Whitedown Junction

[dave55uk]

Thought I'd post up a little bit of info about the new layout I'm building - Whitedown Road.

 

The layout is to be set anywhere within the BR blue and BR sectorisation timeframe, thus allowing me freedom to use basically what stock I like. However, I am most certainly not a purist, so more modern stock may well do a backward time-warp.

 

Firstly, the layout is being built in a modular fashion, something I've not tried before.

It will be a roundy-roundy with a small, non-important station and junction on one side, with the fiddleyard on the other side.

Operator(s) will (normally) stand in the middle. Unfortunately, due to its size (something between 16 and 20 feet long by 8 feet wide), it will never be erected in my much-too-small flat. Hence, baseboards are being built from 6mm ply for lightness. Maybe the layout will, in time, get invited out and having it in manageable sections will facilitate me carrying it down (and back up) four flights of stairs.

The layout will be DCC controlled, using a Lenz 100 setup and two Roco route controllers for individual point operation and route setting.

 

The station is situated somewhere between London and Brighton, but is not located in the small town it purports to serve, the town being about two miles away. Hence the 'Road' in the layouts name. It is not on the main line but on more of a secondary line (with exceptions, as you will see). The Great Western and Midland Joint Railway (!) (GW&MJR) built a line down from somewhere on the Western mainline, joining the Southern metals just outside Whitedown Road station, and with running powers, were thus able to reach the south coast ports.

 

Traffic on the 'main' third rail lines is predominately operated by the rather nice EMU's from Bachmann and Hornby. Some 'Brighton Belle' services are also routed this way, this route being only a few minutes longer than the direct route via Gatwick Airport. A few NSE loco-hauled services will also run this way too. Most of these services will not call at Whitedown Road - it's not big enough nor important enough for that - but some of the semi-fast services will call, to connect into the local services (operated by 2-car EMUs) and the local cross-country services on the joint line, which will be operated by anything from 1st generation DMUs up to 156s and 158s etc.

The bulk of the traffic though will be freight, of all descriptions, going to or from the south coast ports mainly via the joint line.

There will also be the Inter-City services, running from the coast up to Birmingham/Manchester and maybe even a place or two on the Eastern (I've got to find a reason to use my 55s!).

 

Most of the area is controlled by colour light signals operated by Whitedown Road signal box, which has been converted to a small panel from the original lever frame, However, on the joint line, there remains a small manual box overseeing the joint line side of the junction, points and signals being 'slotted' by/with the Whitedown Road panel. I was going to attempt to build some (non-working) signal wires and point rodding until I saw recently that Wills (I think) are thinking of making some. I'll wait a bit :-)

 

The station will have two through platforms on the 'main' and a bay platform for the terminating D&EMUs, with a small yard adjacent. Originally your usual run-of-the-mill goods yard, this has since been taken over by the Civil Engineers as a handy place to organise some of their ballast trains, thus enabling me to partake of a little bit of shunting now and again.

 

Three baseboards have been constructed at the moment - the up side scenic one that leads, via tunnels, into the fiddle yard. This, whilst not yet complete, is getting there. The second board, 'The Junction', is almost there too, whilst the third board, part of 'The Station', only has its track laid - although it has now been ballasted. I should mention that the main lines through the station, and on the curve into the tunnels on the first baseboard, are all canted for faster running. The fourth baseboard will be the bulk of the station and this is currently being planned.

 

And there, in a slightly larger than normal nutshell, you have it.

 

[This layout is also over on the DEMU forum - and my apologies if any DEMU member reads this here and yawns. The photos I've taken so far are of a rather dubious quality, having been taken by my mobile phone. I will attempt to take some with my proper camera and post them them here for your perusal].

Edited October 24, 2021 by dave55uk

[dave55uk]

Here is the track plan for the junction and station areas.

The scenic board is off to the right as you view the plan.

As this only has two sets of double track curving into tunnels, I have not drawn these.

(The yellow lines indicate the limit of each baseboard - so obviously the plan is not to scale).

Edited March 4, 2013 by dave55uk

[Andrew P]

Good start Dave, I will keep watching this one,

 

Andy

[dave55uk]

Herewith four pictures of the scenic board, taken just a few minutes ago.

Obviously it's not finished.

