Neely - Present day nearly Ely in N

[terrysoham]

Hello,

 

At the end of April I posted a photo of my first completed Shapeways class 365 emus and, since then, I have been working on my other two units. Tonight I completed the fitting of the last directional lighting set and after a lot of pleasure, marred with the occasional frustrating evening when things did not go to plan, I have the three emus needed to operate Neely prototypically.

 

These will be on show first at the Bury St Edmunds model railway exhibition at the beginning of September and then at Abrail and the March MRC's exhibition in early 2017.

 

Whilst I am, of course, pleased with them I am very much aware of how much they show my limitations in terms of airbrushing but hey ho come to one of the above exhibitions and judge for yourself.

Edited July 4, 2016 by terrysoham

[Wherry Lines]

The 365 looks fantastic, Terry. I may well try and pop along to Bury, just to see the layout!

[terrysoham]

A tale of polarity switching on a dcc layout.

 

When I was planning this N scale layout I was fairly new to railway modelling (It is my first layout) and I followed Brian Lambert’s advice on his web site about making the live frog points dcc friendly. Whilst I acknowledge that he doesn’t insist that this is necessary, it was only sometime later after I had carried out the conversion, that I discovered the consensus opinion is that his advice is really applicable to 00 scale and bigger and not to N scale!

 

Essentially, his advice involves isolating the live frog area by cutting the two rails between the hinge and the frog and soldering the feed wire across both the fixed, side rail and the curved rail between the hinge and the cut. To change the frog’s polarity you use a separate electrical switch rather than letting the point’s switch rail do it. What I didn’t realise is that the switches that I chose, Peco’s PL-13 attached to Peco solenoids, are the sliding type relying on spring pressure to obtain electrical continuity. Occasionally this fails, resulting in a voltage drop in the frog area causing the locos to stall. Fortunately, I only used solenoids and these switches in the storage area.

 

As an aside, the PL-13 switches are quite frustrating to set up in N scale because firstly you have to find the orientation in which they work best and, secondly, you have to position them accurately onto the bottom of the solenoid whilst checking for electrical continuity in both normal and reverse direction. To do this you need a glue that allows for some repositioning before it goes off. I found Evostik worked best for me. This work should be carried out on the workbench before fitting the assembly to the point.

 

By the way Peco do offer an alternative mechanism which includes a fixing plate and much better switches, type PL-15. However, this precludes you then fixing the solenoid’s metal tabs through the slots in the base of the point so destroying, in my view, the main advantage of Peco’s solenoids. There is also a price premium – the cheapest that I could find is over twice the cost of the PL-13 type.

 

If I was starting again, on balance, I would still use the PL-13 switches but leave the points entirely alone thus letting the switch rail and the PL-13 change the polarity. In order to achieve this, over the next few evenings I am going to re-convert my points to their original design. Don’t you just love having to undo things that you did in all innocence?

 

Therefore, be warned, if you’re into N scale, do not follow Mr.Lambert’s advice, good though it often is, but leave the polarity switching to the switch rails and, if you are so inclined, add another switch system as a secondary source.

[roundhouse]

Terry

 

One thing or watch is that when I laid the fiddleyard track for Santa Barbara I didn't alter he Peco turnouts but did wire up the frogs for polarity change by the solenoid. I then started to fin the turnout tie bars melting and distorting the turnout causing derailments.

 

I believe it was due to the blades making contact before the polarity switch changed causing a momentary short and heat that didnt trigger the DCC system to cut out. Luckily as all the turnouts err in the fiddleyard I could cut through the rails and isolate the frogs.

 

 

Since then the turnouts have been fine with no more melted tie bars.

 

When I built Banbury all the turnouts had the frog isolated before laying them

 

Edit

 

I used SEEP solenoids with built in switch in the fiddleyard. Banbury scenic area uses Peco solenoids with the double micro switch base which I found a pain to set up. I now use Frog juicers

Edited July 9, 2016 by roundhouse

[terrysoham]

Roundhouse,

 

Thanks for that comment. I will keep an eye out for this.

[terrysoham]

Having spoken about my Shapeways Class 365s I thought it was about time that I showed them in Neely station.

[terrysoham]

Neely will be appearing at Bury St Edmunds show this Saturday (10 September).

 

The show is at Risby Village Hall, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 6RT between 10.00 and 16.00

 

Please do make yourself known to me if you have any questions or if you'd simply like to have a go at playing trains.

[Boco_D1]

This 365s look fantastic, what are the windows part of the print or did you add them later, I've got a 165 with painted Windows that I'd like to improve.

[Revolution Ben]

Neely will be appearing at Bury St Edmunds show this Saturday (10 September).

The show is at Risby Village Hall, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 6RT between 10.00 and 16.00

Please do make yourself known to me if you have any questions or if you'd simply like to have a go at playing trains.

Blast. I'd really like to see Neely again but I am at TINGS this weekend. When is it next due out?

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[terrysoham]

Ben,

 

Thank you. Neely is next out at March, Cambridgeshire on 4th March 2017. Hope to see you there. Otherwise it will be at the two day Peterborough show later in 2017.

 

Between the Bury show and the March show I have major improvements to make to the layout of the storage yard which also involves upgrading the physical and JMRI control panels.

