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I remember being quite shocked when the train was withdrawn from service. As a teenager heading towards a career in engineering, I imagined the train would be a platform for continuous development and trials. So why was it withdrawn and preserved, instead of being retained as a test bed?

- Richard.

It's a box for providing "health and safety" for loading and unloading equipment which is designed to be lethal. There is a UK specification in JSP 403 but to be honest, it's a box full of sand.

- Richard.

If this is a gunpowder store it should be fine as it is. If it is a store for munitions, there might be a weapon loading/unloading bay nearby. This can be a three-sided box full of sand. If present, it would emphasise the purpose of the store.

- Richard.

I don't know Cornwall at all but this model seems to ooze character. A lot of model in a small space too.

- Richard.

Well, slight issue with the pit head gear. The sheave wheels don't line up with the winding house window so the whole area will now be modelled as very run down - rust, broken rails, rotten wooden walkways.

This seems a shame, those wheels would be superb if they could be moving. No chance of making a new wall for the winding house with a window in a better location?

- Richard.

Communications with the relay module are very much one-way (no feedback) so I wouldn't want to attempt a mimic diagram with LEDs. Also with a small layout you can usually see how the points are set.

I picked up a bank of H&M section switches as used on their Powermaster controllers - brand new, still in its tissue paper and box, with the customary guarantee slip of the period - 1960s I suppose. Such a thing mounted onto a wooden cigar box would have a nice tactile feel and fairly ooze nostalgia. Some AA batteries inside the box to run the Arduino. 

The H&M switches are rather "handed" i.e. you really want the 'off' position away from you. Perhaps the solution is a discrete toggle switch on or inside the box which tells the micro controller how to 'read' the switch bank. So you always hold the box the same way up, and the left-most switch always operates the left-most points, whether you are in front of the layout or behind it. It would be easy to print out two track diagrams to go with the two sets of lever numbers.

In the meantime, I have got as far as fixing the relay module onto the baseboard. There is a USB socket at the left, which I'll only use if I need to debug Bluetooth problems. The DC power jack is at the other end.

- Richard.

(Edited for a typo)

So is one photo of the station reversed? Most miniature railways, tend to be unidirectional.

The handles on the smokebox door are pointing the same way in both photos.

Inside the curve, there are two small boxes on posts and an object which looks like a gradient post. The gradient post is closer to box on the post in the photo with the two men on the seats.

There are some weeds on the end of the platform ramp in the photo with the men on the train. 

So I think, the line had a reverse curve and the photos are of opposite ends of the station. Still, the builder did a lot of work to create symmetry right down to the posters inside the shelter.

- Richard.

I'm looking at starting a thread on my new layout under construction. It measures 5' x 1' with a 2' x 1' fiddle yard, which happens to be an add on, but off scene. Would this layout with its dimensions fall into the categories of 'Boxfiles, Micro Layouts & Dioramas ??

 

Cheers, Gary.

You could have a look at www.carendt.com, If you know your layout would be at home there, I'm sure it will be welcome here. Micro layouts are a kind of layout rather than a particular size of layout.

- Richard.

Here is my installation onto a Hornby 2-BIL, which is a bit "different" so seems worth posting. The central buffer will foul the head of the coupler, so I cut off the trip pins and fitted the couplers upside down. These are Kadee number 17, the shortest available for an NEM socket. The two photos show the behaviour near the middle of a reverse curve (no sweat), and at the top of 1 in 20 gradient (very close to uncoupling).

I like having a detachable coupling because I want to run my trains on the local club layout (reasons are fairly evident!) - but it is also easy to go back to the original bar supplied by Hornby, which will give a closer coupling.

- Richard.

As there is no actual mine shaft, there will be some sheeting added to the frame, as a disguise. This will also serve as a barrier to stop the little people falling down the shaft ( that isn't there...).

 

But, if anyone has any suggestions for what signs would be suitable , I'll be very grateful.

I've done a few Google searches for historical trackside signs and found nothing. However, I have found Railway Group Standard GI/RT7033 which gives the details of the present-day lineside operational signs. See page 140 of the standard for the limited clearance sign. I imagine the Big Four had their own signs - but I've not found them online.

- Richard.

I have looked at the adafruit site in and stopped here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/metal-inlay-capacitive-touch-buttons
"make pretty things you can touch and make bleepy noises" 

Imagine, a wooden control panel done in marquetry, with conductive pads beside the points. More stylish than a row of toggle switches!

I'd be interested to hear or see posts from anyone who has done some model railway infrastructure control (as opposed to a loco throttle) using an Arduino or similar controller.

- Richard.

My new layout will have seven points including one crossover so six point levers in all. I want to be able to have the control panel behind the layout or in front of it, so I have taken the plunge to go wireless and soft.

I have bought one of these:

TOSR08 - 8 Channel Smartphone Relay Bluetooth Remote Control Kit

and it arrived yesterday taking just nine days from China for a very nominal postage cost of £3.40. UK mail order operations take note! The package shows the value of USD20 so no customs duty either :-)

And it works fine. You have to plug the Bluetooth module into the relay board, and find a shaver adaptor or similar to plug the US-style 5V power unit into the mains. Download a free Android app from TinySine, install it, pair it up and it all just works!

The wiring under the layout will be simplicity. One wire from the common of each relay to a Tortoise motor. Wires from +12V and -12V supplies daisy-chained along the other relay contacts, and a common 0V return back from each of the motors.

