Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Barry O]

Happy new year! Not long before another visit!

Baz

[Anthony Ashley]

St Enodoc,

 

I have not looked at the model rail sites in the last 6 months due to work pressures. I have looked through yours recently and was very impressed with the lever frame. A very large engineering job, and one I am sure you were happy to finish. It looks fantastic. I was interested in your comment that the best arrangement you could come up with was to virtually replicate the real thing. I have to do  large lever frame for Bangor and not sure if I should interlock it or not any thoughts either way. I look forward to your further progress in 2018. All the best

 

Anthony Ashley

[St Enodoc]

St Enodoc,

 

I have not looked at the model rail sites in the last 6 months due to work pressures. I have looked through yours recently and was very impressed with the lever frame. A very large engineering job, and one I am sure you were happy to finish. It looks fantastic. I was interested in your comment that the best arrangement you could come up with was to virtually replicate the real thing. I have to do  large lever frame for Bangor and not sure if I should interlock it or not any thoughts either way. I look forward to your further progress in 2018. All the best

 

Anthony Ashley

 

Thanks Anthony. Your best bet is to talk to Graeme Lewis and/or Harold at Modratec himself. Both are BRMA members in QLD. I know that they will be able and willing to discuss this question with you face to face and show you some frames in action.

[Joseph_Pestell]

St Enodoc,

 

I have not looked at the model rail sites in the last 6 months due to work pressures. I have looked through yours recently and was very impressed with the lever frame. A very large engineering job, and one I am sure you were happy to finish. It looks fantastic. I was interested in your comment that the best arrangement you could come up with was to virtually replicate the real thing. I have to do  large lever frame for Bangor and not sure if I should interlock it or not any thoughts either way. I look forward to your further progress in 2018. All the best

 

Anthony Ashley

 

I think that you should definitely have interlocking. The question is whether to do it mechanically or electrically. I definitely see the appeal of real levers but they can be attached to operate switches.

[Martin S-C]

I think that you should definitely have interlocking. The question is whether to do it mechanically or electrically. I definitely see the appeal of real levers but they can be attached to operate switches.

This is my intended plan. It remains to be seen how effective I can make it.

[St Enodoc]

I think that you should definitely have interlocking. The question is whether to do it mechanically or electrically. I definitely see the appeal of real levers but they can be attached to operate switches.

 

 

This is my intended plan. It remains to be seen how effective I can make it.

 

I agree overall - as you would expect. However, it very much depends on how you want to operate your layout, and how many people you have to help you do so. Every interlocked lever frame needs a signalman, who may or may not also drive trains (in my case not, as you know). I know Anthony well, although I haven't yet seen his layout in the flesh, and I was hedging my bets slightly as I'm not sure exactly how he intends to operate his empire. If he is planning to have a team of operators every time then yes, I would go for interlocked frames - but if he is more likely to run it as a lone wolf then an interlocked frame might tie him too tightly to that particular location.

[john dew]

I believe Anthony is also planning to use RR&Co computor control.

 

Edited...oops forgot to wish you a Happy New Year although I am already a day late for you.

 

Best wishes

 

John

Edited January 2, 2019 by john dew

[Anthony Ashley]

John and St Enodoc,

 

My plan is to computerise all of the main line points and the first section into the goods lines of each station for Conwy, Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Only the rest of the goods yards will be wire and tube and hence need a lever frame. For Bangor this will still require a significant number of points.

 

My apologioes for adding comments on my layout to to the St Enodoc blog, so I shall keep it short. 

 

Regards,

 

Anthony Ashley 

[St Enodoc]

John and St Enodoc,

 

My plan is to computerise all of the main line points and the first section into the goods lines of each station for Conwy, Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Only the rest of the goods yards will be wire and tube and hence need a lever frame. For Bangor this will still require a significant number of points.

 

My apologioes for adding comments on my layout to to the St Enodoc blog, so I shall keep it short. 

 

Regards,

 

Anthony Ashley 

 

No problem Anthony. That clarifies things a lot. I don't think that an interlocked lever frame would be needed or even desirable in the situation you describe. A simple non-interlocked frame or even individual levers near each point would make more sense - or even simple push-pull knobs at the ends of the operating wires.

[Anthony Ashley]

Yes that was my plan with a lever frame located at each station goods yard. You would need to be standing there to manage the shunting in N gauge!!!!

 

 

Regards,

 

Anthony

[St Enodoc]

A very productive and enjoyable few days, in several ways.

 

On the computer front, after many years of using Windows XP as my operating system with Office 2000 installed I decided that it was time to upgrade - mainly because nobody is supporting XP any more. So, last weekend I ordered a new computer which I picked up on New Year's Day. This runs Windows 10 of course and I bought, or rather rented, Office 365 to go with it. Those who know me and computers may wish to have a cup of tea and a lie down on reading this. After picking it up on Tuesday we went to see the new Mary Poppins Returns film, which we thoroughly enjoyed and which I recommend wholeheartedly to children of all ages.

