Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.

[RedgateModels]

Wah hey! Here we go again....

 

Won't bore you with the details, but at last I'm free from pain after two years of suffering. Thanks to some high tech surgery, I am now up and running again and Eastwood 2 is now underway again. Will it ever end?.....

 

 

fantastic news Gordon, made my day

[ColinW]

Nothing on TV so attacked the A4 paper tray again and managed a complete print of this area that will sit over the stairs. With any luck I should get the carpentry complete by the weekend. Once bolted together I'm hoping the structure itself will bridge the stairwell, although there would be no problem in adding aditional supports off the back wall if they were needed.

 

Apologies if this appears self indulgent, but after all this time, it's just great to get started once again....

 

Good to see you back Gordon. By all means be self indulgent, because it will mean that we get to enjoy the results of your work

 

Colin

[Tom D]

Hi Gordon,

 

Glad to see you're back in the groove. I trust that the surgery was successful and that you have made a full recovery (based on your recent efforts, that does seem to be the case). Looking forward to the new Eastwood Town.

 

Best regards,

 

Tom D

[43078shildoncountydurham]

Hi Gordon

 

I too wish you well and it is great to see the layout/ work of art again. If you are ever in Darlington then it's my round...

 

Best wishes

Craig

[gordon s]

Evening all.....

 

Where on earth does the time go? I was fortunate enough to have retired three years ago and I have no idea where the days go. I have just spent a whole day laying this one board. Cutting the underlay to shape and then glueing the track in position with PVA. OK, I have worked in fits and starts as I have had to wait for the glue to set, but the number of hours of work involved in this single board approximately 6' long has staggered me.

 

How on earth you guys that are still working find the time to build layouts is beyond me. In fact had I still been working and realised just how many hours work would be required to build Eastwood, it would never have got off first base....

 

 

Of course it could be me and I may just be a slow worker...

 

These are the inner loops of the lower level that come from the return loop and extends across the stairwell. The junction will allow trains to travel up the 1:100 gradient to level 2 and from there to Eastwood Terminus. In actual fact the bulk of the difficult bits have now been completed at this level, so all that remains is to build and lay approximately 30' of plain quadruple track. Whilst I have faith in Templot ensuring both ends will meet, I'm now working in three dimensions with gradients and ensuring everything aligns to a datum level around an 18' square room will require a tripod and laser level. It's certainly the easiest way to allow for the slight slope in the floor, which can change gradients up or down depending on the severity of the floor slope.

 

All good fun!....

 

Hopefully the floor will be tidied up soon and I'll be able to get a much better pic of the completed work to date..

 

[Dan6470]

Hi Gordon,

 

Good to see work progressing. Hopefully you won't mind me asking a question.

 

With reference to the revised plan in a previous post, it seems that the inner two tracks of the quadruple track from the new junction goes up to Eastwood Town and the outer two tracks return to the turning circle. Are these to be used for storage or am I misunderstanding the diagram.

 

Dan

[gordon s]

Hi Dan, here's a simplified diagram of just the lower and mid levels. The lower in black and mid in red. I have left off Eastwood Town Terminus which will sit over the left hand side of the layout between the 2' and 5' measurement and will take up the full 18' vertically on the left of this plan. Access to the terminus starts from point A on the second level and carries around the outside of the plan until reaching ET terminus on the top left.

 

The whole idea will be to have four independent loops, each of which can take one or even two full length trains. If operating as a sole operator, the control will be from the terminus and could form an out and back layout from the terminus and down through the mid level to the lower. Here the reverse loop comes into play and you have the choice of returning back to the terminus or simply standing in the storage loops which have yet to be added to the plan. I'm hoping to fit at least four, each of which will take four trains. This is half the capacity of the traverser, but something had to go once I rasied the height of the boards overall.

 

I'm also reviewing the location of the loco shed. The one shown was a straight cut and paste from the earlier layout and I'm looking at alternatives now. At present it comes from level two and is some way from the terminus. I'm going to play around and see if I can take it from the terminus level. I'm quite keen to add some further interest to the parallel tracks on the right hand side of the plan. Whilst there are some gradients there, I'd like to add back some of the retaining wall element that figured so strongly in Eastwood 1 and include at least one overbridge as per Holloway Bank and Kings Cross.

