2” used for plain line tracks. After some consideration I’ve decided to go with this design. I like the twin/multiple arch approach which I have seen used to really good effect on other small layouts when used for the same purpose, as the scenic break.

 

 

 

 

 

As this is meant to be something to play around with in terms of trying out odd new ideas, for the track I have toyed with using the new British Finescale 3D printed base turnouts alongside Easitrac for the plain line. However, historically plastic based track and I have not generally got along. Indeed it was struggling with plastic based OO RTL track in the late ‘60’s that first pushed me to try making my own track. At this time soldered construction using rail on pcb sleepers was the latest thing to arrive. I never looked back.

 

In later times I switched to using functional chairs on ply sleepers. At first this was with whitemetal chairs but when plastic moulded ones arrived in the 1980’s I changed to using them. This has been in several different scales, all somewhat larger than 2mm. I have in the past tried using Easitrac chairs on ply sleepers for pointwork combined with plain line Easitrac but the smaller size meant it was a struggle for me at the time, the pointwork, and so I reverted to soldered construction using etched chairplates on pcb sleepers. I did that for all the track to keep it looking consistent and matching. I have kept meaning to give it another go, chairs on ply sleepers, and so I have decided this is the time to do just that. To see if I can find a way to make it work. Whether I can or not it will be good to give it a try.

 

So it may be a while before there is another post dealing with the track construction…..

 

Bob

[Izzy]

 

I have just discovered that Alan Whitehouse has a 2FS layout call Exchange Sidings. I don't know how I missed this. Mine will never leave home but I think I will have to devise a new name so as not to cause any confusion via this thread. For the present I will simply add 'East' in brackets on to the end until I can come up with something else.

 

Bob

[bécasse]

Mart Sidings?

[richbrummitt]

8 hours ago, Izzy said:

 

I have just discovered that Alan Whitehouse has a 2FS layout call Exchange Sidings. I don't know how I missed this. Mine will never leave home but I think I will have to devise a new name so as not to cause any confusion via this thread. For the present I will simply add 'East' in brackets on to the end until I can come up with something else.

 

Bob

Is there a web presence for Alan’s layout?

[Izzy]

1 hour ago, richbrummitt said:

Is there a web presence for Alan’s layout?

 

Not so far as I know Rich. I have just got around to reading the last Magazine newsletter where it is listed as one of those at the Derby 2mm Expo. For a brief second I wondered how the heck they knew I was going to build another layout and it's name before I did! 😀 

 

Bob

[65179]

3 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

Is there a web presence for Alan’s layout?

 

It won't be a surprise Richard that it's MSW, but this time steam/electric transition era. It was only boards plus track a few months ago, which is why it's unsurprising Bob wasn't aware of it.

 

Simon

[Bri.dolan]

20 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

Is there a web presence for Alan’s layout?

Alan’s layout will be at Neepsend model railway show in April 

from last update pics I’ve seen it’s not far off being ready 

 

Regards 

 

Brian 

 

[richbrummitt]

6 hours ago, Bri.dolan said:

Alan’s layout will be at Neepsend model railway show in April 

from last update pics I’ve seen it’s not far off being ready 

 

Regards 

 

Brian 

 

Thanks Brian,

I expect my ties with the area will be severed inside 4 weeks. Might get to see it at Derby though, if I get there. 

[Izzy]

 

Building the track

 

Well the pointwork has been basically completed and appears to be satisfactory. Much better than my previous attempt so far, although there is along way to go till the track can be properly tested under working conditions. 

 

 

For my second attempt at using the Easitrac plastic chairs on ply sleepers I thought that I’d follow the general principles that I have used in the larger scales. Use a few key attachment points to which the rails could be soldered to give strength and location combined with supplying the power. When finished half chairs are fitted to cosmetically disguise/hide them. I think following a method I am familiar with has helped to get a better result. Previously I struggled to get the track to hold gauge and consistent flangeways with checkrails that worked as they should.

 

The locations I use are the first past the last slide chair, so the two rails, the stock and closure, are bonded together electrically and this also gives strength to the closure against the twisting forces involved when the blades are moved back and forth. The others are under the crossing nose and the sleeper behind it where the wing rails end. These again both support the crossing nose and bond the whole lot electrically which of course changes polarity depending on the throw of the points.

