Virney Junction - Scenery ongoing

[Ray H]

 

And here's the result of Experiment 3a. On reflection I should possibly have taken two further pictures, looking at the clearance on either side of the opening.

 

I wouldn't normally lean that far over the layout such that the (more than) double track opening width opens up a large vista of the fiddle yard beyond the backscene and I know that I could block out the road side of the opening at the backscene, but having been largely in favour of the dual use of the widened opening originally I'm now feeling less inclined towards it and think the separate roadway opening close by - see experiment 2 above - is probably the better bet.

 

I shall sleep on it overnight (at least) assuming that I sleep better tonight than I did last night - which wasn't for long!

[Andrew P]

Morning Ray, Experiment 2 is spot on mate, just my honest opinion.

[Ray H]

The bridge above has not progressed far as I've been pre-occupied with assembling some MERG kits for the club layouts and for a friend.

 

I've also been experimenting with Kadee couplings which I've gradually been fitting to the wagon fleet and to a couple of locos.

 

It had been my intention to fit some more couplings over the Easter weekend having topped up my supplies. However, I went into the garage with the best intentions but for some reason my attention was drawn to the (as then) rail over road bridge which at that time comprised nothing more than the plywood track bed with track atop spanning the gap.

 

By the end of Sunday there was something a little more substantial there and I returned to the Kadee couplings.

 

 

 

A few days earlier I'd given the surface of both platforms a coat of grey emulsion and today I exhausted my latest supply of Kadee couplings for the wagons - there's 94 in total to convert and more couplings are on order - and have made a start on tagging the Kadee fitted wagons so that I can experiment with a system that I hope will give some purpose to wagon movements.

 

More details about the system in due course (if it works!).

[Ray H]

My most recent order of Kadee couplings hadn't arrived at my nearby store by yesterday, so today's trip into the garage should have encompassed the assembly of a number of MERG kits to replace the Tam Valley servo controllers and NCE mini panels that I'm currently using.

 

However, I thought I'd spend a little while advancing the bridge that I started a few days ago especially as the weather was nice so I could spray primer on the bridge "steelwork" out in the garden. Not content with that I opted to apply Scalescenes engineering blue brick printed paper to the bridge supporting structure.

 

This is the result.

 

 

I need to backfill the ground behind the abutments and weather the bridge "steelwork". I also need to do something about the un-made-up road sections as well.

[Andrew P]

Looking very good there Ray, the Bridge is very effective, and the Railings are superb.

[Ray H]

I've spent several hours spread over a number of days recently replacing slim line hook & loop couplings with their Kadee cousins.

 

There's a separate thread about Kadees in general and that has proved very useful.

 

One of the conversions has seen the larger tension lock couplings supplied with the Dapol suburban coaches replaced. The outer ends of the three coach set have had Kadees fitted. The couplings within the set have been replaced with a 34mm long plasticard strip that has had holes drilled in either end and then part of the border of the hole removed so that the end of the strip emulates the rear of the tension lock coupling. In that way the rake is semi-permanently coupled but will pull apart of needs be. This has saved a few Kadees and also allows the two coaches to be that much closer together.

 

 

One of these days I shall paint the Plasticard strip black.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Ray H

[Ray H]

I have now fitted Kadee couplings to everything on the layout plus a some of the stock in the drawer (and I have a stock of couplings to complete the job). The local model shop were no doubt pleased to have the business given that I used over 100 pair of couplings!

 

I've even managed to fit a (Digitrains supplied) Zimo decoder to the Heljan Park Royal railbus that has been in its box since I bought it late last year. I just need to find a way to let the sound out of the compartment because the body is almost an air tight fit on the chassis.

 

I've been working on a scheme for wagon movements which was the subject of a separate thread. However, I think that I shall relate the current (and hopefully final) version here once I've carried out a few more tests - several tests have been carried out over the past few weeks resulting in some tweaking of the scheme (and reasons why there's little other advancement on the layout).

 

Finally, the bridge in post 326 above may not be the final design. I originally had thoughts about the access to the goods yard being at the other end of the station, along a "track" that ultimately joined the road before it passed under the railway bridge seen a couple of posts back.

 

My thoughts have returned to that idea but I would need to make some changes to the baseboard to achieve it. I shall investigate this further in due course.

[Ray H]

 

This is the inside corner of the layout where I'm contemplating the (road) track between road - seen top left - and the goods yard - off picture bottom right - will go at the junction station. The track needs to cut across the open i.e. currently not existent ground. I don't have a problem adding an infill piece with a curved inner edge nearest the camera. My difficulty is that there are three servos and associated frog polarity switching micro-switches on the front face of the right hand board - shown right of top centre with their plywood covering in place. I need to devise a way to cover them but make that cover removable in case I need to tweak either servo or, more usually, the micro switch. I also need to retain access to the wiring along the faces of both baseboards.

