petertg

I don't want to be a spoilsport but, unless my memory is failing me, I can't remember seeing either buses or trams of the type shown in Leeds in the period specified, although I stand to be corrected. Otherwise, it looks great and realistic.

Hi! I got the advice on the programming track from my local shop where I asked about equipment suitable for upgrading my system and while I don't remember his exact words, he suggested the risk of fusing the controller if a locomotive was driven onto the siding from the main track under certain conditions and that it was better to avoid that risk by having a dedicated programming track. What I could do, when and if the time comes, is completely isolate one of the sidings (the layout has nine) and place the locomotives on it by hand. As far as the DMU is concerned, I have glued the weights in place and refitted the body shell and, concerning the soldering iron tips, I am awaiting news from the shop where I have placed an order. Regards

Hello again. After an exchange of comments and receiving good advice from fellow members concerning DCC track wiring and a few trials, I came to the conclusion that my wiring, albeit not perfect, was not bad and that certain anomalies observed with certain vehicles were due to the vehicles and not to the track wiring. Then, when one problem seemed solved, a new one arose. My whole point activation system (analogue) went dead. In view of the way the system is wired, it was obvious that the fault could only lie in the very last stretch up to the switch bank, but one thing misled me. The three switches controlling the street and station lighting are intercalated in the switches controlling the points since, being of a different colour, they serve to separate the different groups of points and the lighting was working, so I started dismantling things which were unnecessary. After testing contacts and on the way blowing two point motors (one with a false contact and the other after having finally located the fault, by accident -I accidently flicked one of the switch levers with a fingertip-) I located the fault. It was in the input to the switch bank which made a false contact. I then had to discover why the lighting worked and replace the point motors, having recently received the new ones. I did seriously contemplate rewiring the whole layout but, as previously advised by another member, I decided to leave well alone and just correct one or two anomalies and add a couple more power feeds. I am also contemplating buying another, more sophisticated control system but this presents physical problems. My current system works with a hand set and the point switches are located conveniently at one corner, but it might not be convenient to locate a new knob-operated controller in the same corner as the present system (which is different from the switch bank) and this would require relocating the switch bank so that one person could both control the trains and move the points without having to move about too much, plus the installation of a programming track. For this I could adapt one of the sidings, but I have been advised that this is not recommended and that the programming track should be fully independent. The more time passes, the more complicated things seem to come. I shall have to do some hard thinking. Anyway, since the financial crisis (as at least one other member will corroborate) is squeezing harder and harder, any substantial purchase will have to go on hold and also I am having eyesight problems which are making things a little more difficult. However, I have not been still. I found the dual connection of the public lighting and corrected it and have repaired some damage done to existing items, such as a park shed crushed by hand to avoid falling and an uprooted tree. If I remember rightly, mention has been made of problems related to the lightness of the trailer car of the Bachmann DMU 150 so I decided to add weight to mine. The power car weighs around 200 grams and the trailer car less than 50 (according to our primitive kitchen scales). I first thought of lead shot of the type used by fishermen, then I thought of flat iron bar and then I remembered that in the back garden I had steel rod of the type used for reinforcing concrete, so I cut off four bits of about 25 grams each and tried them out as per enclosed photo, namely 50 grams above each bogie. On testing, the power car both pulled and pushed uphill and down dale at reasonable speeds and at a crawl and there was no derailing of the trailer car. However at a crawl the power car derailed at a point where it experienced no trouble at faster speeds. Investigation revealed a large gap between rail sections. This was corrected and the problem disappeared. However it was caused by the leading wheels of the rear bogie of the power car when running forward (something which happens at another part of the track as I have mentioned in a previous post and which I still have to solve). However, as far as weighting the trailer car is concerned, unless anybody can kindly point out possible problems unapparent to me at this stage, I will fix the weights in place and replace the body shell. I have also encountered a problem that you most likely don’t have in the U.K. I have two soldering irons (different brands) and have been unable to locate spare tips for either of them, even after an intensive search on the Internet. I finally located a shop in Barcelona which can supply another brand, but which seems compatible with one of my irons and I am now awaiting their news of their availability, since they did not have the tips in stock. When I get the new tips I will set about installing the replacement point motors.