 

All the turnouts are A6’s, but only one is straight, the other two being contraflexed to differing degrees to fit the track design. An aspect to note is that while it is often stated that an ‘A’ switch has 5 slide chairs, a ‘B’ 6, and a ‘C’ 7 and so forth, there are actually another two slide chairs of a different type fitted before the first fixed chairs. So using ‘A’s the location I bond them at is sleeper 8 from the point tips.

 

Now of course you can’t solder to ply, plus the rail needs to be held above the sleepers by the same amount as the chairs do. In 4mm I used copper rivets to do both, provide a solder point and raise the rail away from the sleeper. For 2mm I decided to try and use the Versaline etched chairplates normally used with the pcb sleepers, but drilling them 0.3mm in their centre to take soft iron wire soldered into place.

 

 

 

With a matching hole drilled in the ply sleeper the wire is threaded through so the plate sits on the top and the wire then bent over and pressed (squeezed with pliers) into the underside and run to the edge and beyond.

 

 

This then retains the plate on the sleeper at a fixed point and provides the means for electrical connection. The sleepers themselves are cut from 1/32 ply which is just about the same thickness as the pcb type.

 

 

It was a slow process using butanone to glue the chairs in place. You can see I marked the template with different coloured dots to remind me where the different chairs went. This helps when threading them on the rail. 

 

This construction was done on the workbench on a printout from Templot with the sleepers held in place on the plan with two thin strips of d/s tape under the rail line. A digital multimeter was used to keep checking the electrical connections remained good as the soldered track joints were made. A bespoke roller gauge was used, one made on the lathe some years back. This differs in that it has two square flanges at flangeway width (0.5mm) and wheel flange depth (again 0.5mm) set at the track gauge. 

 

 

The resulting look of the trackwork is pleasing even in it's raw state. As the three turnouts were together in a line I decided to try and make them as one conjoined unit for ease of laying on the baseboard. They will be laid first, and all the plain track fitted after as it's easier I find to 'adjust' plain track for alignment if any small errors creep in. This is my standard method of laying such track. The plain line track will also be produced using the chairs on ply sleepers to keep the look consistent.

 

How all this will actually be done is still being worked out. This is because aspects like tie-bars and how they will be operated is still to be decided. There are a few options and I am unsure as to whether I will remove the trackwork from the paper template or glue it down as it is. I have read of others doing it this way, or even building trackwork directly onto the baseboard, but up until now I have always removed the track from the template and then laid it onto the cork. This can make it tricky as sometimes the slide chair timbers come loose. Leaving the paper in place seems easier, and especially in 2mm but I only tacked the sleepers down with the two thin d/s strips so I'm wary as to whether this may cause issues. 

 

Bob

Edited March 8 by Izzy

[Ian Smeeton]

As soon as you have ballasted, the whole assembly will be rock solid!

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Izzy]

4 hours ago, Ian Smeeton said:

As soon as you have ballasted, the whole assembly will be rock solid!

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

Is that the sound of experience I hear Ian ? Too solid even when not wanted 😁

The only problem is I prefer not to ballast until it’s all been up and running for a while and thus fully tested. I also use Woodland Scenics ballast and scenic cement which while it does hold it in place allows it to be scrapped away fairly easily. 
 

I am thinking that if I lay the track/paper combo using pva then this may soak through the paper and grab the ply sleepers. There are already a few lifting and not being firmly held in place on the paper so plenty of weights to hold it all down evenly in the correct places will be key. I already have one rail joint where the rails don’t line up vertically since the pointwork was originally finished yesterday. As yet I don’t know why this is so as this isn’t due to lifting sleepers. Investigations are ongoing …..

 

Bob

[Ian Smeeton]

Sounds as if it should work.

 

Previous layouts have used PVA and granite ballast, and very (too) solid when complete.

 

The current one has been at the track laid, partially wired but unballasted for the last 5 years.

 

Note to self- Pull your finger out!

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Izzy]

As may be seen I've now changed the layout's name. Since there won't be anywhere on the layout that it features it's probably a moot point, but it's helpful in referring to it.