 

I think I can route the track on the camera side of the servos rather than over them so I just need to come up with some form of ground work to cover the servos that doesn't look as though it is a removable cover for something with highly visible joins all round.

 

Elsewhere I have managed to fit an external (modified) sugar cube speaker to the Heljan railbus in between contemplating the above as well as fitting a surface-mounted servo to the recently installed fiddle yard point at the Banbury end of the layout.

 

The next challenge is to assemble some MERG kits to replace the Tam Depot/NCE mini-panel installation that currently controls the points. Unfortunately the mini-panels require too many inputs to work with On-Off style switches as they designed to work with push buttons. I'd struggle to accommodate the two more mini-panels (and the decoder boards for the signals) that I'd need to add when I install the signals hence the change to a MERG CBus based installation.

[Brian D]

Good progress Ray.  I love to see your pictures as the layout developes - please keep them coming.

 

My most recent order of Kadee couplings hadn't arrived at my nearby store by yesterday, so today's trip into the garage should have encompassed the assembly of a number of MERG kits to replace the Tam Valley servo controllers and NCE mini panels that I'm currently using.

However, I thought I'd spend a little while advancing the bridge that I started a few days ago especially as the weather was nice so I could spray primer on the bridge "steelwork" out in the garden. Not content with that I opted to apply Scalescenes engineering blue brick printed paper to the bridge supporting structure.

This is the result.

030416_1.jpg

I need to backfill the ground behind the abutments and weather the bridge "steelwork". I also need to do something about the un-made-up road sections as well.

 

Your bridge looks really convincing.  Great work.

 

I've spent several hours spread over a number of days recently replacing slim line hook & loop couplings with their Kadee cousins.

There's a separate thread about Kadees in general and that has proved very useful.

One of the conversions has seen the larger tension lock couplings supplied with the Dapol suburban coaches replaced. The outer ends of the three coach set have had Kadees fitted. The couplings within the set have been replaced with a 34mm long plasticard strip that has had holes drilled in either end and then part of the border of the hole removed so that the end of the strip emulates the rear of the tension lock coupling. In that way the rake is semi-permanently coupled but will pull apart of needs be. This has saved a few Kadees and also allows the two coaches to be that much closer together.

040416_1.jpg

One of these days I shall paint the Plasticard strip black.

 

I used a similar plasticard solution to replace the tension locks and to closer couple my Hornby (former Lima tooling) Metro Cammel (class 101?) DMUs.  Great minds think alike.

 

Best regards,

Brian.

Edited June 1, 2016 by Brian D

[Ray H]

Work over the last few weeks has partly concentrated on the gradual replacement of the Tam Valley Depot Octopus III, Octocooders and NCE Mini-Panels with MERG CBUS kits. This isn't really photogenic work which is why there aren't any pictures of it.

 

I've also made a start on building the lever frame for Virney Junction in between assisting a colleague extend his O gauge garage shunting plank into and round three sides of his garden.

 

There have also been a couple of running sessions during which we've been assessing the freight movement system that I've been working on for several months. I shall report more on this in due course.

 

Edited for a typo

Edited September 10, 2016 by Ray H

[Ray H]

What progress there has been has been slow and intermixed with sundry of other things. However, the lever frame referred to in my previous post has now been built and is in situ and awaits wiring up. The switches in the middle image will disappear once the frame is working as intended. I've managed to lose the number plate from one lever already. However, I do have a few spares so replacement is possible.

 

 

 

 

I need to devise a means whereby I can cover the exposed front whilst still permitting fairly easy access to it for maintenance.

 

The freight movement system isn't working out as well as I'd hoped possibly because too many of the wagons have dedicated off the scenic area destinations which limits the number of other wagons that there is space for on each train each train. I also seem to have ended up with a large number of wagons in the two smaller fiddle yards which further depletes the number available to be added to trains.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Ray H

[Andrew P]

Frame looks great Ray, as for getting the right mix of Wagons, well all I can say from experience is; it can be a nightmare.

 

All the best mate.

[Ray H]

Thanks Andy

 

I stocked up on a number of different types of wagon when I was building Wynsloe Road with the view to having (very) mixed through freights. However, what makes sense on a through freight doesn't necessarily do the same thing on the local trip working so, for example, I've ended up with about eight coke wagons.

