Tony Teague

Have you tried thick porridge?

Stunning work Adrian, and so simple! Tony

Tony Seen on another RMWeb thread today: " "Buying" is the new "modelling"........................" May explain your view that things may be in decline! Tony

Dave I like what you have done in using the IRDOTs in perhaps a different way to the obvious. You are effectively detecting the back of a train, whereas I am detecting the front, and so it is perhaps easier for me to mark the undersides of locos or units that are less easy to detect, because they are always going to be in the same place - at the front. In practice, however, I have only had to mark up two or three locos / units in this way, since most are readily detected by the IRDOTs. The other key difference between our two approaches is that I don't have the luxury of a "fiddle yard operator" since my layout is designed for one man operation - so I have had no choice but to mount a detector in each fiddle yard section, which certainly costs more but does provide me with semi-automatic control. Always interesting to see how others have used what is available to solve their operational issues! Tony

I have a large number of fiddle yard roads that sit underneath scenic boards or under another fiddle yard. I use Heathcote Electronics (no relationship etc) IRDOT detectors and these work just fine in the dark to give me an indication on the panel as to which roads are occupied or not. Because my layout is DC, they also stop the trains, and in some roads, when the front train is released by me, the second one automatically moves up. I have recently converted one road to "light engines only" and it holds 9 locos in a row, each of which moves up when the one in front clears. To ensure that I do not get a false detection from the IRDOT detectors, I have painted the underside of the boards above with a dark brown emulsion, but I have no idea whether that was absolutely necessary. You can see a lot more about this on my thread. Good luck with what you do! Tony

Sorry to hear this as I for one found inspiration in Grime Street - even to the point of installing Magnorail and building my range of barns to hide it! Nevertheless, time moves on and you must do what you must do! I shall be watching Sheffield Grimeside with the same level of interest. Tony

I too am lucky enough to remember the sound of steam as it was in the day, but surely you don't have to be an old git like me to be able to visit one of our many wonderful preserved railways, where if you stand at the right location, you can hear steam locomotives working hard up inclines, pulling away from stations or shunting. If you do, then you will know that "model sound" is not yet right. Right or not, I too am not a fan of sound in model form since I find it irritates me, but I'd also suggest that even if it sounded right, it requires a lot of effort on the part of the 'driver' to extract the right sounds at the right times, which may be difficult if one is also acting as signalman, controller, and moving multiple trains at once! Tony

My apologies; I mis-understood your diagram. Tony

The diagram posted by Miss Prism above deals with frog polarity, whilst that mentioned by smokebox covers signals and / or control panel indication; in addition the solenoids or slow action motors will also need wiring and the diagram provided with the Peco 3-way asymetric point covers this. All three of those options use 2 x 2-way switches and selection of the "illegal route" remains possible which is why I would suggest that getting down to three selection buttons plus a combination of relays and diodes is easiest from an operational perspective. Tony

I agree with the methods given so far, but I am fortunate in having an old fashioned coal merchant nearby, so I just go down and ask him if I can fill a large tub with coal dust - yes he thinks I am crazy, but its free and a tub full of small bits lasts forever. I am more lazy than Northroader - I have an up coal empties train and a down loaded coal train, so my coal loads are permanently stuck into the wagons. Tony

I have a number of Peco asymmetric 3 way points, each operated by two Peco solenoids but with only 3 buttons to push and three bi-colour LED lights showing for each; this gives simplicity of operation - there are always two red and one green light showing, but the circuit is complex, involving relays to switch frog polarity and diodes to change the LED's. I had previously used two switches - one per motor, but it remains possible with that solution, to select the "illegal" route. You can see what these look like on my Control Panel on my thread at: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115550-churminster-stowe-magna-southern-railway/?p=2454727 Although I helped develop the solution, the circuit diagram that I have is copyright and is not mine as I didn't draw it, but I could probably provide a copy if you PM me. Hope this helps Tony

Andy Yes, I should have said that if you ARE using DCC then my response would be different because of the ability to address the points through that route. Good luck! Best wishes Tony

Andy Unless you use DCC generally, my personal advice would be to avoid the DCC Concepts ADS-Fx devices; I bought and installed 6 of the twin boards to work 3-way points, and recently sold them all on E-Bay at a loss. I found their on-board CDU's to be weak and ineffective and I have now switched those points to my main, much higher powered, CDU. Yes, I use the Gaugemaster GM500 relays, but I have found that, as mentioned above, I needed to remove the two small resistors that sit at one end of the board and replace them with simple wire shunts. This is pretty easy to do. You can see my track plan on my own thread and whilst I agree that automation takes time and costs money, I could not operate the layout without it! Hope this helps! Tony