(Pictures are all 20% of the original - don't know how big I can post them on this forum)

 

First picture. At the bottom is the join onto the junction board. The two cross-country lines are on the left, with the third rail electrified lines on the right. These all curve round and bury themselves in tunnels. Note the cross-country lines have separate bores. Crossing just in front of the tunnel mouths are the remains of a long ago abandoned line. Under the girder bridge, on the extreme right, you can also see the old trackbed rising up that used to connect with the abandoned line, the stump of this line you will see still in use as a siding on the junction board.

 

Second, third and fourth pictures are all different views of the same.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2013 by dave55uk

[dave55uk]

Three pictures of the junction board - again not finished and taken just a few minutes ago.

 

I'll describe what we see here as in the third picture.

On the extreme left, we have a couple of low relief industrial buildings (you can probably guess their provenance) with an area of (what will be) concrete hardstanding. The siding is the aforementioned stump of the disused line under the girder bridge.

At the bottom is the join onto the scenic board (post above) with the electrified lines on the left, and the cross-country lines on the right.

There is a 'new' connection from the CC lines to the main lines sweeping across just behind the electric substation.

Disappearing under the road bridge on the right is the up/down branch with the goods line on the righthand side - not separate up and down lines. (refer to track plan in a post above if that's not clear).

 

One thing to note is that the road overbridge - scratchbuilt with some Wills bridge bits) is on the skew.

This was built purposely like this to hide the baseboard join. The bridge actually 'locks in' to pieces of wood screwed to the baseboard, so that when the two boards are together, with the bridge in place, they cannot separate.

 

Again, still work to be done on this board.

 

Edited March 8, 2013 by dave55uk

[marc smith]

Hi there Dave,
You seem to have made good progress on this
Looking good
Keep us posted

Marc

[Oldddudders]

Coming along very nicely. As far as pics are concerned, try the Image Editor at the top of every RMweb page. You should try to get your images below 2MB, but in practice I find half that size is more than adequate on here.

[dave55uk]

Finally for now, the current state of the station board.

 

(Description based on the first photo).

 

In the background we can see the pub next to the bridge on the skew.

Tracks underneath the bridge, left to right, are: Goods line, Up/Down branch, Up main and Down main - the latter two fitted with third rail.

The signal box, whilst not a Southern type (as I understand) still looks Southern-ISH to me, and that will suffice.

Trains coming off the cross-country route taking the new connection will pass under the bridge on the up main before taking the crossover onto the down main in front of the 'box.

There's a bit of disused platform here, the down platform having been cut back to 4 car length a while ago.

(The white areas to the bottom right are what will be the platforms).

The left hand platform will be the bay for terminating d/emu's.

The pointwork to the bottom left will be the goods line and entrance to the (Engineers) yard.

 

The brown area centre left is going to be filled with 'something'.

The idea I have is to have several identical sub-baseboards here, each carrying a different theme - for want of a better word.

One will have a couple of modern houses, one will have an Engineers/S&T building, another a construction site, maybe another a school or chapel, and who knows what else. The idea behind this is that I can swap the modules about thus making the layout a little bit different each time.

 

(I was also going to do this on top of the hill on the scenic board but decided not to in the end).

Edited March 8, 2013 by dave55uk

[Marcus-Jay]

Hmm... :-)

[dave55uk]

Well. There's been a few changes since I last posted here.

Firstly, the size of the layout was getting out of hand, so I stopped building...

...until a friend (Alan Clegg) suggested we re-start it as a possible exhibition layout.

Then Marcus (yes! That smiley face immediately above) came on board along with another fine gentleman by the name of Mark.

 

So we continued to build Whitedown Junction - notice the name change.

The track plan got altered slightly too, but more importantly, the layout started to grow!

(I blame Marcus for this but it's not really all his fault).

 

I bought a couple of 6 foot Nelevators (soon to be delivered as I write this) for the fiddle yard,

and Marcus has virtually built the whole fiddle yard himself. The size of the layout is now something

like 20 foot x 20 foot, with the scenic part all along the front. The two sides are the entrances to the

fiddle yard, each side hosting a 'Nelly'. Then the fiddle yard itself, 8 roads I believe, is along the back.

 

Between the junction and the station, we have a new 6 foot section containing (what will be) a splendid

bridge carrying the SR main lines and an equally impressive viaduct carrying the WR lines.

Marcus is building this board in it's entirety, although I have now laid the track.

There is another smaller 2 foot board that carries a crossover on each set of lines just before the station,

which, incidentally, now has a fourth platform, mainly for WR services.

 

Mark is scratch building us an absolutely stunning station building, complete with footbridge, steps and canopies.

