Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Harold couldn't find anything wrong with the locking on paper but confirmed that the problem was almost certainly with lever 24. He suggested that I check that tappet 24 was straight and not bowed, which could cause it to jump over the pins. While I was inspecting this I also checked that none of the pins were too short to engage properly with the tappets. In both cases all was well, so I'll close the book on this now and put it down to my over-enthusiastic filing of some of the notches.

 

I then turned back to the electrical installation and soldered the switches to the ASU PCBs.

 

Each signal lever needs one switch, which is closed when the lever is reversed to energise the relay that drives the memory wire actuator. Point levers need two switches, one each for normal and reverse, which are mounted back-to back. The dummy FPL levers don't need any switches, of course, hence the gaps.

 

The switches are mounted on an acrylic bar below the levers. Here you can see (just) how the signal switches are clear of their switches, while the point levers are clear of the "reverse" switches but have closed the "normal" switches, nearest the camera.

 

There's some wiring to connect each module together and then, finally in terms of construction, I need to fit the Eemecks to levers 3 (Down Main Advanced Starting) and 25 (Up Main Starting). After that, I can install the frame on the layout.

[5BarVT]

Thank you for the exercise in Moderatec locking.  It was good mental stimulus and I learnt/remembered stuff.  It’s since dawned on my why Harold’s clever conditional locking wouldn’t be used at 12”:1’ - springs etc to drive locking in isn’t fail safe because stiffness or broken springs means the lock doesn’t engage whereas ‘proper’ locking is forced in by the operation of the other levers.

 

And returning to the Bluebell, I spoke to Charles on Wednesday at the IRSE Members lunch.  As you might expect, he played down the innovation saying it was ‘only’ combining a push pull lever with some selection.  But he did reveal that there was also some cleverness ‘under the bonnet’ in the locking too.

 

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

Today's first task was to join up the ASUs with the point/signal +ve (brown/red), point/signal -ve (blue/red) and point/signal common (blue) wires.

 

I belled these out with each lever in both positions, to check that a) I'd fixed the switches in the right place and b) everything was properly soldered together and the screw terminals secure. I left long flying leads for the layout connections, as I'm not quite sure yet exactly where I'll put these.

 

Next, I fitted the Eemecks to levers 3 and 25, so that they can be released electrically from Pentowan/Treloggan Junction and Porthmellyn Road respectively. The Eemecks screw on to the front support bar (which, of course, is now at the back) and can be adjusted fore-and-aft so that the piston engages nicely with the hole in the tappet.

 

The business end of the Eemeck contains a piston powered by a solenoid built into the tube. The trick is to adjust the piston so that it protrudes just far enough to lock the tappet but not so far that it delays the release. I can adjust it once it's all connected up.

 

Here's the lever frame mounted on the layout, seen from above. Although it all looks fine, it sticks out from the baseboards more than I would like as space for the signalman to sit is quite tight here.

 

At the moment, as you can see in this view from below, the Eemecks are as close to the L-girder as they will go, which has the drawback that the terminal screws are inaccessible, so tomorrow I'll try the frame with the Eemecks hooked over the far side of the L-girder and see if that looks better. If all goes well, I should be able to transfer control of the points to the lever frame too.

[TrevorP1]

18 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Today's first task was to join up the ASUs with the point/signal +ve (brown/red), point/signal -ve (blue/red) and point/signal common (blue) wires.

 

I belled these out with each lever in both positions, to check that a) I'd fixed the switches in the right place and b) everything was properly soldered together and the screw terminals secure. I left long flying leads for the layout connections, as I'm not quite sure yet exactly where I'll put these.

 

Next, I fitted the Eemecks to levers 3 and 25, so that they can be released electrically from Pentowan/Treloggan Junction and Porthmellyn Road respectively. The Eemecks screw on to the front support bar (which, of course, is now at the back) and can be adjusted fore-and-aft so that the piston engages nicely with the hole in the tappet.

 

The business end of the Eemeck contains a piston powered by a solenoid built into the tube. The trick is to adjust the piston so that it protrudes just far enough to lock the tappet but not so far that it delays the release. I can adjust it once it's all connected up.

 

Here's the lever frame mounted on the layout, seen from above. Although it all looks fine, it sticks out from the baseboards more than I would like as space for the signalman to sit is quite tight here.