 

Banbury did have a gas works but with my branch freights limited to no more than 9 wagons that need to be spread across 4 destinations, eight coke wagons is (i) over the top and (ii) not really usable anywhere other than at Banbury. Likewise I have a few bogie bolsters and several cattle wagons. I could probably stretch things and have mobile (cattle) ramps at both stations - I wonder where I can find a model/kit/plan to build from - but I'm not sure the bogie flats were very common in local goods yards.

[Jason T]

The industry or yard which requires the loads does not necessarily need to be on scene; it could be further back up the line with sidings operated from the down side only, and marshalling & running round performed at the terminus or first location with suitable loop and sidings.

 

That is how I justified some of the stock on Bacup.

[Ray H]

The industry or yard which requires the loads does not necessarily need to be on scene; it could be further back up the line with sidings operated from the down side only, and marshalling & running round performed at the terminus or first location with suitable loop and sidings.

 

That is how I justified some of the stock on Bacup.

Thanks Jason but that's part of the problem, the maximum train length that I can accommodate limits me to 9 wagons or thereabouts on a train. I have two off-scene destinations beyond the two scenic area stations. One of the latter has four distinct places for leaving or collecting wagons - the other has two. Both the off-scene locations represent towns larger than their scenic area neighbours and warrant a number of wagons of their own. It is the addition of the dedicated wagons that I've found tends to be either filling the respective fiddle yards or monopolising the trip workings.

 

This may not seem an unresolvable problem but the freight movement system I'm trying to develop is being thwarted within the maximum train length limitations by this collection of restricted destination vehicles. Options for resolution are to re-think the movement system (yet again) or reduce the specialist wagon fleet and increase the general fleet albeit with a number of kit built variants so that the trains don't look as though the only vehicles are RTR 12T ventilated vans, 7 plank opens and a few mineral wagons etc..

[Chimer]

Hi Ray

 

I am an interested follower of your freight ops thread, and am now trying to understand the destination issues you've flagged up here, especially regarding the fiddle yards - is there a full layout plan (later than the ones on page 7) that you can show us and might help?  I can't get my head round the idea of specific locations in a FY ... maybe you're overthinking a bit? 

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Kelly]

Looking good so far. Liking the lever frame, who is it by out of interest? I'd be in your experiences using it with CBUS as I intend to do similar for a smaller layout I've planned (only 4 points total, so a small lever frame seems ideal really, compared to the bigger  layout that'll need a CANPAN/CANPANEL!).

[Ray H]

Chris

 

 

The track plan on page 7 (included above for ease of reference) is the latest I have. However, the following changes have been made since it was drawn up:

 

The factory at the smaller station - Virney Junction - is now the goods shed. The trap point at the fiddle yard end of the loop track (which isn't shown in the diagram) has been replaced with a link to (off scene) Aylesbury. This is worked as a (freight only) long siding.

 

The carriage siding at the larger station - Buckinhum - is now a siding serving a factory and the lower of the two brewery tracks at the end of the station is now an off scene single line (extension!) to Banbury.

 

Some of the intervening images in this thread show the above alterations.

 

Both Banbury and Aylesbury have two track fiddle yards and the main fiddle yard now comprises 7 tracks (Aylesbury is parallel and not connected to the main fiddle yard).

 

My freight movement system differentiates between wagonload and smalls traffic with (un-prototypically?) wagons dedicated to each "service". I use four pairs of coloured single letter codes (A & B, C & D etc.) to denote destination station and "service" - one letter from each pair for wagonload and the other letter for smalls traffic. The pairs are rotated each day/operating session so that (for example) on day/session one A & B relate to Aylesbury, C & D to Virney Junction, E & F to Buckinhum and G & H to Banbury. C & D become Aylesbury, E & F Virney Junction, G & H Buckinhum and A & B Banbury on day two. The sequence repeats every four days/sessions. The differentiation between wagonload and smalls services is ignored at Banbury & Aylesbury.

 

(Down) trains carry traffic from the main fiddle yard - Bletchley - to each location with all local traffic - e.g. Banbury (or Buckinhum) to Aylesbury - being routed via Bletchley. Consequently all traffic in the Up direction is destined for the fiddle yard and therefore requires no distinct letter code; Aylesbury is only served by trains from Bletchley but the reversal at Virney Junction is effectively ignored - i.e. the train is a through train in each direction with Aylesbury bound trains treated as Down trains throughout.

 

The factory and brewery sidings at Buckinhum have fixed dedicated codes that do not vary (although the colour does). Both Banbury and Aylesbury have unchanging codes (for the wagons not deemed suitable for the on scene stations) as well as the variable codes.