 

Marcus is also (he's a busy chappie LOL) re-wiring the layout from my original 'bodge-it/anything goes' approach.

Not only that, but he's planning (along with my signalling help) the signalling system.

We are aiming to have one operator (nominally me) being the signalman with the other operators driving accordingly.

 

For pictures of how we're doing so far, may I direct you to Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/WhitedownJn/ ).

If you'd like to follow us, then you'd be more than welcome, and if you're anywhere near Ely (where I and the layout are based),

then similarly feel free to come and have a look or give us a hand!

Edited May 9, 2017 by dave55uk

[Marcus-Jay]

So things moved on a bit and now we're had another get-together and layout building session. Still far too early to advertise ourselves on the exhibition circuit, but we are making some positives steps towards that goal.

Since this was only the second time the entire layout has been assembled there were a number of items on the snagging list to be fixed from the last meet and quite a number of items added to that list.  Mainly track alignment problems. However, we do seem to have some issues with the third rail and Co-Co locomotives.

There is still plenty of scenic work to be done but that is done on a per board/pair board basis without the need for the entire layout to be set up. And since I spent a lot of the time doing I didn't get a chance to make as much media as I'd have liked. But here are some pictures:

The MPV stables in the engineers' sidings:


55002 Crosses from the Western Region to the southern region at Whitedown Junction with a charter working:


The MPV crosses the Southern Region viaduct:


60042 powers a rake of Seacow ballast wagons out of the tunnels along the Southern. The branch to Ringburn can be seen heading off behind:


The MPV heads away from Whitedown passing the SR power sub station:


Whilst still (obviously) a detailing work in progress 55002 pauses for the junction to Whitedown. This is one of Legomanbiffo/Merlin DCC's SPECTACULAR Atomic Deltic conversions, a true board wobbler  ;D


There are also a few videos available on the Whitedown Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzY1peH0HgdxjTqVl6njgw including the first exit of a train from Elmer, one of our Nelevators!:

 

Hope you like the look of things, Whitedown junciton is a DCC controlled layout based on 70s/80s stock, but we do have a range of #Rule1 up to date stock. Size wise we clock in at 7m 25 wide and 5m 25 deep. Any questions please ask.

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Marcus-Jay
reinstating pictures

[Marcus-Jay]

Not a lot of updates recently as I tend to spend time with a soldering iron in hand rather than a camera!
 
However, we have now nearly completed the station building:



It's all coming along nicely and hopefully at our meeting at the end of April we can run some trains and I can make some more media.

[Marcus-Jay]

Thought I'd post a few updated images. Just to show we have been working on the layout.

 

The bespoke station buildings

 

68003 on a route learner through the stations' reversible lines.

 

 

As always with a layout, it is not all playing trains. Here Nik adjusts the board joins coming off the stations cant'd track

 

An overview of the station approach

 

 

20168 on some 'rule#1' shunting moves through the station

 

Lots of progress has been made since these images were taken. We are hoping to have Whitedown Junction out on the exhibition circuit  in the last quarter of this year or early next year, So watch this space.

[saxokid]

On ‎08‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 08:33, Marcus-Jay said:

Thought I'd post a few updated images. Just to show we have been working on the layout.

 

The bespoke station buildings

 

68003 on a route learner through the stations' reversible lines.

 

 

As always with a layout, it is not all playing trains. Here Nik adjusts the board joins coming off the stations cant'd track

 

An overview of the station approach

 

 

20168 on some 'rule#1' shunting moves through the station

 

Lots of progress has been made since these images were taken. We are hoping to have Whitedown Junction out on the exhibition circuit  in the last quarter of this year or early next year, So watch this space.

Great work here,this is my kind of stuff..

[dave55uk]

Well. It's been a long time since anything was done to the layout - thanks of course to Covid.

But we're planning another get-together (23rd October 2021) and get the layout up again. 

It's been stored all this time in my shed, so a bit (!) of fettling will undoubtably be called for.

 

More news and hopefully pictures soon.........

[dave55uk]

Well, yesterday was a success! Despite being stuck in my shed untouched for the last 18 months, the layout all went together very well - no warping etc., which was very good news.

After cleaning the track and fixing a couple of loose wires, we managed to run a couple of trains. (We didn't actually take much stock as we didn't expect to run at all).

 

The current diagram...

(Higher res version added below this post)

 

And a few views of the scenic side. These were taken before the fiddle yard was set up but that's pretty boring anyway.