Wanting to be a bit more ambitious, it would be nice to have a mimic diagram on the phone. After pairing, the software would set all the points to a default position (no feedback possible from the relay module), and then you would touch the bits of track adjacent to the points on the diagram to set the route and highlight it on the screen.

If I was using a Windows PC with a mouse/keyboard interface, I could tackle this in Delphi (probably Delphi 4 under XP!) with a reasonable chance of success. I'm not sure about how to go about it in Android. I have dabbled with a product called App Inventor, and have the book "Building Android Apps" by Mike McGrath, but to be honest I don't have a clue how to make it work to send commands, let alone send commands via Bluetooth. I also went through the rigmarole of installing Java and a Java development environment with an Android add-in on an old PC (now all gone) and by the time I got it working I was losing the will to live, let alone devise a program.

So any ideas on how to approach the app side of this would be good. In fact, if the "app" ended up as a row of eight physical toggle switches with a Bluetooth connection by whatever hardware you like to the module I'd be happy. At the end of the day, if it's just too difficult I can stay with the eight buttons on the free app from TinySine.

- Richard.

It's a bit sad to discuss this on a thread for a chap with his arm in plaster, but the Modratec frame is a good design and if you did "metalwork" at school then the fettling and assembly of the parts is an exercise in nostalgia. The finished thing is robust enough to show off to visitors to let them try it out and see how the locking works.

- Richard.

How would you propose to construct the traverser/sector plate when you are using a foamboard base?

Here is a photo of how I did it, but of course it did involve wood work:

Next time I would add some bracing to the plate itself, even a small one can warp a bit. There are some detailed pics here: http://www.castellybwrdd.myzen.co.uk/#sectorplate.

- Richard.

I had similar frustrations a couple of years ago and started this thread:

Preferred height for Kadee couplers on UK 4mm scale models

This evolved into seven pages in the end. I know, no-one wrote about the Black 5, but perhaps there are some useful ideas in there.

- Richard.

If you could settle for 66 inches total length, you could use foam core board to make two baseboards. This is sold in A1 size sheets, at least here in the UK. See my Mill Curve layout, link in my signature. But with the good arm in plaster, I'd go for a sheet of extruded polystyrene. This is marketed here as Knauf Spaceboard, sold for loft insulation. Pink in colour, about 2 inches thick. I used this for my Castell y Bwrdd layout. The only real drawback I know is it is difficult to fix mechanisms to it, like point motors, so you may end up gluing on patches of plywood to fix them to - which means woodwork

- Richard

Today's modelling session involved adding the rest of the main coat of paint to the pithead. In place with 9635 it does give me the sort of dominance I was after.

 

20150304_131956.jpg

If the GWR used warning signs to show a limited clearance, a couple of these would set off the steelwork nicely. I do like the colours of this model.

- Richard.

“What constitutes to a micro layout?”

 

This issue has been thoroughly treated in a similar thread three years ago in this forum (and earlier and elsewhere etc. …).

As the guilty one who started it, here's the link from three years ago:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/52681-what-is-a-micro-layout/

Three years on, I think of a micro as theatrical stage with lots of visual and operating interest, usually in a medium to large scale, where trains enter and leave the stage but you don't see one travel for much distance. I like N gauge models just as much, but the larger sizes make it easier to mask off the wings of the stage, and the models stand closer viewing. The dimensions of the modelled area are a bit academic, but four square feet is enough to build a satisfying micro in most scales.

- Richard.

The point I am failing to make is this.

These locomotives have spent most of their lives in private hands, and there is no livery which we could reasonably describe as "typical of the class" i.e. "prototypical". If a livery is applied to a locomotive, the livery becomes real and we need to look for a new adjective to describe it - perhaps "industrial" or "preservation" or "one-off" or "sponsored" or even "new" - whatever is the most appropriate for the locomotive in question. I am unhappy about describing them as fictional - only the Loadhaul example cited in the list is fictional - unless we are adopting "fictional" as a jargon word.

I think, this locomotive can carry off a wide variety of different schemes very well, but I'm not proposing a particular scheme for a production run. Sorry if this has mislead people.

- Richard.

http://www.preserved-diesels.co.uk/engines/index_14.htm

 

Lots of pictures there...

 

Highlights:

<cut>

Thanks for the link and the list. I think the maroon with small yellow panels is my favourite. The loco carries off the colours of the Railfreight scheme well, but to my eyes it would be better without the logo.

- Richard.

in preservation class 14's have been quite colourful and a popular choice for "having fun" fictional liveries.. Including sand, maroon, blue, green (with cab side), load haul etc as well as fictional numbers.

Hang on. Do we have any evidence of these liveries? If a locomotive carried such a livery, it would be prototypical, not fictional.

- Richard.

Today's modelling session, so far, has involved adding a chimney and side building to the smiffy, as well as completing the door and slapping some paint around.

Please, what is the manufacturer of the plastic sheet with the coursed stone effect on the building? It looks like it could work for a retaining wall or bridge abutment in HO, 00 or even S scales.

- Richard.

Today's modelling session involved yet more post threading and the completion of the chute painting.

 

20150210_132727.jpg

Stu,

Is the tramway the sort of thing which would (in reality) be worked by a cable and some winding gear? It looks quite lightweight for a locomotive, and too narrow for horses. However I may be looking at it the wrong way.

- Richard.

Ikea do a similar Lazy Susan, I bought mine for a static diorama which I started a while ago. The Ikea one is about 38 cm diameter and has their part numbers 900.744.83 and 19891. Mine was in their Lakeside store.

- Richard.