 

Hope this all makes sense...

 

[Dan6470]

Hi Gordon

 

Thanks for getting back to me. I had a feeling that the lower loop was to feed storage tracks.

 

I'd like to add back some of the retaining wall element that figured so strongly in Eastwood 1 and include at least one overbridge as per Holloway Bank and Kings Cross.

 

Hope this all makes sense...

 

 

I've got to say that those retaining walls looked superb and with your step by step instructions appeared very easy to build. Keep up the good work.

 

Best regards

Dan

[10800]

Hi Gordon

 

Just catching up with this saga again, had no idea what you were going through the last few months, but great to see you back in action again.

 

Will be keeping tabs on Eastwood #2

[artizen]

Creativity can be a painful thing but the results are always worth it. This is looking every bit as good as Mk1 did and you have only laid some track yet! Keep up the great work. We are all watching (scary heh?).

[gordon s]

A few more days forward and progress is being made. The stairwell board is virtually finished and just requires ballasting and some legs formed to support the end which now curves 7' into the room.

 

Gradients have been the bugbear of my life and have caused me more concern than any other aspect of this glorious hobby of ours and judging by the number of times this is a topic on RMWeb, then clearly I am not alone. The one thing I have done in all these attempts is learn from my mistakes and I feel fairly confident I have cracked it at last. The final grade is up to you and dependant on your motive power (steam or diesel), style of train (10 coach express or three coach suburban) and the length available to you. I wanted the worst combination possible which was steam mainline (minimum of eight coaches) plus gradients on the curve as I am also limited for space. I had tried 1:50 before with mixed results, some of which were failures, nothing more, nothing less, so 1:100 was adopted as a minimum grade. With 70mm clearance and 12mm thickness of the trackbed, 1:100 would equal 8.2mm plus at least another metre (500mm each end) so something approaching 9.2m would be required to meet this goal. I have managed to do that in two of the three gradients and got to 1:80 in the third. I'm disappointed not to achieve that in all cases and of course the 1:100's have been rendered irrelevant by the 1:80, but I'm sure it will be OK.

 

Here's the start of the 1:80. I start with a whole trackbed and cut the incline out of the section. In this case it's about 750mm and the rise is 9mm. The transition area is 500mm and extends back to make a very smooth and easy transition from the horizontal. I suspect I will use stone walls to separate the pair of tracks as the height increases. The inner track of the inclined pair will have a solid state reverse module from DCC Specialities. Geoff (G.M.R) very kindly worked out a polarity diagram for the whole lower level which means there is only one track that requires a reverse module.

 

 

Turning to look the other way, all the tracks are wired and painted and just need ballasting. You may be confused by this statement as quite clearly the pointwork has been ballasted and finished. This is quirk of my build process. Ballasting has been a nightmare for me, but now holds no fear. I have covered my process earlier in the Eastwood thread so if you skip back to the middle of this tome, you will find pics and text of what appears at first sight a long winded ballasting process. The results are really pleasing and require no rework so the time is really on a par with other methods. Pointwork has always been the exception to that rule and the only way I could find to do the ballasting to a good standard was to cut the pointwork to fit properly, temporarily wire it up, paint all the pointwork and then lift the pointwork away, but leaving the adjoining track in place. Once lifted I would spread PVA all over the pointwork outline on the base and then sit the finished turnout into the wet PVA and once satified all is OK, sprinkle N gauge ballast over the turnout such that it is now glued into the PVA. Once dry, hoover up the excess ballast and that's it, job done.

 

 

 

So that just leaves the plain track to ballast, a job that will greet me tomorrow, Some new legs to build and that is the most complex of the lower level boards completed.

 

So far, so good. It's all gone together reasonably well and things are starting to look like the drawings, so that's a good starting point....

[eldavo]

Lovely sweeping curves Gordon. Always have liked a nice curve.

