High Offley (formerly Exchange Sidings)

[AndrewF]

Nick and I have been quite busy with more work on High Offley over the last few weeks.

Now the summer's over I have been concentrating on the most complex bit of track work, the double outside slip at the southern end of the platform. It took me some time to create the template for this in Templot and has taken even longer to pluck up the courage to start to build it!

I've built it by soldering the rail directly to copper-clad as there were, to my mind, too many small pieces of rail in order to use plastic chairs and ply sleepers like the rest of the layout. Using this method certainly made it easy for me to make little tweaks to the track as I was working on it and trying out each section with some rolling stock. Once complete I'll add some cosmetic chairs and Nick assures me that he will be able to disguise it to blend in with the rest of the layout.

 

So, here's a look at the progress so far.

I've attached the slip to a large board to make it easier to test it. It has been wired and split into electrical sections so that I can try running an engine through.

 

Here's a close up view of the centre section. The middle 2 rails are the running rails for the outside slips and are isolated from the rest of the track. The wiring is as simple as possible at the moment so that it is easy to test.

At our club meeting last night I was trying to get this all working but kept getting a fault when following one particular route but not when using another which involved the same section of track but with the polarity reversed. There wasn't a short and all the individual wire sections checked out OK for continuity. But checking the voltage at the section showed a very low value. Our colleague Mike spotted that it must be the switch and so it was. A brand new switch worked fine when thrown one way but had a fault when thrown the other. Jamming a screw driver blade between the terminals fixed it!

 

So, we finished the night with an engine running back and forth on all routes. Here's a short video of it going through one of them.

 

 

 

Still quite a bit to do on getting it running smoothly and cleaning it up but I'm really quite pleased, not to say relived, that it is actually working.

 

Andrew.

Edited October 23, 2014 by AndrewF

[nickwood]

I would just like to add that it is a mightily impressive piece of trackwork that Andrew has produced, particularly when you consider that up until tackling the double slip he had only ever built 3 (or is it 4?) points and some straightish track before that.

[nickwood]

Andrew isn't the only one who has managed to get his backside back into gear on this project. I've been making some progress with the bridge last seen on posts 18 & 23. All the component parts have been completed, primed and base coat of paint applied.

 

 

A dry run assembly gives some idea what it will look like.

 

 

 

 

The painting and weathering will take place at home away from the club whilst Andrew gets on with the track. My next job will be to butcher the baseboards to try and reduce the weight a bit as they are rather too heavy.

Edited October 25, 2014 by nickwood

[Ramblin Rich]

That's a great looking bridge, properly engineered! Are you intending to mount the track along the longitudinal girders?

[nickwood]

That's a great looking bridge, properly engineered! Are you intending to mount the track along the longitudinal girders?

 

No 'fraid not. The track will be laid on the ply track bed.

[Ramblin Rich]

It will still look good from a low angle, looking up....

[d winpenny]

That bridge is brilliant

 

David

[nickwood]

It will still look good from a low angle, looking up....

 

Thanks Rich, that is the idea. We decided that because it will be such a feature and the layout will be set at a height of almost 4 ft then the underside would need some detail.

 

That bridge is brilliant

 

David

 

Thanks David.

Edited October 26, 2014 by nickwood

[AndrewF]

It's been quite a while since the last update but we haven't been idle. I've been working on the track panels for board 2 and last week we started to fix them in position.

 

Here you can see the panels being fitted and lined up so that they match the track layout on the next board.

 

 

Because we do not have our own club rooms but meet in the village hall these layout boards have to come apart at the end of each club night. This makes it a bit awkward to build the track, especially over the board joints, so what I do is make the track to cross the joint using copper clad strips for the 2 sleepers either side of the joint. Then, when the panel is finally fitted and stuck down, the track is cut in line with the joint. In the above picture you can see the track finishes short of the board joint. I will make the panels on the next board to cross the joint and meet the track we have just fixed down.

 

Below is the view through the double slip and on to the last board.

 

 

The end of the near board, where the cross-over is, is where Nick's bridge is going. You may be able to see in the top picture that the front of the layout (left hand side in this view) is much lower than the track level. That is the road level for the under bridge so from the front you will be able to see through the bridge and look at all the detailed work Nick has done to make it look so realistic. (See Nick's earlier post, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/77373-high-offley-formerly-exchange-sidings/page-2&do=findComment&comment=1638369).

 

We now just have the track on the last board to do and a bit at the other end of the layout where the exchange sidings are. Our plan is for me to make a start on the last board this week and Nick will start on the exchange sidings.

We hope to have some regular updates as things move along.

 

Andrew.

Edited June 3, 2015 by AndrewF

[AndrewF]

Last week was a milestone in our build process, we now have all the track laid across all four scenic boards.

 

 

It's taken quite a while to get here but we can now see some definate progress towards a running layout.

 

The next stage is to get an inital electrical supply to all the track parts and motorise the turnouts. Then we can actually have some engines running! (Can't wait).

 

Andrew

[Mick Bonwick]

Just caught up with this project via a link from the club's website. I think it's a very ambitious plan, but is obviously being very well progressed. This last illustration shows just how convincing a trackplan can be when properly thought out and executed. Once the scenery has been designed and executed to the same standard, you'll have a top-class exhibition layout that will be in great demand.

[AndrewF]

Last weekend we showed High Offley at the Andover MRC's exhibition and got lots of interest. Even though it's just bare boards many people were asking questions about how they are constructed and how the trackwork was made.

 

 

This is only the second time we have had all 4 boards together.

 

As I mentioned before, the next step is to get some initial wiring done and power to all the track sections. We want to use the MERG CBUS system to control the layout and here you can see some of the section control relays being wired up. This was the state when we started the exhibition on the Saturday morning. Between talking to the many people who showed an interest in the layout I managed to link up power to some of the other section droppers. Not as neet as this, more a sort of black and red spaghetti

 

However, by the end of Sunday we did have something running.

 

 

The first engine to do a full length run of High Offley.

 

Andrew

[Indomitable026]

Last week was a milestone in our build process, we now have all the track laid across all four scenic boards.

 

FullLength1.png

 

It's taken quite a while to get here but we can now see some definate progress towards a running layout.

 

The next stage is to get an inital electrical supply to all the track parts and motorise the turnouts. Then we can actually have some engines running! (Can't wait).

 

Andrew

Very nice