 

On Wednesday Veronica went back to work, so I spent the whole day setting up the computer then transferring files and applications from the old one. I think that I'm about 95% of the way to getting things how I want them, although I have to say that I'm not over-impressed with Edge as a browser, or some of the other features in Windows 10, as they seem to have been designed for use with phones or tablets rather than for old dinosaurs like me who prefer to use a keyboard and mouse. Anyway, I can change things at my leisure now.

 

Yesterday was the first day of the Sydney Test, so as usual a group of colleagues and ex-colleagues went along and sat in our favourite area, high up in the Trumper Stand close to the bowler's arm. Apart from the first two overs, when Rahul thought he was playing T20 and was caught in the slips after scoring 9 runs all off the edge, we saw an excellent day of proper Test cricket.

 

Consequently, it wasn't until today that I resumed work in the railway room. With ABC Grandstand providing the commentary from the SCG, I completed the Penzance stock shelf. This is very similar in construction to the Paddington one, except for the rear fence. This is held captive behind the rear edge of the shelf, sitting on top of the brackets.

 

After I'd finished, I tidied up and got all the remaining stock out of its boxes. As I predicted, I needed to do a bit of bogie-swapping and coupling-swapping to form up the sets. This left me with only about half-a-dozen vehicles that need more intensive work to sort out the correct couplings. This was pleasing, as I had suspected that there might be more.

 

 

 

Here is the Penzance shelf with the extra stock on it and also on the new storage roads. The front tracks are empty as I moved all the trains for the current sequence out of the way while I was working. I'll move them back at the weekend. You can also see that I've put the totem back higher up the door.

 

 

For completeness, here is the Paddington shelf. There seems to be plenty of room on both shelves for extra wagons as they enter service and also enough room on the tracks for trains to arrive and depart, although until I actually work out the next stage of the sequence I won't know exactly how much margin I have.

 

I won't have that done in time for the first running session of the year in two weeks' time though. In any case until the new tracks are connected to the rest of the layout they can't be used anyway. I'll tie up a few other loose ends in the meantime.

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Barry O]

ditch the Edge..I use Chrome which seems to work for me...

 

Baz

[Martin S-C]

Had I known you were planning to change I would have recommended Windows 7 - as you have found out a lot of the features introduced in Win 10 are not for the likes of us who prefer to sit at a desk and use a keyboard and mouse to input and view data. I feel sure you could still get a Win 7 disc somewhere but you'd have to go to a specialist PC store and not one of the big chains. I use Firefox as a browser and it used to be fantastic but not anymore, it has become burdened by too many clever bits bolted on and sometimes runs quite slow on my otherwise powerful PC.

[St Enodoc]

ditch the Edge..I use Chrome which seems to work for me...

 

Baz

 

Had I known you were planning to change I would have recommended Windows 7 - as you have found out a lot of the features introduced in Win 10 are not for the likes of us who prefer to sit at a desk and use a keyboard and mouse to input and view data. I feel sure you could still get a Win 7 disc somewhere but you'd have to go to a specialist PC store and not one of the big chains. I use Firefox as a browser and it used to be fantastic but not anymore, it has become burdened by too many clever bits bolted on and sometimes runs quite slow on my otherwise powerful PC.

I'm used to Windows 10 at work so I think I will get used to it at home too. I've already installed Firefox and am using that as my default browser - as was the case before.

[john dew]

I agree with your comments about Edge. I use Firefox.....Martin is correct ,in that it is not as rock solid stable as it was....not sure if this is firefox’s fault or Microsoft being “helpful”.....they do have history. My advice would be to persevere but if you have problems and it slows do a complete re install......I did that a few months ago and touch wood, all is well

 

Regarding Office.....depending on how much you use it....but if its essentially recreational and you get fed up with renting then take a look at Office Libre....has all the office features and more....and its free. All libre file extns can be read by office and vice versa. I switched about 6 years ago....no problems

 

Have fun with your new machine

 

Best wishes

 

John

[kandc_au]

FWIW, I am with John on this. I avoid Microsofts products as much as I can!
Been using win 10 for a while now and still find it a PITA
Most other items/apps I use are Open source and reliable.
My son uses Office at work and says it is great, BUT, every 30 secs he is cursing it as it crashes so often.

Khris

[Michael Edge]

Get VMware or something similar and keep running your old XP machine as a virtual computer within your Windows 10. I use a Mac but most work is done on virtual XP and Windows 7 machines, Judith uses a virtual XP computer on her Windows 7 machine for most of the kit work. Another advantage is being able to use Templot without an internet connection, the virtual machines are only suspended, not normally stopped, so Templot stays running.