 

Having finished the pointwork as far as I can take it at the moment I decided to make all the plain track. This started off well until I discovered I'd miscalculated how many chairs I had against how many I needed and this all hit the buffers.

 

 

So a small order to shop1 has been made and in the meantime I will get on with trying to sort out the fiddle board/sector plate. 

 

This is going to use Easitrac bases, some of which I have left in stock. The very ends will use pcb sleepers and etched chairplates to ensure strength and height matching with the exit tracks, which will also use the same. In fact all the sleepers from the end of the bridge will be these, so the short lengths of track on the start of the fiddle board as well. These will also be used for the electrical connections. For the plain tracks in the sidings the connections will be made under the buffer stops, when they are fitted, so nothing hopefully shows. 

 

 

 

 

At this stage I am still totally unsure as to what method of tie-bar and point control will be used.  I keep thinking through the basic options. 

 

1. Totally mechanical using DPDT slider switches at the baseboard edge with a bit of brass wire rodding let into the cork and a visible tie-bar - I have used in the past sleepers turned vertically on their side fitted with soft-iron wire loops. I worry there isn't really the spare space for the switches.  This would though all be quick and easy to install and simple to use.

 

2. My under-baseboard tie-bar system, which I have spares of, along with hacked servos, again which I have plenty of spare. A small panel with four switches would need to be fitted. Three for the points, one to turn off track power in the event of a short - running against a point! - which needs the power from the DCC system to change and can't be achieved with the track power on and a short cutting it all off. Have I explained that well enough?  The concern with this is whether the pointwork could take the tie-bar system. The pcb sleepers being soldered to the rail gives all the strength needed, but the plastic slide-chairs probably don't. 

 

3. The hacked servos with the pcb sleeper tie-bars. Not used these two in combination before. This might be a good compromise if I can work it out. and the prime candidate at present. However nothing can be tried until the rest of the plain track has been made. So time to think it all through.

 

Here's the complete layout sat on the place it is primarily meant to be used on, the portable workbench. When in use I will remove the cutting mat/s so it has as wide a base support as possible.

 

 

Bob

Edited March 11 by Izzy

[Izzy]

 

Point Tie-bars

 

I have read that there are probably as many tie-bar designs in 2mm as the number of those modelling in the scale. That helps to illustrate I think the difficulty many such as myself find in coming up with one that is useful with different types of track construction. My particular requirements are to have ones that aren’t too obvious and allow the blades to flex/pivot so they sit firmly up against the stock rail yet don’t put undue strain on them or the tie-bars. Mainly down the years I have used under-sleeper types rather than under-baseboard ones with tubes in which rods soldered to the blades can twist/pivot. So similar in principle to the under-baseboard designs, but closer to the blades to try and prevent the flexing of the rods and tubes that can occur. But all these types can be a hassle to make and install.

 

Now Exchange Yard sidings is mean to be not only small but simple to construct as well as operate. So I have been trying to make some equally simple tie-bars. An alternate type of tie-bar I have used is a PCB sleeper turned on it’s edge, with two small holes drilled at the right distance to take fine wire loops that are soldered to the blades. The copper around these holes is cut away to prevent them being soldered up solid. Having the sleeper vertical reduces it’s size impact while the loops can twist to allow the blades to flex. The only downside is the sleepers are still quite thick and a slot needs to be dug to allow them to move sideways under the rail. The depth under the rail in 2mm is roughly 1.2mm while a standard sleeper is 1.8mm wide and 0.85mm thick.

 

Having gone to the trouble of making track with individual chairs I wanted to try and keep these tie-bars from looking too obvious yet be fairly robust. What I decided I needed was thinner PCB that was just the 1.2mm depth. So I thought I would have a go at using some 0.35mm thick double-sided PCB I had for loco chassis construction which I could cut to the right depth. Would they be too thin and fragile? Only one way to find out….

 

My attempts used 5amp fuse wire in 0.4mm holes at 8mm centres with a total length of 14mm. I cut isolating gaps offset from the middle on each side so they wouldn’t weaken the tie-bar too much. They have now been fitted, look quite decent, and seem robust enough. The wire was looped through and trimmed off at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

Because the PCB was thin I didn’t cut away the copper at the loops in case it weakened them too much. They still seem to work okay with the blades seating nicely against the stock rails. In this shot, with nothing to hold the tie-bar in position, the blades are sitting in the mid-position.