Just a short note to vent my new frustration. After an exchange of comments and receiving good advice from fellow members concerning DCC track wiring and a few trials, I came to the conclusion that my wiring, albeit not perfect, was not bad and that certain anomalies observed with certain vehicles were due to the vehicles and not to the track wiring. Then, when one problem seemed solved, a new one arose. My whole point activation system (analogue) went dead. In view of the way the system is wired, it was obvious that the fault could only lie in the very last stretch up to the switch bank, but one thing misled me. The street and station lighting that is combined with the points was working, so I started dismantling things which were unnecessary. After testing contacts and on the way blowing two point motors (one with a false contact and the other after having finally located the fault, by accident -I accidently flicked one of the switch levers with a finger tip-) I located the fault. It was in the input to the switch bank which made a false contact. I now have to discover why the lighting worked and replace the point motors, having recently received the new ones. I did seriously contemplate rewiring the whole layout but, as previously advised by another member, I decided to leave well alone and just correct one or two anomalies and add a couple more power feeds. I am also contemplating buying another, more sophisticated control system but this presents physical problems. My current system works with a hand set and the point switches are located conveniently at one corner, but it might not be convenient to locate a new knob-operated controller in the same corner as the present system (which is different from the switch bank) and this would require relocating the switch bank so that one person could both control the trains and move the points without having to move about too much, plus the installation of a programming track track. For this I could adapt one of the sidings, but I have been advised that this is not to be recommended and the programming track should be fully independent. The more time passes, the more complicated things seem to come. I shall have to do some hard thinking. Anyway, since the financial crisis (as at least one other member will corroborate) is squeezing harder and harder in Spain, any substantial purchase will have to go on hold and also I am having eyesight problems which are making things a little more difficult. So modelling will have to go in abeyance for the time being.

Good explanation. I have a Class 108 that I wanted to open and did not know how to. I have two questions: 1. Where do you see the date on the PCB, and 2. I see you seem to have a tiebar. Did it come with the unit or is it something you have made yourself? I have just seen your other posts explaining the tiebar question, so I only need to know the answer to question 1. Thanks in advance.

I have decided to add a new piece to my blog although, after reading all the blogs where people build all their own stuff I get the impression that, in football terms, you all are in the Premier League and I am low down in a half-holiday league (if such thing still exists). However, being no angel, I will rush in. I want to update my DCC equipment but I can't make the investment until it is reasonably possible to play trains with what I have got and it seemed that the track was still full of surprises, nothing better to get my Hornby 2-6-4 Stanier Tank which has obstinately refused to work well and which, as mentioned in a previous post, Hornby told me that it was probably helping me to find track faults. Close investigation confirmed at least two conflictive spots: one, when running clockwise it at the end of a long downward incline ending in a curve and two consecutive sets of points, the second set curved, the other, also with clockwise running being at the end of an upward 180º curve ending in a set of points on the flat. Already last year I had softened the transition from ramp to flat because the front bogie of the tank engine was left hanging in the air when it got to the points but it still wasn't enough. So, yesterday I set about solving the problems. It seemed that the derailing when entering the double set of points was due to a difference in rail height and placing shims under the underlay seemed to clear the problem there. The solution to the other problem seemed to make the upward ramp slightly steeper so that the locomotive could enter the points on the flat while the transition from ramp to flat was less acute. I pulled up the track (probably the fourth or fifth time this curve had been lifted) tested the ground with a spirit level and inserted a flat piece of cork where the curve ended and relaid the track to-day. This afternoon I have spent about four hours or more running the tank engine, I must have rerailed it more than twenty times what with one thing and another, finding that in spite of the shims it still derailed at the end of the downward curve. Finally a very close inspection revealed that when set one way, the points did not close properly because the point surface mounted motor was slightly out of place. At other points, where the thing was derailing the second time round, having passed the first time O.K., I came to the conclusion, correct or not, that on the first passage it was dislodging the spring clips used to communicate the insulfrog and the second time round it hit it. So, I removed the clip in two places, seemingly without any adverse result. The Stanier now seems to perform reasonably well (fingers crossed and touching wood), apart from stopping at times and refusing to start unless reinitiated. Finally a photograph of a thing I have been after for over two years and finally obtained: a double deck bus, back loader, in Leeds City Transport livery, with the added incentive of being a model of a bus on which I had actually travelled in my youth.