 

 

 

Psst! Don't forget to fill those sleeper gaps.

 

Cheers

Dave

[mikemeg]

I don't tend to read very many of the layout threads - too many modern image layouts for a 'died in the wool' steam man like me - but yours is an exception. I love those long sweeping curves and the turnouts fabricated on the curves. Yep, this one is very definitely mandatory reading for me - and very many others, I would suspect.

 

Many thanks for an inspirational layout and thread.

 

Regards

 

Mike

[Tom D]

Hi Gordon,

 

As always your work is 1st class and truly inspirational, always looking forward to the next installment. I had problems with 1:80 gradients around curves (mainly starting after unforseen stoppage) so where possible I had to increase the gradient on the straight sections and ease the gradients on the curves (minimum 30" radius). Have you found the same?

 

Best regards,

 

Tom D

[Robert McGee]

Hi,

 

I've just seen your thread for the first time. Well, what can I say, it's awesome. I particularly like the opperating ability you have accomplished from it and also the use of mixed levels that actually interact and not just 2 set levels.

 

When you have the first module done, and there is a part that can be run, Where would you opperate the layout from? I'm sorry if I've missed something.

 

Has anymore progress been done in the past 2 weeks?

 

 

Cheers, Robert M

[gordon s]

A few pics just to show progress is being made. The last few weeks have seen a whole string of problems with health and employment amongst our friends and family, so genuine activity has been difficult, but some has been made. The stairwell board is complete and this afternoon saw my wife and I heaving it up and over the stairs. Thankfully it is not heavy, but the length and asymetric shape makes it hard to lift and carry as it is continually trying to turn and twist in line with the centre of gravity. The V section that is made out of 4" x 1" is a temporary fixture pulling the two boards flat and level as they cross the bannister rail. They will eventually be removed but have proved useful holding everything in alignment whilst bolting up.

 

Once bolted in place, the track base is fixed solid and so it's just a case of hooking up the main bus that takes power to all boards. Each board has its own sub bus and household light switches are used to isolate each main board. This will enable easy fault finding and will allow the rest of the layout to run whilst the fault is found and repaired.

 

It's taken a while but I am getting there. All that remains for this level now is about 16' of plain double track to connect both ends. These should be reasonably straightforward to fabricate and complete the first loop. Sorry there is not a huge amount to see, but I know some of you are following this never ending story. The main advantage for me is these small updates at least put a record down of what has been done and some dates. It certainly keeps me going and brings me back in line once I've wandered off track....

 

 

 

[45156]

Thanks for the update, Gordon. It's great to see your work again after the enforced break. Your trackwork is tremendous, those lovely sweeping curves and the curved turnouts are really what most of us aspire to, but never achieve - mainly due to lack of space and skill - both of which you seem to have in bucketloads.

 

Sometime, I must get meself an invite to see this work in progress in the hope that it galvanises me into getting some work done!

 

Looking good, mate - keep it up.

Stewart

[PhilH]

Looking good Gordon, glad to see some further progress.

 

 

You are hereby banned from any more false starts, change of plans and anything else that involves skips or tips.

[Kenton]

Really excellent progress. I think in some previous life your name was Chippendale - the way all the woodwork just seems to slot perfectly together - master craftsman.

[sixoh8sixoh]

Hear hear! Good to see you back on track!

[amdaley]

Thats really great work.I admire your skill in both woodwork & track making.

[Fordy_SVMRC]

Just spent two hours reading through the whole topic, fantastic story and great layout. Just returned to the hobby after a three year break because of baby daughter.

[trisonic]

Keep it up, Gordon! Splendid work after trying circumstances.

Look forward to seeing more.

 

Best, Pete.

[DonBradley]

I'm extremely happy to see work on ET resume and once again congratulate you of the superb craftmanship displayed.

[Grimleygrid]

Fantastic as always Gordon. Glad to hear that your health problems seem to have been resolved and that you are now back modelling again.

 

Your track work and points are just fantastic and at a level to which I could only dream of achieving. The flowing curves and points are truly stunning and after ballasting just look the bees knees…..modelling at its finest.