 

 

Having got these fitted I decided that perhaps I would just go with using DPDT slider switches to move the blades via brass wire rods running in channels cut in the cork. Doing this would be easy and simple while the wiring needed would be minimal. I placed the switches I intended to use on the board to see if their position were feasible and then cut the holes needed to sink them into place.

 

 

Fitting one in and testing it by pushing the slider back and forth I was then reminded why I had changed to using  hacked servos on Priory Road and Tendring. With a very light baseboard, as my layouts are and Exchange Yard Sidings is in particular, the forces involved often tend to cause the baseboard to move, there not being the mass there is with heavier boards to resist these. So I am now thinking of using hacked servos if I can work out how to do so with this tie-bar design.

 

It was with this in mind that I then decided that in order to fiddle about with this idea I needed the pointwork laid properly in place. Looking at it afresh I then took the plunge and laid all the track built so far. Doing so by fixing down the track, still on the paper template, with wide double-sided tape. I thought it was worth trying out this method. Normally I would use white spirit/turps to soak off the paper template and then glue the track down. But with the plastic chairs on ply sleepers this can lead to sleepers, particularly the slide chair ones, coming away and needing re-fixing which can be awkward and troublesome to do. Leaving the track on the template solved that issue.

 

 

 

So I cut the paper around each piece of track, treating the pointwork as one unit. Then I laid each piece separately. I found it quite quick and easy to do. The result is all I could have hoped for. The track is down very firmly. Indeed so strong is the bond I doubt I could shift it even if I wanted. So I’m glad I made sure it all went down in the right place since the moment it hit the tape it was fixed in the position instantly. No messing around with pva of some kind and having weights on the track while it went off.

 

The electrical connections have now been made through the baseboard. Droppers added to the feeds provided with the pointwork. All these will get hidden/covered when the ballasting is done.

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the plain track can be added when I have more chairs to hand but for now I can try and work on fitting the hacked servos and getting them moving the point blades. I have no idea how to do this at present. I’m sure a plan will emerge as I make up the hacked units…..

 

Bob

 

[Izzy]

 

Hacked servos

 

As these posts are being made in near real time, a day or so after the actual construction, comments made don’t always reflect what actually happens next, but in the case of the servos did reflect reality.

 

When it came to making the servos up, (they had already been ‘hacked’ previously and just needed fitting into a unit with the DPDT switch), I discovered that it would be possible to make them so the servo (horn) arms – the double arm type - would sit in the hole cut for the slider switches and so could then drive brass wire/rods connected to the tie-bars in a similar manner to how I intended to do with the slider switches. Instead of ply I used thick plasticard as the unit basis.

 

 

The brass wire used was 0.7mm. This I felt was small enough to be bent to give the V shaped spring form to absorb the excess movement over that of the tie-bar without being too thin and ‘bendy’ over the length of the runs. An area of concern was that being bent or flexed too much can cause such hard brass rod to fracture at the area of greatest stress, the tight bend for the V.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moved by hand they seem okay and I hope it stays this way over the long term because once wired up and tested they will be covered over and access will not exist unless the covering, the ballast/scenery, is ripped off……

 

At the moment then it’s a case of so far so good….and Tamiya tape has been placed over the channels to prevent any debris accidentality falling into them and causing problems down the line by jamming things up.

 

 

Now it’s onto the wiring, a necessary job that I never find inviting.

 

Bob

 

 

 

[Izzy]

Testing.....testing.....

 

The wiring is now done. It didn't seem to take too long. Perhaps because of the small nature of the layout. So yet another advantage in favour of mini layouts. 

 

I started off with cutting a section out for the switch panel.

 

 

All this kind of work is quick and easy thanks to the baseboard construction. Just a few minutes work with a scalpel. Edges covered with mountboard and then the panel could be fitted. More mountboard.  just four SPDT. Three for the points, one to cut track power. I will add labels later, probably.

 

 

This little layout has benefits on so many levels. Really simple trackwork with no need of traps, point rodding, ground signals etc. Just a few hand levers to add scenically.