Re my above post. It's not Horsman, but Horsfield Trams. The Crossley Bus mentioned above is one I rode on when I was at school and shows its Leeds registration nº. The EFE bus does not.

Thanks fior the tip. I have located a couple of buses and six different versions of a Horsman Tram in efe. I'll have a look at Atlas Corgi. A Happy New Year to all.

Does anyone know if Oxford (or any other manufacturer for that matter) did a Leyland, AEC or Daimler double deck bus Roe body, back loader, in Leeds Corporation late 40's/early 50's livery?

I too am a sprout fan, but this year my harvest was reduced to two plants with sprouts about the size of a small marble. Nevertheless, they had a great taste.

Please forgive my ignorance but what do you mean exactly by "droppers" and "toe end"? Also, would it work if I took a long length of wire, bared small portions to correspond to the various track sections and soldered the bare points to the outside of the rails, to avoid having individual wires for each section? If not, how is it done? Finally, with so many feeds, are the shorting clips necessary for the insulfrog points? Shall be grateful for all comments.

Thanks for the comments. I can't face the task of uprooting 20 odd metres of foam underlay. A substantial part (Hornby) of the track was bought new in 2007, including all the points. The older material (Peco flexitrack and Lima straights) wasn't really recycled, since it had practically never been used. As for power feeds, I have 12 for 24 metres of track. Adding more could be complicated at this stage, but I will look into it.

In spite of what I said in my last contribution, I have spent more time and money, albeit only about ?5, on the layout. I bought some cork 3 mm thick and balsa wood 1 mm thick to equal the core thickness of the foam underlay (because I could not find cork 4 mm thick and didn't want to go traipsing round the whole area) and re-laid three turnouts. Since I than had problems to settle a long straight in the grooves of the foam underlay, I finally removed about one yard of foam and replaced it with cork. In the end though, of the three turnouts one has a surface mounted motor and I had to insert a piece of plywood to get the thing to work. Now I have the extra work of covering the cork underlay with ballast. As mentioned in somebody else's blog, I rinsed the ballast and the idea seems to work when I apply the adhesive with a dropper since it does not float out of place. I have also spent a long time trying to digitize a Wrenn City class live chassis locomotive (without adequate tools) without success. I had the notion that the decoder chip had been damaged but, without a PT I was unable to verify this fact and, since I had already sent another chip up in a puff of smoke, I was reluctant to try the only one I had left. However, after buying a voltmeter and multiple tests with a 9V battery, I found that the motor armature was not sufficiently tight. I tightened it up and then, without the chip, I applied the 9V to the motor and it worked. So, to-day I decided to run the risk and use my last chip and it worked. I had recently tested my UK rolling stock and it seemed to work reasonably well and one of my continental items also works well so I decided to test the set that came with my DCC starter kit. The locomotive runs well alone but, with its three coaches, problems right from the start. The coaches derailed in two places and came loose in a third. I haven't discovered the cause for derailment in the first place because it did not happen to-day and on inspecting the second place I discovered a screw holding the track down projected slightly from the surface (but not sufficiently to affect other rolling stock). It was duly corrected and the derailing did not occur. A similar thing caused the unhooking of the coaches. I then discovered something which does not cause derailments but might be the cause of faulty dcc signal transmission. At the entry to the bridge the track is loose and one sleeper rests on the head of a screw holding the bridge to its column and I am wondering whether this might cause some slight irregular movement when certain locomotives pass over it, thereby disrupting the signal. In view of the conical shape of the head of the screws I use to hold the track down, I am considering countersinking them in the sleepers. It seems that I still have a lot of work to do before we can just get down to playing with trains without too many hitches. In this respect I must say that I have been devouring many other entries relating to DCC, tight curves and other items and it seems that to get a perfect layout is virtually impossible One loco jibs in one place, another in another place, yet another works o.k in one direction and not in the other, etc. Since I started late, I have not been able to get all the period vehicles I would have liked but last Saturday on a visit to a local Christmas Fowl Fair, on one of the many other stands I found a late 40s early 50s double deck back loader in Bradford Corporation livery (an EFE model) but to my surprise It does not have any registration numbers like all the others I have.

