Jump to content
 
  • entries
    54
  • comments
    187
  • views
    31,794

About this blog

Taigatrommel's German modelling- Bad Horn (1980s DB, Teutoberg Forest) and Stromallee (21st Century TT)

Entries in this blog

Sparks and lasers

I've been making further small steps of progress, and taking pictures of it with a potato. I shouldn't be so lazy, I have a better camera...   Electrification work has started, under the experienced tutelage of Andi Dell (Dagworth, Ravensclyffe) . Sommerfeldt masts are a pig to solder to. I think if I was doing any more extensive electrification, I would draw up etches in a more solder-friendly material, brass or nickel-silver. The U channel is the wrong way round, which is ironic as I was try
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

Stock jobs

I've been catching up with a backlog of unchipped motive power & rolling stock, which has been more interesting than it might sound. In TT there are at least five different interfaces in use, with NEM 651 (6 pin), NEM 652 (8 pin), Plux12 and Plux16, and Keuhn's Next18. By and large I go with Lenz or Zimo decoders, but I'll always give other a try if the price is attractive.   Tillig's BR189 has a Plux12 interface. Fine, I bought a Lenz silver with the appropriate plug. It didn't fit in the
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

... and while I'm at it...

While putting things in my blog, I thought I should give an impression of how things stand generally. There's a road progressing down the middle, there was a concrete segment coal yard where the paint pots are, but water leaked onto it from the iron I was weighing it down with and trashed the laser cut slabs. Stupid mistake. I have a petrol station kit to go in at the end roughly where the pic is taken from, and decisions to make about scenery between the road and the paper mill, especially wher
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

What? Progress?!?

I've spent a while fiddling with electronics and computer interfaces, to the detriment of visible progress. I got a new controller in January, a Roco MultiMaus Pro & MultiZentrale, which I thought would give me a start with JMRI. Nope. The MultiZentrale just doesn't want to communicate with JMRI, and I haven't got the will or expertise to make it happen. This leaves me with basic options, a change of controller or use Rocomotion. As Rocomotion only allows the use of Roco's own train detector
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

An outing for Bad Horn- Cheltenham, 5th/6th April

I'd long promised Mike Walker that if he ever needed a layout for his twice-yearly show in Cheltenham, I'd help out. That call came a couple of weeks ago, and so I'm taking Bad Horn. I've been hurriedly weathering a few wagons and checking that everything still works, and so far all is OK- though rushed weathering is never great. Not that any of mine is great, but I hope it's at least presentable.   The exhibition is Saturday and Sunday 5th/6th April at St. Margaret's Hall, Coniston Road, Hath
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

1

Working points indicator

I've got a mild obsession about correct signalling, and this small detail is strictly a part of that. It's probably obvious, but these little objects indicate a point's position. I made a simple crank from rod and scrap etch, working out the throw distance from the tiebar's movement. I didn't get it quite right first time! The cosmetic details are Auhagen, and happily are ready painted- I do not have steady hands. They also have the lever for hand thrown points, but I'm not even going to tr
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

5

My mojo rose- beginnings of a TT layout set in 21st century Saxony

I've been attracted to TT scale for a long time, being a firm believer in the old Berliner slogan of it being "die ideale Spur". It's small enough to produce an entertaining layout in a reasonable space, but large enough for fine detail to be visible and not too fiddly to work with. It also has more "presence" to me than N, somehow the models just seem to look weightier and sit down on the track better.   Continental TT scale is 1:120 scale, unlike the 1:100 used by Triang and the following Br
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

7

A nice bit of design - Piko VT 612 Regioswinger and DCC

My wife bought me a Piko 612 "Regioswinger" for my birthday. I've got a peculiar soft spot for the real units, and they run over the line which I am modelling for my new layout (KBS 510), so it was a wonderful gift. While DCC Ready to me generally means that it's plug and play with an appropriate socket or plug, Piko took it a step further on this unit.   On the circuit board there is a pair of movable jumpers configuring the interior and destination screen lighting. As supplied, everything
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

1

Vegetation revamp

With Bad Horn attending STORMex on 4th August, I figured that I should attend to some of the wear that's come about from long distance transport and simply sitting on display in the living room. Grass has been the main victim, with some patches looking pretty bare. Also, the fine appearance of static grass fibres has never quite matched my own vision of scrubby verges alongside the railway.   Hanging basket liner was in the back of my mind as a solution, and searching the web I found a few g
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

2

A short film of a running session

Of course, with me at the controls, it's less than smooth. Next time I should concentrate on operating and have someone else film. I'd also like to add a soundtrack of real trains.   [media=''] [/media]
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

To exhibit or not? And a try-out of DCC Concepts Stay-Alive

I've had my house in Cheltenham since September, and Bad Horn has pride of place in the living room. It's running reasonably well, and survived the journey from New Zealand very nicely- the only damage was a wire that had come away. Now I'm fairly settled, aside from the question of the next project, I'm undecided on whether or not to exhibit or not. Bad Horn is very easy to transport, fitting in the boot of a family sized car and only needs three people to make a full day/weekend of running
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

5

Back in the old country with a lost Luxembourger

No wishing... I'm home. While the TV throws out scenes that might make some wish to leave, I'm loving the British summer and spending my time in tranquil surroundings where it's considered a riot if hooligans knock over a dustbin.   I seem to be doing well for German bargains. First my father gave us an Audi 80 to tide us over, then my wife found a very tidy Passat for good money, and finally the Hobby Shop put a loco I'd been considering buying on special offer. So I stopped considering bu
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

1

Wrapping up... some final running before the move- Epoch V DBAG

I leave New Zealand in four weeks. I'm really looking forward to coming home, but I will miss NZ and particularly Wellington. However, I think I will be able to visit every couple of years, so the wrench isn't too great. I plan to time my visits around the NZAMRC conventions!   Bad Horn spent most of the summer in the garage, as we had visitors for a lot of the time. A few weeks ago a friend who hadn't run it came around, and so we set it up in the spare room and had a play using my DBAG (
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

2

A batten peninsula

I'm plugging away at the reconfiguration of Steinrücken, and I'm making some reasonable progress. A slight change from the plan I uploaded with my last post is that the former helix base at the top right (now to be simply a balloon loop) has been flipped over, so I had to remove the legs, turn it over and re-affix them. This gives a wider (increased from 1' to 2') entrance to the central well, while still allowing a 20 inch wide passage to the top operating corridor (itself 32" wide) I've al
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

Phase 1: Plan it. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit.