 

At the moment, as you can see in this view from below, the Eemecks are as close to the L-girder as they will go, which has the drawback that the terminal screws are inaccessible, so tomorrow I'll try the frame with the Eemecks hooked over the far side of the L-girder and see if that looks better. If all goes well, I should be able to transfer control of the points to the lever frame too.

Apart from an extremely basic understanding of mechanical locking this is all gobbledegook to me but the work you have put it to make Mid Cornwall operate like the real thing is very impressive.

[St Enodoc]

I tried hooking the Eemecks over the L-girders but there wasn't enough height between the L-girders and the bottom of the track base to feed them through, so the frame will have to stay where I put it yesterday. We'll have to learn to live with that.

 

Next, I disconnected five points from the temporary point control panel and connected them to the lever frame.

 

As at Porthmellyn Road, the lever frame and layout are connected by choc-block-style plugs and sockets. The two in the middle will carry all the points and signal feeds, while the one on the left carries the incoming power feeds and will also carry the Line Clear Release connections to and from Porthmellyn Road. The one on the right, only partly visible, will carry the Eemeck power connections and those for the First-Come-First-Served Tokenless Block to and from Treloggan Junction/Pentowan (which I still need to mock up to test the design).

 

The temporary panel will still control hand point A until I build the uncoupler and hand point control panel, which will be further to the right at the Down end of the station.

 

Finally, I replaced the temporary signal box diagram, which only showed the points, with a rough version of the full diagram showing the signals and FPLs too.

 

Before I start installing the signals (which are all built), I need to ballast the camping coach siding and, to make it worthwhile, the rest of the track at Treloggan Junction.

[Chamby]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

I tried hooking the Eemecks over the L-girders but there wasn't enough height between the L-girders and the bottom of the track base to feed them through, so the frame will have to stay where I put it yesterday. We'll have to learn to live with that.

 

I'd be tempted to take a 'bite' out of the top of the L-girder, just enough to ease the Eemecks through.   Using a padsaw.   Looks like you might have enough room to do this without over-compromising the L-girder's integrity?

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Chamby said:

 

I'd be tempted to take a 'bite' out of the top of the L-girder, just enough to ease the Eemecks through.   Using a padsaw.   Looks like you might have enough room to do this without over-compromising the L-girder's integrity?

That's a thought, Phil. I'll have a look next weekend. Thanks.

[St Enodoc]

As always, Charles has produced a very nice 20 minute video. I wrote some captions tonight, so it should be available for viewing within a few days. I think you'll like it.

[St Enodoc]

On 26/07/2022 at 21:39, St Enodoc said:

As always, Charles has produced a very nice 20 minute video. I wrote some captions tonight, so it should be available for viewing within a few days. I think you'll like it.

And here it is:

 

 

Many thanks as always to Charles and to the team for their cameo appearances and the running commentary...

Edited July 29, 2022 by St Enodoc

[Barry O]

Very good!

 

Baz

[Chamby]

Most excellent, nice to see the layout in action.   And your commitment to the ‘bus on a bridge’ school of modelling is exemplary!

[NHY 581]

Top stuff, John. 

 

Lovely to see things moving about and running so well. (Not that there was any doubt of that). 

 

Rob. 

[St Enodoc]

On 24/07/2022 at 19:43, Chamby said:

 

I'd be tempted to take a 'bite' out of the top of the L-girder, just enough to ease the Eemecks through.   Using a padsaw.   Looks like you might have enough room to do this without over-compromising the L-girder's integrity?

I had a good look at, and play around with, this today. The challenge is that, due to the configuration of the Eemecks and the L-girder, the difference between having the back of the Eemecks close to the front of the L-girder to having the front of the Eemecks close to the back of the L-girder is about 125mm and there really isn't any scope for anything in between, unless I were to chop out a complete section of the L-girder (which doesn't strike me as a good idea).

 

 

The other difficulty with the Eemecks behind the L-girder is that, with the curve of the track towards Porthmellyn Road, the left-hand side of the frame gets too close to the track base to work the first few levers comfortably.

 

Consequently, I'm going to leave things as they were. I did try sitting at the frame and I think there will be enough room for the signalman to see what he's doing without getting in the way of the Porthmellyn Road signalman.

 

This is the signalman's-eye view. There's enough room behind the frame for a curving fascia and a bit of landscape too.