 

There is a five colour sequence as well. This changes each day/session with one colour being deemed to be the day's main colour. The (Bletchley) fiddle yard assigns wagons to trains that have letter codes that (specifically) don't match the day's main colour whereas, the other four locations only despatch vehicles with letter colours that do match the day's main colour - the letter code is irrelevant for Up trains, only the colour matters.

 

Each wagon has a coloured letter code tag (temporarily) affixed to the side (using Tacky Wax) with a second tag on the other side of the wagon. The colour and/or letter of the tags usually but not always differ on each side of the wagon.

 

Wagons arriving at a fiddle yard are not allowed to be used for a departing train in the current session - this can happen at Banbury for reasons that I won't bore you with. All wagons arriving at Bletchley are removed from the layout, turned through 180º and placed in storage racks until next required.

 

Train length limitations also serve to restrict how many & what wagons can be added to a service.

 

The whole system is a lot simpler to operate than it is to explain and provides a highly random nature of wagon movement that significantly reduces the chance of the same two wagons appearing on same working when colour and letter code combinations repeat.

 

Coal wagons have removable loads. These are removed at random at the end of a session/day's service and only empty coal wagons can be despatched from stations. I intend to do the same with other wagon load vehicles once I've made up the loads although as there will inevitably be some loads originating from the on scene stations I will need to devise a means of differentiating between inbound and out-bound loads. I'd apply the same principle to smalls traffic except that these are loaded/unloaded within the goods shed(s) and aren't always accessible. Similarly, the enclosed nature of the two goods sheds currently make it very difficult to see what tags each wagon in the shed has.

 

I've tested the system for several iterations and it appears to work in general save for the over-stocking of the two smaller fiddle yards.

 

There is an A4 card write up for each station explaining how the system works. These cards also indicate which codes/colour the relevant station should be detaching/despatching (with different versions of the card for each code combination).

 

Apologies for the length of the description of the system.

[Andrew P]

Excellent description and info Ray.

[Ray H]

Looking good so far. Liking the lever frame, who is it by out of interest? I'd be in your experiences using it with CBUS as I intend to do similar for a smaller layout I've planned (only 4 points total, so a small lever frame seems ideal really, compared to the bigger  layout that'll need a CANPAN/CANPANEL!).

The illustrated lever frame consists of four (five lever) kits from S.H.A.G (the South Hereford Area Group of the Scalefour Society). It takes a little while to assemble but otherwise is a good kit. It may not stand up to the rigours of something like the DCC Concepts frame but I have no doubt that treated with the level of care required by some of today's RTR models, it should perform well.

 

I've only converted half the layout to CBUS even though I plan to convert the whole layout in due course.

 

I've had no problems with using CBUS nor with building the kits and installing them. However, I've spent endless time configuring the system despite reading through the various documentation several times. I simply could not get drag & drop to work and I found the explanation of the alternative methods quite difficult to comprehend.

 

I have the utmost admiration for the hard work the MERG team put into their kits and associated documentation but don't always find that time has allowed said documentation (or technical bulletin) to be updated to reflect the current situation. This is meant as a constructive criticism of a situation which the MERG team are probably well aware of and should not be taken as a derogatory comment about their excellent work.

[Kelly]

The illustrated lever frame consists of four (five lever) kits from S.H.A.G (the South Hereford Area Group of the Scalefour Society). It takes a little while to assemble but otherwise is a good kit. It may not stand up to the rigours of something like the DCC Concepts frame but I have no doubt that treated with the level of care required by some of today's RTR models, it should perform well.

 

I've only converted half the layout to CBUS even though I plan to convert the whole layout in due course.

 

I've had no problems with using CBUS nor with building the kits and installing them. However, I've spent endless time configuring the system despite reading through the various documentation several times. I simply could not get drag & drop to work and I found the explanation of the alternative methods quite difficult to comprehend.

 

I have the utmost admiration for the hard work the MERG team put into their kits and associated documentation but don't always find that time has allowed said documentation (or technical bulletin) to be updated to reflect the current situation. This is meant as a constructive criticism of a situation which the MERG team are probably well aware of and should not be taken as a derogatory comment about their excellent work.

 

I thought it might be the one available from Scalefour Society. I intend to pick up a kit at Scaleforum in a couple of weeks.

 

Yes, a few do post similar issues to some extent.

 

Recent postings on the MERG forum have prompted a new effort to tidy up the CBUS/module/kit documentation, so hopefully that will improve matters over time. As with all these things, it is a bunch of volunteers giving up their time to develop and test the kits, and different people at different times developed different of the kits, etc.

[Richard Mawer]

Loving the lever frame Ray. Looks just the ticket!

