Trofimow

At last, the work to the lower deck under Effingham station area has been done. Hoffman point motors are fitted and tested, CCTV cameras installed covering the B and C storage areas, and the track cleaned. The lid has gone back on and the tracks through the station reconnected. Next job is to finish fitting the steel plates under the track for the DCC Concepts Power Base system. I'm fitting this to all the rising gradients on the layout, and the lower decks have been done as has the plain track on the top deck. The bit that I've been avoiding tackling can be put off no longer. There are only two small areas of the layout where the track had so far been ballasted, and a certain law dictates that these not only have to be lifted to fit the plates, but also they are the most complex sections of trackwork. At the top of the climb from storage D&E is Effingham junction itself, a double junction, with crossovers giving access to all 5 platforms plus the goods reception loop, EMU stabling sidings and Forest Road branch. All this pointwork has been ballasted the traditional way with granite chippings and PVA and needs to be eased upwards sufficiently to slip the plates underneath. Misting the ballast with water from a spray bottle softened the PVA sufficiently to permit a flat bladed wallpaper scraper to be inserted beneath the track and with much care and not a little muttering the deed was done, amazingly enough without terminal damage to any of the points. The track has now been partially reballasted sufficiently to secure everything and permit test running through the junction. Initial tests with a Hornby King Arthur show that it can now start 6 unmodified Bachmann Mk1 on the 1 in 80 from the signal that protects the junction compared with only 4 previously. The second area that still remains to be done is the top of the climb from storage B&C. This is the section through Canford station, with pointwork for three platforms. This area has not only been ballasted, but is the only part of the layout that has so far been fitted with the third rail. All this will have to be re-done, but the third rail was going to need to be re-done anyway, thanks to the depredations of Ming the Merciless, who had a habit of walking along the permanent way to get to the window to watch the world go by. Sections of third rail got displaced by her passage, and those little white insulator pots pinged everywhere. Ming is no longer with us, I hasten to add due to anno domini, not to walking on the third rail. Luckily her successor has not shown any interest in the railway. An 80 kilo Rottweiler/Dobermann cross would definitely not do the track any good. Alan

Yes, but it was a bit bigger.... http://www.tmnr.co.uk/his.htm

Before the lid goes back on, I've been extending the cctv coverage of the hidden storage areas. I use these miniature pinhole cameras, - picked up the last batch for 15 pounds each in the Black Friday sale The main storage loops are covered by a single monitor with an 8 way splitter, but all 8 inputs are now taken, so I obtained some 7 inch LCD monitors from Amazon. They are intended for cars and have 2 inputs, one of which is for a reversing camera and can be switched using an auxiliary 12V input. It is thus possible to use the computer track circuits to automatically switch between 2 cameras as the train passes between sections. Camera lighting is provided variously by strings of white Christmas LED's picked up very cheaply in post Christmas clearances, or when I ran out of those, 5 metre LED strips from Ebay. Alan

That brings the story more or less up to date. Unfortunately 2014 was something of a write off as far as getting anything done on the layout was concerned – witness my thread on the Faller roadway and vehicles which has not been updated for a year. I'm determined to get at least some hobby time this year, and have started trying to get the layout in a go state again. After so long out of use, everything needs a good clean and fettle. It's amazing how the gremlins seem to breed – things that worked perfectly last time trains were run now don't work at all. I've decided to take the lid off in order to give the lower deck a thorough clean. To do this is a major task, so I'm taking the opportunity to do some updating and address some of those unforeseen consequences that I mentioned earlier. With the original analogue control system, storage loop track circuits that lit a panel LED when the train reached the stop position were activated by rail breaks. These same rail breaks were used to provide a stop indication to the computer when I changed to DCC. The computer's reaction time is a lot shorter than mine, so trains stopped earlier than they needed to. While the lid is off, I'm moving the rail breaks up to a more appropriate location, and this has increased the usable train length of each loop by one bogie coach or 3 wagons. A useful gain without changing the actual track layout. Another very much unforeseen consequence of going to computer control was the noise of solenoid point motors. Effingham is quite a large layout, but as originally built it was not practical for a lone operator to run more than 2 trains at once. The route setting functionality of the analogue control system meant that all the points for a particular route would go over at the same time, a dozen or more of them. This of course made a very loud thump, but did not happen that often. With the computer system, points for a route operate in sequence, so you get a cascade of thumps every time a route is set up. There can be up to five trains running at once on the visible part of the layout, and as many again positioning into or out of storage. This leads to a constant and continuous cacophony of thumping solenoids, which can be quite a nuisance. To save my headaches, the decision has been taken to move to slow action point motors. This will have to be done over a period as there are rather a lot of solenoids to replace. I bought samples of different brands to try for reliability and ease of use. I eventually decided to go with Hoffman units, as unlike some others, these have given no issues at all in testing, and are compatible with the existing Lenz LS150 decoders without needing to make any changes. There are likely to be quite a few used PECO point motors for disposal in due course. Alan