As mentioned on other occasions I have problems with my Hornby 2-6-4 Stanier tank 4MT Class 4p. It just refuses to perform correctly. I have yet to be able to use it for hauling the three coaches I bought for it last year. I have managed to get it to circulate at low speed but once I up the speed a little it derails here, if not here, then there and if not there, elsewhere. I have other rolling stock that offers no problems. I have spent all this afternoon checking cambers, I ripper up part of the level crossing which seemed to be causing problems, I ripped up the part of the track where the levekl crossing was. I located a portion of track where there was level track, a slight tilt and level track again in the space of about four inches. I levelled the track at this point and relaid the rest of the track. When the beast got to this modified part running forward, the front bogie did a little dance and came off the rails. When running backwards it passed the spot o.k. I tried my Bachmann DMU model 108 with no trouble. It so happens that the tank engine is my favourite piece, but I am beginning to lose my (little) patience with it. Although I must admit once again that when I started all this I never imagined what could be involved. Of course, if I had known of this web five years ago when I started, things might have been quite different. In view of the limited capability of this layout, I am now wondering whether it is worthwhile spending more time and money on it. Below I show a selection of motor vehicles I have purchased for the layout: All of these except the red Bedford van have Leeds registration numbers. The van has a Leeds address on its doors. These are vehicles sold where I worked, a Rootes Group dealer. And these are vehicles that, for the time being, will not go on the layout. I also have a number of other private and commercial vehicles for the layout.

It's a pity that I have only had knowledge of your existence when you have to go back to the UK but things have become really hard here, although, fortunately, as of yet our family is feeling the pinch but not yet in dire straits. Best wishes from Cubelles. petertg

If you read the first part of my blog, you will see a list of vehicles that I have for placing on the layout. Also, right at the start, there is a reproduction of the track plan (n

I sympathise with you. I have lost count of the times I have had to redo things. petertg

This layout is taken exactly from a Hornby Catalogue of 1975 except that the only modification relates to the curved sidings shown in the last photo. Strictly speaking I am not operating in any particular era, because I started too late to get what I would have liked to get, namely pre 1960 (when I left the U.K.). As mentioned in the first part of the blog, I am trying to relate this layout to my early life in Leeds and the terrace houses represent where I lived up to Feb.1939 and the semis represent where I lived after that. I have a lot of Hornby trackside, Corgi etc. vehicles, most of which are from that period and many have Leeds registration numbers of the time..

I hope your time schedule works out. I have been five years on an 8 x 4 ft layout. petertg