Having stripped Steinrücken back to its framework, I played about with various configurations of the component baseboard frames to find an optimal fit within my garage. I settled on an arrangement with a three foot wide operating well with a viewing space outside of one long side. At some point, something clicked in my mind and I decided a branch line would give the best visual and operating experience for one or two people, and so I decided this would be my theme. I also wanted a nice sceni
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

2

A minor progress report

Steinrücken is history. The upper level and all sheet material is removed, leaving me with just bare frames. I've placed an order for Sommerfeldt's instruction booklet, as getting to the prototype from here involves a lot of expense and time! I shall start by building a test scene to see how happy I am with Sommerfeldt's "Profi" components, which have a contact wire with a diameter of 0.5mm (20 thou)- I know I'm happy with the look of 16 thou (0.4mm) as used by Andi Dell, so whether that ext
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

Should I even bother starting?

It's less than six months before I repatriate myself and five until the end of the contract on our house. Although at present very taken with Jim Stacco's City Classics show layout design, I have realised that the centre section as he built it is wider than the equivalent section of my donor baseboards. This leaves the options of changing scale to TT or building new boards if I wish to mimic the character of his layout, which I do. However, I'm painfully aware that I'm a slow modeller, Bad Ho
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

7

Size matters- TT vs H0

No sooner than I have assigned baseboards (ie stripped back parts of Steinrücken to frame level!) to the new project, I find myself back to the thorny question that will not go away... is H0 right for me?   In spite of having taken the plan of an existing model and actually having baseboards slightly larger than the original, I feel that it is rather cramped. In photographs I have seen online of the City Classics display layout, it really doesn't look cramped, so I wonder what I am doing wr
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

9

Downsizing in H0: Stadt-Klassiker

Every now and again, a "Eureka" moment comes. Far too often for my liking, I have more layout ideas for my available space and track than I have brain cells. Usually my inspirations come from prototype photographs and maps (plus of course the wonderful resource that is Google Earth), but on this occasion it has come from somebody else's modelling, via the medium of Carl Ardent's small layout scrapbook.   Now, with a larger than standard garage to play with, the small layout scrapbook isn't s
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

3

Whither Steinrücken?

I'll be honest, the following is an expansion of an email I recently sent Dominik Mann, but all things considered, it's probably worth posting on here.   I've just about decided not to buy any more models for the time being, at least until I have formulated my long term layout plans (I'm leaning towards TT, in spite of the smaller range- N is just too small). Anything I work on in the short term will be using existing stock and track. However, in a case of "so near, yet so far" you can see h
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

0

Well that was good fun. What next?

I write this tired and happy after a successful exhibition debut at RailEx over the weekend. I'm really very pleased, and totally exhausted.   First, before I witter away, massive thanks to Kev Prince (Mr45144) who flew up from Christchurch for the weekend, got the hang of operating the layout in barely five minutes and helped keep me sane all weekend. Seriously, it would not have been nearly so fun or easy without him. Also to my wife, although she doesn't read the forum! She's put up wit
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

7

Disheartened with DCC, bad timing for Bad Horn

The followers of the DCC sub-forum may know that recently the decoder in my sound fitted Schienenbus gave up the ghost. Yesterday, one of my other fancy pants traction units did likewise, this also being a Roco factory fitted model. It had in addition DCC actuated electromagnetic couplings, and whatever problem in the decoder resulted in the magic smoke escaping created a short direct to the function output controlling them. One has seized solid (presumably from overheating), and lacking any
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

5

Cleaning and dirtying

I mentioned in my last post that 218 230-1 wasn't playing at all, in spite of having cleaned the wheels and pickups. I didn't want to be defeated that easily, so I dismantled her almost entirely, getting right at the backs of the wheels and also the commutator. She now runs freely if noisily, growling along. An interesting tendancy is that in spite of having momentum disabled, the mechanism is free enough that following a sudden change of direction on the controller, the loco still rolls on a
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

8

A morning at Bad Horn

Wiring is complete. It's less than two weeks to RailEx, Bad Horn's exhibition debut. It must surely then be time to play trains. This serves the practical purpose of checking the layout and relevant stock work, and to see how well my previously imagined moves work out. First focus was the 1980s set. One loco refuses to play at all, everything else is fine. A bit of concentrated cleaning on the pointwork has ensured that trains can run though without stalling. All powered units have had CV
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

15

Well blow me down! An update on Bad Horn- let there be light!

Well, I might have not made any entries on the blog recently, but I have been working on both my layouts. The progress hasn't been rapid for a variety of reasons, not least the eternal wait for supplies ordered. Two weeks lost while the layout room was occupied by guests didn't help, plus a trip to Oz with Kev Prince.   The bulk of my work has been electrical, with a control panel being built and Viessmann signals installed. While I thought I'd had an epiphany into the signalling practices
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

9
×
×
  • Create New...