 

Best regards

[terrysoham]

It was good to meet members of the forum who stopped by to have a chat and we thank you for the kind comments.

We had one point failure, fortunately in the storage area, that will need attention and the odd bit of tree fell off during transit but otherwise nothing major.

In case any of you wondered what was going on at times, we had two new operators on the layout (yes they had operated the layout in the club room before but not at an exhibition) so we had more SPADs and the accompanying warning beeps of dcc shorts than desirable. I hope it didn't spoil it too much.

We enjoyed letting a couple of youngsters operate the layout under supervision and, of course, they put us older ones to shame! We also let the children and parents go behind the layout to look at the storage yard and I think this was a successful idea which we will continue when space allows.

Finally a big thank you to the Bury St Edmunds club for inviting us.

[bigP]

--

Edited January 31, 2021 by bigP
Deleted

[terrysoham]

Hi Terry,

 

Just come across this video of Neely on YouTube so thought I'd link it in - hope you don't mind.  You've done an excellent job on those 365s!  Look forward to seeing the layout in the flesh sometime.

 

Cheers,

Paul

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqRe3wwQwXM&t=0m20s

Thank you very much Paul. Although I can see in one shot that I was present, I have no recollection of whoever made the video.

Whoever it was thank you very much and, if you give me an email addy, I'd ask you for a copy of the Neely bit.

 

BTW Paul I hope that you feel I did credit to your excellent design work for the 365s.

[Classsix T]

Some snaps from Saturday.

 

 

C6T.

[Rheneas]

Excellent work

[bensanchez43310]

wow!

[terrysoham]

I've been busy reconfiguring the storage area to give Neely a fourth freight road and a dedicated siding for the Kings Cross to Ely class 365s. Not only did I have to take up and relay several points but I also had to reconfigure the physical control panel by moving some switches around and then modifying the PanelPro panel. I wasn't looking forward to this but it all went very smoothly.

At the same time as I fitted the points in their new locations I also removed the Peco PL 13 polarity switches and fitted instead micro switches operated off the tie bar. I wasn't unhappy with the PL 13s I just thought I'd try something new to see which proved to be more robust over time.

Now getting on with all the maintenance jobs before Neely's next exhibition in March in March!

Regards

Edited November 6, 2016 by terrysoham

[terrysoham]

Just put together an electronic circuit which produces the flashing led for the rear of my freight trains and got the pickups fitted to one container wagon to power the circuit from the dcc track. I am very pleased that it worked first time! That's fairly rare for me as I usually build one and blow it up before I work out what I did wrong.

The idea is that the pcb will fit in the container at the rear of the train.

I have now ordered the surface mounted components from Rapid to build four circuits for my container trains and the two special ones which will be worked from decoders for my sand train which reverses in Neely. The decoders will be given the same address as the loco so there will be a red flashing light at the end of the train irrespective of direction of travel.

 

Has anyone constructed N scale rear lights? What did you use? I am thinking of either a piece of 0.5 mm diameter fibre optic cable protruding through the end of the container attached to a small piece of plastic with a 0.5mm hole in it or a smd red led superglued to the wagon so it stands on its end and painted white with the wires painted the same colour as the wagon.

 

Regards

[Revolution Mike B]

Hi Terry

 

Is this going to be at any more exhibitions? I live a fair way from you but I'd like to get along and see it at some point. It looks amazing!

 

Cheers

Mike

[terrysoham]

Mike,

Next year, we are at March and Abingdon in March and Peterborough in October. In 2018 we are booked for DEMU and the Derby Roundhouse shows early in the year and TINGS in September. Unfortunately nothing in your area yet but we are open to offers.

 

If you do manage to visit, please introduce yourself. If you want, you can have a go at operating it too.

 

Kind regards

[Revolution Mike B]

Mike,

Next year, we are at March and Abingdon in March and Peterborough in October. In 2018 we are booked for DEMU and the Derby Roundhouse shows early in the year and TINGS in September. Unfortunately nothing in your area yet but we are open to offers.

 

If you do manage to visit, please introduce yourself. If you want, you can have a go at operating it too.

 

Kind regards

 

Thanks Terry, that's really kind of you, although I seem to crash more trains than I manage to run!

 

I'll definitely come and say hello.

 

Cheers

Mike

[terrysoham]

After a few hiccups, I now have a flashing red tail light on one of my container trains.   It needed a stay alive kit from Zimo to get it functioning correctly.

 

I will put it on YouTube when I work out how to do it.  Only trouble is on the video from my iPad, the light looks to be white!

 

The flasher circuit came from the Web and the components were soldered onto a home made pcb.

[terrysoham]

Neely is now all broken down, with its transport covers on ready for its first outing this year on Saturday 4th at the March (Cambridgeshire) exhibition from 10:00 until 16:30.

Getting it erected in the time available on Saturday morning could be touch and go but we'll do our best.

If you're coming, introduce yourself to a team member and if you want to operate the trains please ask.

Regards

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hi Terry

 

So glad you posted that! I had completely overlooked the March show but knowing Neely will be there I will make an extra effort to attend!

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[terrysoham]

Amazing just how much you can get into a Honda Jazz. The photo shows that all nine Neely baseboards and the two stock boxes fit quite nicely. So just the legs, lighting rig, equipment boxes and stools to fit into the other car.

 

March here we come!