 

The station area...

 

 

What is affectionately known as "Bludy Junction" (in-house joke)

 

 

 

Whitedown Junction itself...

 

 

 

A view back along the SR lines towards the station...

 

 

And finally, the tunnel area...

 

 

 

As can be seen, not only did we not take any stock, we also didn't bother to take any of the removable buildings with us.

 

 

A couple of points didn't want to play, whether that's the points or the DCC system playing up, we'll see next time (November 20th), as that will be the 'fixing things' meeting.

After that (probably in January) we aim to have a full running day, which should be fun. As well as having DCC controllers, our whizzkids have installed a

Raspberry Pi so that control can be done from mobile phones.

Edited October 24, 2021 by dave55uk

[dave55uk]

A higher res diagram of the trackplan.

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by dave55uk

[dave55uk]

A few notes on the trackplan.

 

The Ringburn branch. This is a 14 feet single track layout owned by Marcus. It will have a small terminus at the furthest end,

and will be served by DMUs - Thumpers (SR services) and 1st and 2nd generation DMUs (WR services).

The current 'pink bit' on the diagram will be removed when Ringburn finally gets attached.

 

SR services to/from London will enter/leave the layout at K1/K2 and to/from 'the coast' will enter/leave at K9/K10.

Terminating local services from the London direction will use platforms 4 or 2.

Note platform 4 has a signal (113) for originating local trains towards London.

 

WR services (from the North or West) will enter/leave at K3/K4.

Through services to 'the coast' will traverse the junction at Whitedown Jn itself and then use the SR lines.

Through services from 'the coast' will enter at K9, run through platform 3 then use the crossovers to get onto the WR lines.

Local WR services will use the WR lines throughout, and use platforms 1 or 2.

 

Most freight trains will use the Up & Down goods lines to bypass the platforms (there is a yard somewhere further along the WR lines).

 

The short down sidings at WDJ station will be used for engineers stuff or the odd loco.

The short siding on the SR down line at Whitedown Jn is an industry - we haven't decided just what industry yet.

 

Clegg Lane sidings will be used to store the local WR DMUs.

 

And although the plan shows two 'Nellys', in actual fact there will now only be one, and again we haven't decided which end to put it.

It may end up in the middle-ish of the fiddle yard.

 

Along the front (viewing) side of the layout there will be an approximately 1 foot wide scenic board.

To the rear (of the scenic section) we plan to have a 3 or 4 foot wide scenic board.

 

 

 

Operationally, we will have a signalman (me, LOL), one or two fiddle yard operators (who will also operate the Nelly),

plus 4-5-6 ? actual train drivers. Drivers will NOT operate points and signals!

 

Anyone in the local Ely area (and anyone further afield if you don't mind driving) are welcome to come and join us.

Get in touch if you're interested.

Edited October 24, 2021 by dave55uk

[ess1uk]

looks great

[Marcus-Jay]

Another day getting on with layout snagging yesterday. We decided not to set up the entire layout and concentrate on making sure that boards were operating correctly. Without having the layout set up we can easily tip boards on their sides for diagnostics or repairs. Our first problem to solve was a number of points not throwing. Either at all or in just one direction.

 

 

Whitedown is currently based around a Lenz DCC system and we use LS150 modules to control the points on each board. We were finding that a few points were not programmed correctly, quickly fixed. A few were thrown the wrong way, which was sorted by swapping of wires on the LS150. But we had a problem with a single point only throwing in one direction. Initially, we could throw one way then back, but after the initial throw, we would lose one direction. Swapping of wires did not stop the problem, reprogramming didn't help, so eventually, we replaced the Peco solenoid motor and everything worked.

 

 

Another problem was the loco sidings by the station were not getting power. A broken jumper wire was traced to be the cause of the complete siding problem, but we were still getting no power to the point. Eventually, we discovered the point was being back-fed by the siding track. A bizarre problem that fixed another problem. However, once we fixed the siding the point lost power so we added a new set of droppers to the point and everything works as it should. With this all done we put the station and throat boards together, quick and dirty joining on a tabletop, just to make sure all of the electricals worked after the siding rewire. It did.

 

Then finally we checked one of the juction boards, pictured below , and a couple of the points had to be reversed so they threw the right way.

 

We are having a month off for Xmas, but we should be getting together again in January for another session of maintenance and checking. But we hope that in February we will be good for a full running session.