Below there is a number of photos showing different stages of construction. A modification to the layout not mentioned above was to lengthen two of the sidings. The two straight sidings at the top station (looking at the plan as reproduced above) were too short to accommodate a locomotive and three coaches, either the locomotive or the end coach remained over the points, so I made them curved and made a curved platform for them from balsa wood. As said above, I had installed point motors (underfloor) only on the main circuit but not on the sidings. To avoid having to make more holes in the baseboard I opted for surface mounted motors. I have decided to leave the motors analogue controlled. Having installed them on the sidings, I found that a certain vehicle would not pass between two motors mounted on adjacent points; they were mounted on the curve, not on the straight. So, rip them up and replace them the other way around. Then one burnt out, so replace it, but moving one underfloor motor to another place, with the corresponding new hole, to get the surface mounted one where I wanted it. In the meantime I had purchased a Hornby 2-6-4 Stanier 4MT Class 4P tank engine and was incapable of getting it to do even one complete circuit without derailing. I suggested to Hornby that the bogies were too light and they replied that the loco was probably pointing out multiple track faults to me. They were right in that and I have ironed out a good many faults. Bit I still think that I also am right because various other locos perform O.K., while the Stanier still derails too easily. When I got around to the decoration (mentioned above), there was need for more improvisation (meaning modification of the original plan. As mentioned above, on the front cover photo of the Hornby Catalogue, there is no visible means of access to the houses in the interior of the circuit. So I decided to build a level crossing. I had not seen anywhere a readymade one suitable for the two curved tracks at this point under the bridge. I imported the card kits, made them and then found that the row of terrace houses would occupy too much space where I wanted to place them to leave room for a street of scale size. So another modification. I had to cut a slice off the upper layer parallel to the sidings to make room for the houses and the road. Compare the following photo with the previous one above, albeit taken from the other end. Another modification was to raise the height of the engine shed because the electric locos, with the current collector raised, would not pass under. I also added some semis with gardens and garages. Then I discovered road signs (easily installed) and lighting for the street, railway platforms and marshalling yard, which meant modifying the electric cabling on the underside of the baseboard. In view of my age and the slight flexibility of my body, the installation of the wiring meant tipping the baseboard side on. This is a very early photo (2008) but shows what I say about tipping the board side on. Throughout this year I have made much progress in the decoration and removing track faults, but it has meant ripping up the track in different places and relaying it. Currently I can get most locos to move around the whole layout, entering and leaving sidings, stations, etc. without serious problems. Up to here I have been relying on my memory and the aid of the photographs, so the events related might not have been stated in correct chronological order. The most recent work has been to place railings and hedge between the top station area and the semis and this again has meant having to rip up one of the curved sidings and relay it because the coaches rubbed against the railings, with the problem, then, of making sure that two trains on the sidings did not touch each other. They will just pass, with about a millimetre between them. But all of this shows what happens without good planning and getting 'brilliant' new ideas almost every time I contemplate the layout.

I believe that it should be Leeds Permanent Building (no 's') Society. And we always wrote Crossgates as one word. I've just been on a fortnight's holiday to the UK with my Spanish grandchildren and we have been wandering about Cross Gates (Crossgates), It seems that on the roundabout at the bottom end of the Ring Road (in front of the old long disappeared Regal Cinema) and leading to Station Road there is a sign with Cross Gates (two words) and on the bus stops Cross Gates is written with two words, but in other places it is written as one word. So, it seems, you can take your choice. Also, it seems that the name of the building society is Leeds & Holbeck ... Also, depending on the accent you use, you can pronounce things more than one way and, sometimes, unintellegibly, e.g. "cop 'od o' mi 'at"