 

An underside view of the wiring.

 

 

My go-to Tamiya tape keeping the wiring in rough order with the Vellmann power supply to feed the hacked servos the just under 6 volts they need, (it's set at 5.65v according to my MM). It's set on the board by a cermet trimmer potentiometer. Trouble is these are hard to set to exactly the right voltage. The slightest twist of the screwdriver can alter the output value greatly. After 10mins I decided that figure would do. 

 

With the fiddle board I came to the conclusion the track feeds needed to be at the foot of it, but how to get it there? In the end I cut a slot on the bottom for the wires.

 

 

 

To energise the board/tracks I have chosen to use 0.9mm brass wire fingers that press on pads of PCB on it. The wire fingers are soldered onto more pcb held down in place with both PVA and more brass wire looped through the main baseboard and then soldered into the pcb pads. So as the fiddle is pushed into place electrical connection is made.

 

 

 

 

As it's all now done apart for the other tracks that are needed testing has now been taking place on the place it will mostly be used and was designed for, the workbench. The locos were those which will mainly be used, my blue era stock, which doesn't get as much use as other stock. 

 

 

 

This testing revealed a few tweaks that were needed to the crossings and blades to get smooth and reliable running. That I'm also learning how to use the 'phone throttle app with the Z21 added to the fun.

 

But one problem with this little chap was found.

 

 

Now it's the whole reason the layout has come into existence but it wasn't at all happy running on the track unlike all the other locos. Hm. Stuttering, looking like it was running over a ploughed field. Up and down, bouncing around. What the heck?

 

Pushing it by hand along a part where it just kept stalling revealed all. The flanges were bottoming on the inside chair jaws and the wheels lifted up off the rails. Mainly on the pointwork at the crossings and throught he closure rails. Oh dear. Why?

 

The truth is quite simple. The flanges are too deep. Between 0.65 -0.7mm. Whereas of course they should be 0.5mm. This is my fault, in the sense I should have checked this aspect when I re-machined them to thin the flanges. I thought I had, but I can't have otherwise it would have stood out. And of course running it on soldered track didn't reveal it because there are no inside chairs to catch........  Oh bother, and words to that effect.....! This means another strip down, re-machine, and re-build. However since I have toyed with the idea of trying the 2mm/2FS wheel route perhaps that will happen now, just a bit sooner than intended. 

 

But I'll get the layout up and running properly and completely first. To make sure there are no other issues that come to light that would impact this decision.

 

So it will be bufferstops and the other track next when the chairs are to hand. In the meantime I'm going to think through the scenic bits. A bridge, perhaps a hut of some kind, a few bushes. Anything else? Oh yes, the hand levers. What is that they say, the devil in in the details....

 

Bob

 

[Izzy]

 

Thinking about it overnight I decided this morning to deal with the Hunslet straight away. So this morning I dropped out the wheels and reduced the flanges to 0.5mm depth. 

 

While I was testing the loco on the layout after putting it back together it occurred to me that taking a video of the running quality might be a useful illustration of how good they are. As usual the actual video quality is wanting, I'm sorry about the frequent shakes etc. Once again this is trying to hold two phones at once, one in each hand! One to take the video, my iphone, and the android used as the throttle. 

 

 

A point to note is the sound is set at maximum. If you can't hear anything that just helps show the loco runs virtually silently, the only real sound is that of the wheels on the rail. 

 

Bob

[Izzy]

The Bridge

 

I have now made the bridge. This took two attempts as the first was a failure. As usual I made the main carcass out of mountboard. Normally I produce brick structures using a carcass covered in brickpaper, A4 ink-jet printed label sheets. I find this far easier than trying to glue ordinary brick paper sheets onto the mountboard. However I know a lot of modellers use embossed plasticard and I thought that I would give this a go. The sheet was Slaters of which I have several sheets bought way back but never used in anger before. The thickness of the sheet made me wonder how I was going to blend the corners and disguise the joints but at first it seemed to go okay. It stuck to the carcass well but then joints started pulling apart.