The transition to DCC and computer control A Lenz system 100 plus a few occupancy detectors and a couple of Gold decoders duly arrived for testing purposes – I figured I could always sell them on if I decided not to go with it. All this was installed onto one track and the results were quite convincing. The loco decoders were fitted into a couple of Lima DMU's on the basis that these would be the easiest for a first attempt at conversion, and the transformation in running qualities really took me by surprise. Better yet, the Train Controller software proved to work as advertised, keeping track of the location of the train perfectly and displaying what's where clearly on screen. The decision was made to go for it, converting the layout one route at a time and spreading the conversion of the trains themselves over a period to spread the cost. The cable forms for the existing analogue control were as thick as my forearm, and these were duly removed, after all DCC only requires two wires doesn't it? The analogue track circuits and logic boards went to my father for re-use on his layout. In went countless LDT occupancy detectors and Lenz decoders for the points, together with most of the wire that had been recovered from the original system. The old hardware control panel was replaced with a “glass panel” consisting of computer monitors driven by a redundant desktop PC. It took a couple of years to complete conversion of the entire layout, and somewhat longer to fit all trains with decoders, but it was well worth the effort for the transformation that has resulted in the operation and capabilities of the layout. The computer has made route and signal interlocking much easier, and there is now never any doubt about where a particular train might be lurking in the hidden nether regions of the layout. It has also enabled new features and functions to be added, a process which still continues. It proved to be quite simple to arrange for a number of trains to be queued behind one another and to move up section by section in turn. This facility was used to provide additional hidden storage by running a couple of tracks around the room below the existing parallel storage loops on deck 2 to provide serial storage on a logical third deck. The boards for this are only a few inches wide, just enough to carry 2 tracks and consist only of a strip of plywood with 1 inch square planed timber fitted to the top surface along each edge to provide the required stiffness and also contain any derailments. A later addition was to fit powershield intelligent circuit breakers from DCC Specialities to the point ladders in the hidden areas. In the event of any short circuits caused by derailments or operator error, these cut power to the affected area without shutting down the rest of the layout. They then provide a signal to the computer which is used to display a symbol at the appropriate place on the track plan and to play an audio file which causes the computer to announce in a calm female voice the nature and location of the problem.

Power and control. Effingham was originally built as a conventional DC analogue layout. With the layout being something of an iceberg, 90% below the surface, DCC did not seem a viable option at the time. It would be necessary to keep track of what loco was in each hidden storage road, and the consequences of unintentionally moving the wrong one could be messy. I wanted to make the operation of the hidden storage as simple as possible, without the need for a complicated control panel with lots of isolation and point selection switches. It would also be necessary to have some system to show section occupation and train movement. There were to be two controllers, one colour coded yellow for trains entering storage and the second coded green for trains leaving storage. What emerged was a very simple control panel for the hidden storage with just one push button to select the route into each storage road and another button to select the route out of each road. These buttons would also select the correct controller to the required track sections, and indicate the path on the track plan with appropriately coloured LEDs, which would turn red when a train entered the section. Keeping the panel simple meant putting the complication into the system behind the panel. Route selection was through large diode matrices and several beefy CDU's driving solenoid point motors. Some of these date back to that first layout in Granny's spare bedroom and are Kirdons of 1950's vintage, plus some H&M's and lots of more recent PECO examples. Up to a dozen point motors could be operated at a time by a single button push, which made quite a thump. The diode matrices also drove a pair of relays for each track section which selected the appropriate controller according to the route set, or none to isolate the section if no route was set, and provided outputs for the LED's on the panel. Trains were detected by home built track circuit modules modified from a design in a book by Roger Amos and interfaced with the relay outputs via home built TTL logic units to drive tri-colour LEDs on the panel. This all worked very well indeed and ran quite successfully for a while on the route through storage locations A through E, the first part of the split dog bone to be completed. Some limitations did become apparent though. My layouts are never set in stone in advance, the plan tends to evolve over time. With the track plan effectively coded into the hardware of the control system, any subsequent changes became difficult. There was also the system for the remaining leg through storage F , the Forest Road and Canford storage and the whole of the “on-stage” part of the layout still to be designed and built. It was at this point that I first heard of a computerised control system that promised to be able to keep track of the position and identity of trains and display it on a screen, which could also be used to control routes using a DCC system. This sounded too good to be true, so I downloaded a free trial version of Railroad & Co Train Controller to see if it it really could do all that was promised. The first of many decisions with unforeseen consequences.... It did not take very long to knock together a virtual control panel which could be used to simulate operation of the layout, and the potential was obvious, that is if it really would work in practice if connected to the layout. I trawled the interweb to find as much as I could about user experiences and alternative systems. and joined the forum on the Railroad & Co website. It all seemed quite positive, so I decided on a small scale trial..... Alan