 

I finished the wiring from the ASUs and Eemecks to the multi-way plugs. Here are all the wires from below. The ones on the right are for the Eemecks. All the remaining wiring is on the shore side and I can progress with that without disturbing the frame at all. Having reached this point, I think it will be time to add the lever numbers sooner rather than later before boxing everything up and installing the Line Clear switches and indicators..

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

Very good!

 

Baz

Nah - much better than that.  Real railway work and a top notch demonstration of it in 4mm scale.    And notwithstanding the lack of scenery it was all completely believable - brilliant stuff.

 

The Wheal Veronica working, in particular, was most impresssive although the run round prior to going up to Wheal Veronica itself seemed to involve the engine going a bit too far when dropping clear of the points

[St Enodoc]

19 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Nah - much better than that.  Real railway work and a top notch demonstration of it in 4mm scale.    And notwithstanding the lack of scenery it was all completely believable - brilliant stuff.

 

The Wheal Veronica working, in particular, was most impresssive although the run round prior to going up to Wheal Veronica itself seemed to involve the engine going a bit too far when dropping clear of the points

Thanks Mike, I do appreciate those kind words.

 

if you mean after the loco has run past the train and reverses to come on and propel it, you might be right. The loco needs to go beyond the Down Home (1/4), which will be somewhere near the far end of the long curved trailing crossover (7). I haven't worked out the exact position yet, so Graham the driver was guessing a bit (and he was about twelve feet away!). I probably need to put some blue map pins in as temporary markers, as I did before at Porthmellyn Road, before I actually install the signals.

 

Edit: Having looked again I think you probably mean the initial movement on to the branch before running back through Platform 1, in which case you are definitely right! Temporary markers will certainly help.

Edited July 29, 2022 by St Enodoc

[BMacdermott]

Hello John

 

Your layout is a work of art! As Mike says, totally credible even without scenery!

 

Many thanks for the video!

 

Brian

[Regularity]

52 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

the run round prior to going up to Wheal Veronica itself seemed to involve the engine going a bit too far when dropping clear of the points

Obviously the driver was letting the fireman have his go at driving that class of loco, and the former having drummed into the latter the importance of not stopping short of the clearance point, was wetting himself with laughter as the fireman tried to stop the loco by turning the handbrake screw the wrong way, instead of using the steam brake…

Edited July 29, 2022 by Regularity

[checkrail]

Wow!  No that's what I call a model railway. 

[Barry O]

I am sure that the operation will return to standard Leeds MRS CIO levels whenI next visit...

 

Baz

[5BarVT]

19 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

And here it is:

Most entertaining and very believable.

 

Do you operate each train in the sequence throughout before starting the next, or was that just for filming to avoid continuity faux pas?

 

Paul.

[Penlowry]

20 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

And here it is:

 

 

Looks really good John. Liking your lever frames too. I want to do that on mine too but feel that may require me to retire first to have the time! I'm envious of the space you've got. Maybe I need to move back to Australia so I can have a bigger layout?! 

[john dew]

Brilliant video John.

 

I have been following Mid-Cornwall for quite a while so it was particularly enjoyable to watch so many of the individual components come together in such an enjoyable manner. I was very impressed with both the ultra smooth running and precise coupling.

 

You and your crew must have had a very satisfying session

 

Best wishes from a very hot {82oF) Vancouver

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Most entertaining and very believable.

 

Do you operate each train in the sequence throughout before starting the next, or was that just for filming to avoid continuity faux pas?

 

Paul.

Thanks Paul. That was just for filming. Normally, once a train has started its journey we advanced the "train describer" and the next train can start as soon as everyone's ready.

[St Enodoc]

12 minutes ago, john dew said:

Brilliant video John.

 

I have been following Mid-Cornwall for quite a while so it was particularly enjoyable to watch so many of the individual components come together in such an enjoyable manner. I was very impressed with both the ultra smooth running and precise coupling.

 

You and your crew must have had a very satisfying session

 

Best wishes from a very hot {82oF) Vancouver

Thanks John. Some not-so-good coupling and uncoupling was disguised by Charles' excellent editing and continuity work. If you look carefully you can see the join...

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Barry O said:

I am sure that the operation will return to standard Leeds MRS CIO levels whenI next visit...

 

Baz

Probably, although we don't have to worry about turning the bl00dy links off.