 

Deciding that perhaps this wasn’t going to work for me, or I needed to practice on something smaller to discover the best way to work with it I pulled all the sheets off the cascass. The idea I had was that I would just recover it with the brick paper but this didn’t work out. The act of pulling the plasticard off distorted it too much and broke it’s glued joints to a level that it couldn’t be saved.

 

So, with a mornings work down the drain I started again, this time using the brickpaper. I kept the design simple. Square arches with overlays of brick to disguise where the joins are and to give relief to the flatness. The rear has been made to allow access to the pcb pads and brass wire springs for the electrical connections just in case they need adjustment at any time. For the moment the bridge just slots down into place but will be fixed permanently once all the track is laid, is working, and had been ballasted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With regard to the track I am considering adding another siding. As I built the bridge, looked at the expanse of bare board at the front of the layout, and wondered what to do to fill it, the scenery etc. it occurred to me that another point and siding would fit in and might balance things as well as providing more visible siding storage.

 

 

Running through various shunting moves, how the layout will be operated, seems to confirm it could be a useful alteration to the plan. With plenty of parts to make the extra track and additional point, hacked servo, switch, the only downside is I will need to re-make the switch panel to add the extra switch. I would have liked to placed the point nearer the bridge to make the siding as long as possible but there isn’t the room for the servo to sit under the baseboard except between two others. Had I planned this from the start I could have placed them differently. But not now. Never mind.

 

Bob

 

[Caley Jim]

To glue plasticard to mountboard, try Easitrac glue.  It will securely glue plastic and paper to metal and plastic to wood and I've also used it to pre-coat plasticard before attaching printed brick/stone paper with Pritt.

 

Jim

[Izzy]

10 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

To glue plasticard to mountboard, try Easitrac glue.  It will securely glue plastic and paper to metal and plastic to wood and I've also used it to pre-coat plasticard before attaching printed brick/stone paper with Pritt.

 

Jim

Thanks Jim, I think I’ve got some Easitrac glue left somewhere, I’ll give that a go when I can. Always good to try different techniques to see how you get on with them. In the distant past I only ever used embossed plasticard then at some point switched to brick paper and just seem to have forgotten how I did it back then. 
 

Bob

[Izzy]

 

Finished – basically

 

With more chairs to hand I have now been able to complete the trackwork. They are now various shades of brown rather than black as before. I thought it might make them easier to see and handle but in practice it didn’t really make much difference.

 

The chairs come in a sprue and must thus be cut out of it. They come in packs of 12 sprues which have 1 checkrail chair, 2 slide chairs, and eight plain chairs in each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rather than have lots of sprues around with just odd unused chairs in them, which would also take up quite a bit of space, I have always cut all the chairs out and stored them in the plastic containers 35mm roll film used to come in, one tub for each chair type. It’s a boring job cutting them all out but saves time later on when building track.

 

 

To make fitting them on the rail as easy as possible I chamfer all the edges of the foot of the rail. Hold and push the rail into them and then use tweezers to push them along the rail

 

 

 

It’s important of course to get the chairs all the same way around, the inside jaws on the inside etc. This can often be tricky to see. The slide chairs come with an inside jaw that must be cut off, sliced off with a scalpel. This is so that if you want you can use them as plain chairs by cutting off the excess length as the number of slide chairs you might need could be far less than the number of plain chairs. Threading lots of chairs on rail is another quite tedious and repetitive job but one that brings the reward of the final look of the trackwork.

 

 

 

You might have seen that I mark where the different chairs go on the point templates so they get threaded on in the right order and correct numbers.

 

I have also made and fitted the bufferstops which are a mix of GC and LMS/BR designs and made from the excellent etches available from shop 1. The GC has a wooden beam the others rail built.

 

 

The idea was to try and make the layout as non-region specific as far as possible so it wouldn’t matter what stock was used. Mainly it will be BR blue era diesels not generally seen around East Anglia such as class 20 & 24 although it doesn’t matter in the wider sense as it’s just a little home layout cum test track. As with the rest of the track half chairs have been glued in place where functional chairs were not used, the bufferstops being soldered to the rail first and the half chairs fitted around them.