 

What is your thread for freight movements? As you know, it is something which I am about to tackle. I think I have it sorted, but it is always good to take on board others' views.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Rich

[Ray H]

Loving the lever frame Ray. Looks just the ticket!

 

What is your thread for freight movements? As you know, it is something which I am about to tackle. I think I have it sorted, but it is always good to take on board others' views.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Rich

Richard

 

Thanks for the comments. Apologies for the delayed response, I've been away for the past week.

 

I did start a "freight" thread some while ago but it ran its course and trying to develop a scheme that was all but automatic, i.e. didn't need too much "preparation" prior to a running session, and was as random as could be (all at the same time) eluded me given that I was reluctant to use a card/paper or dice based system. Part of my "problem" was that with fading eyesight - all things are relative - looking at individual wagon numbers would become less and less attractive.

 

I explained above the problems that I was finding with where I'm at now but am happy to expand further or answer questions if people want to pose them. I'm constantly batting ideas around in the grey matter between my ears and the latest idea is to put a specific mark on any wagon allocated to one or other of wagonload or smalls traffic - leaving the opposite unmarked. That means that I only need a single code for each location ( station). I then need to "identify" a small group of wagons that can be used to service either of the two factories at Buckinhum. This could be as easy as having a specific type of wagon - e.g. a grin hopper, or some form of branding (or a combination of both). This type of mechanism could also be used for wagons that only ply between the fiddle yard and the off-scene stations.

 

This then leaves a requirement for two further identities on wagons. One to determine the destination on the day concerned - e.g. today red equals Banbury - and the other to determine whether the wagons gets moved during the current session - e.g. blue marked wagons do/don't move today. This could be as simple as having a coloured mark at opposite ends of each wagon or possibly deciding on a range of colours that are clearly distinguishable and using just a single mark that combines both requirements - e.g. red equals "moves today" and is for Virney Junction. The downside of that idea is that there would need to be a range of colours not used on a single day.

 

That then introduces the problem of deciding which wagons at a station are or aren't used on the said day.

 

I can't escape the nagging thought in the back of my mind that suggests that a card system detailing the consignments might be the way to go with each card having a number on it. Each station has a card stack that is accessed to determine the consist of a train. The number on the first card to be turned over determines how many other cards should be used to determine the wagons to be despatched on the train concerned. The cards also indicate the wagon type for the consignment and that is the wagon type to be used. Alas, there is then no way of stations knowing which wagon has been nominated for any arriving consignments because it is unlikely that there would only be one of each wagon type on a train.

 

The grey matter keeps whirring !

[Ray H]

A little more progress to report.

 

A colleague brought a couple of his new DCC acquisitions around on Friday evening and we were able to give them a spin after a bit of track cleaning.

 

I've finally connected the wiring to the lever frame seen in the pictures above. All the levers have been wired up even though the signals haven't been built yet. The benefits of CBUS.

 

I've spent a short while this evening working on the "land" around the road under rail bridge that I modified the abutments off a few weeks ago. I've packed the voids behind the abutments with kitchen roll, covered that with masking tape and have laid plaster bandage over that. I shall probably add a second layer of bandage before trying to change its white to green.

 

I'm also rethinking the bridge over the scenic break into the fiddle yard. I've removed the opening for the road access under the bridge and now plan to have the access lane from the yard effectively join the road off the front of the layout. To this end the length of the bridge parapet will be cut down so that it only spans a little more than the two rail tracks. The road will then drop down towards the baseboard level which it won't quite make before it reaches the baseboard edge.

 

I wish I could get enthusiastic about scenery!

[Andrew P]

A little more progress to report.

 

A colleague brought a couple of his new DCC acquisitions around on Friday evening and we were able to give them a spin after a bit of track cleaning.

 

I've finally connected the wiring to the lever frame seen in the pictures above. All the levers have been wired up even though the signals haven't been built yet. The benefits of CBUS.

 

I've spent a short while this evening working on the "land" around the road under rail bridge that I modified the abutments off a few weeks ago. I've packed the voids behind the abutments with kitchen roll, covered that with masking tape and have laid plaster bandage over that. I shall probably add a second layer of bandage before trying to change its white to green.

 

I'm also rethinking the bridge over the scenic break into the fiddle yard. I've removed the opening for the road access under the bridge and now plan to have the access lane from the yard effectively join the road off the front of the layout. To this end the length of the bridge parapet will be cut down so that it only spans a little more than the two rail tracks. The road will then drop down towards the baseboard level which it won't quite make before it reaches the baseboard edge.

 

I wish I could get enthusiastic about scenery!

That at least sounds like some good progress on the lever frame Ray.