Background: I am a GB expat, born in 1933 and have lived practically two thirds of my life outside the UK. My first memories of railway modelling go back to pre-1939 when I seem to remember an O gauge set up on top of the table with the rails plugged in direct to the mains and the locos had rods sticking out from the cab to control them. My father said you had to be careful not to get an electric shock. The next memories date to the 1942-3 period when I was invited with a distant cousin by a man in Batley to see his layout in his cellar. It was a large room with the layout going round all four walls with a sort of diorama in one corner. he had a steam engine but said we could not see it because it took to long to raise steam. The electric models were set to do just one complete trip round the track. During these years I also got to know a soldier posted to Pontefract and who lodged for a while with his family with my uncle and aunt where I was evacuated who had built is own steam engine, King John, which was a feature in a magazine which I believe was called Model Engineering. At the end of the war, my father asked us what we wanted him to bring us when he returned and I requested a tank engine. I was unaware that these things probably didn't exist in 1946 Egypt. Nothing happened modelwise for the next few years, I came abroad, got married and had children. Around 1972-3 we purchased a Lima kit for my son (alegedly for him), but never really had a decent place to set it up permanently. On a trip to the UK in 1975 I purchased a Hornby Track Plan catalogue, a Wrenn City class die cast locomotive and other items. On other trips I purchased Peco flexible track and, in the meantime, I had purchased sundry rolling stock locally. Now and again we put the track portions together on the floor but no serious layout was ever made. Up to 1991 we lived in a flat in Barcelona, with just enough space for six persons and although we had a second home up at the top end of the Costa Brava, with plenty of space theoretically, there was really no adequate emplacement. In 1991, we sold both places and moved into a detached house with a garage. Still now and again we put the track portions together on the floor or on the garden table, but nothing permanent. Then, in 2007 I saw the light (or the penny dropped) and realised that I could hang a layout from the garage ceiling. But I still had the fixed idea of a specific track plan from the Hornby Catalogue bought way back in 1975 and here are the illustrations. A closer inspection will reveal that the front cover photograph is a version of Track Plan nº 9, though, subsequently, for technical reasons, I had to make some variations. Here is where the costly improvisation started. I was in complete ignorance of what was to be involved. I had my own ideas, a lot of diverse material, but nothing else. So, I set about the job without commending myself to anybody. I had an aluminium frame made by a man who had installed several aluminium windows and doors and sunblinds in the house. I ordered a 244x122x6 mm plywood baseboard (I had no idea that a lighter material was available) from a local carpenter and installed a pulley system in the garage as per the following illustrations, using a blind roll-up drum and, originally, a manual wind-up system, soon to be motorised (the board obviously came down easily enough, but was a hell of a job to wind up) and Kevlar mountaineer's cord. In the meantime, I had discovered Hattons and placed a massive order (250 GBP). I was selective. I had made a study of the requirements for the above track plan and missed out what could be replaced with what I had got. For example, one Lima straight cut to size could do for four Hornby short straights, Peco flex track could be used instead of long straights and an odd Lime curve could be inserted. At that time, my idea of building a layout was you just stick the track pieces together, wire up the controller, plug in, place the material on the track and away you go. Poor me. A first impression of the future layout With my massive order I had not been able to obtain the ramp piers (out of stock) so I set out on making a number of scratch built columns with wood and also tried expanded polystyrene (recovered from the tip, since the standard models wouldn't do) and with fibreboard I did some makeshift ramps. Then the man at the local Model Shop, when I showed him the Hornby Catalogue, suggested that the slopes were too steep and that the locomotives would slip. It appeared that this was so. Change of mind (more improvisation), the plan had to be modified. The marshalling yard and one station were raised about 4 cms, whereby there were four gentler gradients instead of two steep ones (the original height difference was about 10 cms). But this required making more columns with improvised equipment. In the meantime, it was evident that while the baseboard came down easily (obviously) it was hard work to wind it up by hand. So an electric motor of the type inserted inside the drum of blinds was installed. Up to this time I had no idea that DCC had been on the scene for some time and with analogue control the system worked more or less OK. Then I discovered DCC. and since my son gave me the money to cover what I had already paid for the blind motor I purchased a PIKO starter set. Having installed DCC, I had to modify the layout once more. The isolating tracks and points had to be deisolated (if that's the word). More problems, some locos worked well, some didn't work at all, others with intermittent jerky running on the main circuits, but there was no way they would run into the sidings properly. At this time the layout was virtually only track and the platforms of a Faller station at the bottom side. And time was passing. Sometimes weeks passed between work sessions. Also, I had installed underfloor point motors only on the main circuits, but not on the sidings. Then I moved onto decoration and decided to modify the plan from what was shown on the Catalogue front cover, where there are buildings inside the circuit, but with no visible means of getting out (this fact was pointed out by my family). Here I could purchase very well made resin buildings but not cheap. Since I am a subscriber to Hattons weekly newsletter, I discovered the Metcalf card kits and opted for them. A whole row of six terrace buildings (two corner shops and four houses) cost a little more than one resin engine shed would have cost me here. So, except for the Faller station, still to be set up fully, the buildings are Metcalf. I will make it no secret that I have tried to relate the layout to my life in Leeds. I have at least six vehicles with Leeds registration numbers and one with no registration nº but a Leeds address on its side panels and other vehicles related with the automobile distributors where I worked. Yet other vehicles are related with other aspects of my life, namely a Morris Minor Traveller (brother-in law) Morris Minor Post Office van (my father) and a Ford Popular (a cousin of a cousin who once took me for a ride and the car was bouncing like a ball at 55 mph).