 

Having added in the extra siding I re-built the switch panel to suit. I’m pleased I made this alteration as it seems to make it look more like sets of sidings you often see in shots of them. There is a bit more balance to the overall scene and I am pleased with how it looks. As such the layout is finished in respect of being up and running. It has an overall length of 50” and width of 7”. The idea is that the fiddle board will sit in a recess in the layout cover for easy and simple storage in the minimum of space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next job will be to paint the track before laying the ballast. This will be done using black poster paint to represent the creosote new timbers were given. Weathering with airbrush and by hand will be undertaken once the (grey) ballast has fully dried out to try and represent the cement and coal dust that would undoubtedly be around the area.

 

As I’m not much good at scenery it might be a while before I finish the layout off scenic wise. At present I really don’t know how I might try and do it anyway, whether to add a low bank along the rear with a few taller bushes or just leave it at grass of different lengths with some boundary fencing alongside a few huts for various purposes. There will be a small grassy bank at the front, as you can sometimes see between main running lines and groups of sidings. I marvel at the effects others are able to achieve which mostly seem to elude me so I don’t want to rush it. That it is useable for it’s purpose of a workbench test track means it’s already serving one of it’s main aims so there is no hurry. I can also play trains with it as the exchange sidings and try and visualise how I want to finish it. Another aim is to be able to use it as a photo backdrop for locos and stock so I want to keep it fairly open.

 

 

Layout Cost

 

While I thought about all this it occurred to me that it might be an interesting exercise to try and estimate how much this little layout has cost to make. This is an aspect not often mentioned in layout builds but could help illustrate that trying your hand at something like this in 2mm/2FS needn’t cost the earth.

 

I say ‘has cost’ but in truth most of what I used I had to hand and only needed some more chairs to complete it. Of course all the bits were bought at some stage or were left overs from other projects so often costs are relative and hard to quantify. Therefore I’ve tried to cost it from the basis of having to buy in everything from scratch. The main basics anyway.

 

So:

 

The baseboard/fiddle were made using two sheets of A1 size mountboard and one of 5mm foamcore. Another A1 foamcore will probably be used in making the cover I shall give it. These sheets are currently around £3 each at the Range (mountboard) and Hobbycraft (foamcore). Add in a 250ml bottle of tacky glue, about £2.50. Total = £14.50.

 

With the visible track I used about 800 chairs so around - £16. Easitrac was used in the fiddle, about £10. 20×500mm lengths of code 40 bullhead are £15. A guestimate for the amount of 1/32” ply I used for cutting the sleepers comes out at around the £10 mark. The cork was one roll from a pack of 5 from eBay. Say another £10, it’s not cheap these days. 4 x bufferstops are £8.80. Total = £68.80

 

For the Electrics the hacked servos cost around £6 to produce, £2 each servo and switch, 1 x SPDT & 1 x DPDT. The Vellmann power supply/voltage regulator kit was £8. Wiring cost around £10. Total = £42

 

This gives a basic total of £125.30. Not too bad is it?

 

Building the track the way I have is very cost effective compared with using the available kits if perhaps a little more time consuming to produce and with not the same level of detail in regard to the chairs where the kits display the different types. However it was just as quick as making soldered track using etched chairplates, perhaps quicker. I’m pleased I have now found a way to build track this way in 2mm, plastic chairs on ply sleepers, that seems stable and secure when laid. While I have no plans to build another 2mm layout as it stands at the moment if I were to do so I think that this is the way the track would be made. I do wish I had discovered this method before making Priory Road. Whether I could have produced the single-slip and obtuse crossing in the same way is moot, but while PR’s soldered track looks okay I do often think it could be better, soldered track does rather look like, well, soldered track.

 

One cost I have not taken into account is jigs. I don’t use and have never used any in track making in any scale, all forming and planing/filing of crossing V’s/point blades being done by hand. If you had to buy these, and weren’t as plastic track adverse as I am then the kits would be far easier and cheaper. It’s all swings and roundabouts isn’t it?

 

Bob

 

[DLT]

Very interesting project.

[bazjones1711]

Nice looking project , an exchange sidings makes for an interesting layout , we have built a simular layout based on the sidings of BSC Bromford tube in 4 mm  ( virtually the same trackwork layout as you have  done ) 

Traffic is ingots in and tube loads outwards with a Sentinel 0-4-0 for tripping to the off stage works . Look forward to seeing updates.