Andy Where possible I use the point blades to feed power but they can get dirty as has been said, and equally there are times where this cannot work. Like Tony (LB) I use surface mounted microswitches within fiddleyards, and elsewhere I use relays which are wired in parallel with the point motors - so they are switched by the same CDU pulse that changes the points. For my fiddle yards, I have a single button that controls access into a road and another for the exit, these are connected to the various points requiring changing through diode matrices; once these are built, installed and tested they are extremely reliable in operation - errors are almost entirely those of the operator! Whilst I have used a lot of wire, no circuit is any more complex than Tony describes, each being set out, connected and tested before moving on to the next; because the layout is large and complex the wiring is documented so that if fault finding is necessary, or future changes are required, it is not too difficult. Tony

I don't have any IRDOT-P units installed but I do have around 80 other IRDOT units installed and working, plus my first Heathcote uncoupler unit and I can happily recommend their products (no connection etc). I have a semi-automated fiddle yard in which the rear trains move up when the front ones are released; about 20 of these roads are just 2 trains long, but I have recently converted 2 roads to "light engine" roads and one holds 6 locos whilst the other holds 9. Once the first loco is released the others each move up in turn after a short delay (these are based on IRDOT-2D units); it all works very well. I have solved the problem that Matt mentions, in that I have two fiddle yards that are underneath other structures and in these cases I have painted the underside of the boards above with dark brown matt emulsion paint which does not reflect, and so the IRDOT units work perfectly. I can't see any reason why an IRDOT-P would not work as well as their other units do. Tony

Andy I use either relays or microswitches depending upon the situation. I really don't like the Peco microswitches that you can attach to their motors - I find them are almost impossible to get to work properly and certainly not as reliably as the solenoids. Conversely, the Peco relays are OK, although I have found that you need to remove the resistors on their circuit boards to get them to function. Tony

Hi Tony Regarding point motors, I use only Peco solenoids and whilst I have had the occasional problem of "stickiness" - usually due to motor / point alignment problems, I think that I can say that I have only had 2 failures over about a 10 year period - and I have around 140 motors installed; nor have I ever had any problems related to point blades breaking due to the violence of the solenoid switching. So I would say that your Seep failure rate seems unreasonably high. Tony

Tony I have just invested in a 'GoPro' and I think it really can fill the gap in terms of the low shots - in addition to being able to deliver really high quality video. At present I am only experimenting and learning, but here is a shot which is a low resolution still, exported from a video, and taken from a moving flat wagon at platform level: Please excuse the triangular sky - I have done nothing to edit out the ceiling in my railway room! Tony

Allan Not sure whether you need a prototype but if anyone ever doubts that your derelict goods sheds are realistic, here is a picture taken a week or so ago of the former LNWR goods shed at Watford, Northamptonshire (as in Watford Gap etc): Such a waste, and not long now before it falls down completely! Tony

Tony Sounds like SD car corruption; I have experienced this but I got a complete recovery by using a free utility provided by the card maker SanDisk. It is Called RescuePro and you can download it from the SanDisk website - if of course, your card came from them. Good luck in recovering your images. Tony

Meanwhile....in the back corner of the layout, close to where the 4-track mainline enters twin tunnels,my good friend Mike has been painstakingly constructing a downhill stream which flows through a series of small pools. It is his first attempt at using a static grass applicator and at creating an artificial water surface - and I think it looks great: He built the small bridge from plasticard coated with Das clay, and the stone wall from Das clay alone. Tony

Shouldn't this discussion be on RNWeb, rather than RM.......?

About time for a further update! The work around Churminster station and yard that has occupied me for rather too long is now almost complete; I say almost, because the shed still lacks chimneys and because there will always be details to be added: Over to the left, there is still work to do in the goods yard, but there is far more to be done behind the camera, where as you can see, the ballast currently runs out: Until now, I have been reluctant to start work on this section of the layout as there is so much to complete elsewhere, but I have found it frustrating to have such a large, bare area immediately in front of the Control Panel and so I have changed my mind and started work. Zooming in a bit from the previous shot, I have been progressing the build of a large stone crushing plant to serve a nearby quarry; this is adapted a bit from a Walthers kit and needs to be heavily weathered, whilst the bridge beyond it is scratch built from foam board covered with Slaters brickwork. There is a lot of structural and scenic work to be completed around the bridge and beyond: Looking towards the bridge form the other side, you can see that I have started to form the shape of the embankments and these will shortly "get plastered": A drone shot shows the scene more clearly: There is so much still to do that at times I doubt my own sanity in starting it off! - but I will get there!! Tony

I worked through the various options recently and having rejected kadees because they come apart at gradient changes, I have settled back on small tension locks and the Heathcote Electronics uncoupler. See: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/118492-heathcote-electronics-uncoupler-for-tension-lock-couplings/ Tony

Not sure whether this will be of interest to anyone, so apologies in advance, but PostScript books are selling copies of Peter Tuffrey's "British Railways Steam: Kings Cross to Aberdeen: The Bill Reed Collection", pub. Fonthill 2012, for £5.99 (RRP £16.99). See: https://www.psbooks.co.uk/British-Railways-Steam-Kings-Cross-to-Aberdeen-9781781550533 They also have a number of other railway titles. Postscript sell remaindered books from many publishers including e.g. Ian Allan, and I can recommend their rapid service (no connection etc). Tony