I get all the Office stuff with my OneDrive subscription which removes nearly all back up worries.

[brianusa]

Had I known you were planning to change I would have recommended Windows 7 - as you have found out a lot of the features introduced in Win 10 are not for the likes of us who prefer to sit at a desk and use a keyboard and mouse to input and view data. I feel sure you could still get a Win 7 disc somewhere but you'd have to go to a specialist PC store and not one of the big chains. I use Firefox as a browser and it used to be fantastic but not anymore, it has become burdened by too many clever bits bolted on and sometimes runs quite slow on my otherwise powerful PC.

 

Agree up to a point.  Tried 10 and returned to 7; familiar and easy to work with and as I'm not keen to be surrounded with tech, am content with Outlook and MS products in general.  Over the years there it has proved reliable, and as I can overcome most basic problems, easy to use.

 

Brian.

Edited January 5, 2019 by brianusa

[St Enodoc]

Get VMware or something similar and keep running your old XP machine as a virtual computer within your Windows 10. I use a Mac but most work is done on virtual XP and Windows 7 machines, Judith uses a virtual XP computer on her Windows 7 machine for most of the kit work. Another advantage is being able to use Templot without an internet connection, the virtual machines are only suspended, not normally stopped, so Templot stays running.

I get all the Office stuff with my OneDrive subscription which removes nearly all back up worries.

Thanks Mike. At the moment I will see how things go. I only have two applications that probably won't run under W10 - although I will try to persuade them to do so, in which case I will be able to ditch the old computer altogether - so it shouldn't be a big issue.

 

I get OneDrive with my Office subscription, so it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

[Michael Edge]

Vmware is free.......

[St Enodoc]

Vmware is free.......

Fair enough but having got 95% of my stuff working under Win 10 I can't be bothered to spend any more time on computers for a while...

[St Enodoc]

I did a couple of tidying-up jobs today to get ready for the running session in two weeks' time. First I did a bit more coupling-swapping to form up set 745. This also involved swapping two maroon Mark 1 BCKs between sets 524 and 745 to minimise the amount of coupling-swapping needed.

 

The next job was to raise the Paddington totem to the same height as the Penzance one. This improved the look of the Paddington stock shelf considerably.

 

I then made and fitted some track markers for the middle of the extra loops at Paddington and of all the loops at Penzance, where I had left this job undone so that I didn't have to reach over or round them when laying loops 2 to 7. I made these from skewers in exactly the same way as before. The fouling point markers will wait until the corresponding pointwork is installed.

 

Finally, I moved all the trains back to Penzance ready for the running session.

 

 

 

Here is how everything ended up at Penzance and Paddington respectively. I plan to put the computer cables into a conduit but there is something else I need to explore first - watch this space.

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Barry O]

If you have any coaches with NEM pockets you can fasten DGs onto the plug in coupling (having removed the hook and bar first). This means you can swap dg fittings more easily.

 

Lots of space in the yard..what next? More layout building or stock building?

Baz

 

Ps my new layout build has been suspended due to Exhibition attendance and prep. But Barnbow East will have track and electrics done by 2020..so long as PECO deliver their bullhead slip on time.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Barry O

[Chamby]

About a year ago I finally had enough of Windows ans switched to Apple Mac for my everyday computing requirements and have never looked back. Swopping my stuff over to the new desktop was the usual pain but after just 24 hours I found I had settled in with the Apple way of doing things and was using it intuitively. MS office for Mac works perfectly well, if anything it is more stable than when running on windows! Being able to work on the computer within10 seconds of switching it on makes a big difference, and the 27 inch retina screen is simply amazing to use.

 

I have kept my old PC running Windows 7 for my hobby specific applications such as Lokprogrammer and templot, it now sits in my hobby room rather than the home office, with the rolling road and lokprogrammer permanently set up.

 

Happy days...

[St Enodoc]

If you have any coaches with NEM pockets you can fasten DGs onto the plug in coupling (having removed the hook and bar first). This means you can swap dg fittings more easily.

 

Lots of space in the yard..what next? More layout building or stock building?

Baz

 

Ps my new layout build has been suspended due to Exhibition attendance and prep. But Barnbow East will have track and electrics done by 2020..so long as PECO deliver their bulkhead slip on time.

Thanks Baz. I actually screw the DGs to the NEM pocket itself. That way I can change back to the original coupling in a matter of seconds if necessary (which is what most of the swapping this weekend involved).

 

After doing some "operational" work, like adding set numbers and maintaining/repairing stock, the next steps are to lay the points that will connect the new Paddington and Penzance loops to the rest of the layout. Then I can expand the sequence. Actually starting the branch won't be before the middle of the year I reckon, or later if I decide to ballast and signal the main lines first.

 

For BBE, you could fit an FB code 75 slip temporarily to get things moving.