Gradients, train lengths and lower deck access. All these things are interdependent to some extent. Train lengths are limited by the gradients and gradients are influenced by the amount of clearance between decks. The favourite habitat and breeding ground of the Common Gremlin is well known to be any inaccessible length of track, so these are to be avoided at all costs. All the lower deck storage has sufficient headroom to be able to get a hand in over the top of stored trains to reach those behind. Upper decks are in general only fixed in position where they carry trackbed or Faller roadway. Effingham Station, which covers storage loops B, is on a hinged board which can be lifted to the vertical to gain access underneath. This is not something to be done lightly and is normally only used for planned engineering works. Access from beneath is usually sufficient. Scenic areas are designed to lift off wherever possible. Where this can't be done, access holes can be found beneath buildings. Triangular access gaps are left behind the layout in each corner of the room so it is possible to crawl under and stand up outside the layout. The maximum for rising gradients on the main line has been set at 1 in 80. This has proved to be workable for 10 coach trains hauled by just about any relatively recent main line diesel model and also Hornby Bulleid pacifics. The Forest Road branch has a maximum gradient of 1 in 35 and a line limit of 6 coaches, which can be managed by the diesels and by Hornby Schools class locos. Most trains on this route are more like 3 or 4 coaches. Various “tricks” have been used to help achieve this, none of which are original: Rising gradients are laid with steel rail, which seems to offer better grip than nickel silver. Locos have extra weight added where possible. Metal weights have been removed from some coaching stock. Very little track is level. Hidden track descending to the lower deck can be as steep as 1 in 30 to establish maximum between deck headroom at the start of the storage loops, which then rise at 1 in 100 from that point, steepening to 1 in 80 from the exit for the climb back to the top deck. This effectively “steals” distance from the falling gradient and makes it available to the rising gradient. In some places, the upper deck track is also climbing and increasing the lower deck headroom. Top deck structure is kept as shallow as possible, using plywood on 1 inch planed timber or aluminium angle or T-piece extrusions Wombled from a suspended ceiling.. Where a main support beam for the upper deck would obstruct the path of a tween deck gradient it can be gapped and dropped and framed below the obstructed track An unexpected benefit of converting to DCC (more on this at a later date) was increased haulage capacity of some locos over DC with the ancient H&M variable transformer controllers. A black 5 was able to have one additional coach added to its pigeon special when fitted with a Lenz Gold decoder and still re-start the train on the 1 in 80. Recently, I have started retro-fitting DCC Concepts Power Base to all rising gradients. This is not to increase maximum train lengths, which are already sufficient, but to give more flexibility in matching locos to trains, by improving the haulage capacity of the less capable locos in the fleet. Alan

Effingham's basic concept is a dog bone with storage loops before and after each return loop. One end of the dog bone is split into two at Effingham Junction station, so there is a short stretch of four track main line leading to two return loops at that end of the layout. One branch of the dog bone has a through station at Canford, from which a short branch disappears to dead end storage behind the backscene. The entire dog bone is folded around so that the storage and return loops are on the lower deck. There is also a single track cross country line through Forest Road and leading eventually on to the Western Region. Hopefully, this block diagram will make it a little easier to visualise. Storage loops C Entrance to storage loops D with two double track mainlines above, the route to Canford diverging to the right. Test running in progress circa 1999. The rake of Ian Kirk Maunsells is standing on what will be an engineers siding. The same corner of the room in 2012 Entrance to storage loops B under construction The same corner in 2012 with the site of Effingham Junction station above. As I mentioned in my previous post, this layout was started in 1997. It's predecessor had met the metaphorical cutting torch in 1987, itself being about 4 years old at that time, and everything including the baseboard materials had been put into store pending the day when it would be possible to start again. Consequently, Effingham, as built, was in many ways a child of the 1980's, in terms of equipment, techniques and standards. Much has been updated since, but the legacy of its gestation still remains. Many things would be done differently if I was starting today as technology, techniques and standards have moved on and lessons have been learned from mistakes made, but the basic design requirements of successfully running 10 coach trains and maintaining access to hidden storage were successfully achieved. Alan

I've been hanging around here for a while now, so maybe it's time I started a thread about my layout, Forest Road and Effingham Junction. Firstly a bit about what it is, what it isn't and how it came about.... It isn't a fine scale, scratch built, hand carved, exhibition standard model railway, so if that's what you want to see, it's probably best to look away now.... It isn't a model of the real Effingham Junction either. So what is it then? It's a large(ish) 00 layout built primarily for operation and based on the Southern Region around 1960 give or take a few years. Yes, another transition era Southern layout, but back in the day when Dad and I started our first layout in Granny's spare bedroom this was up to date stuff and Southern layouts were not fashionable. The magazines back then were full of GWR. That first layout had Wrenn fibre based track and it was Southern Region. I know it was cos we ran EMU's by Tri-ang and Hornby Dublo. There was also a third unit hand carved by Dad from Tri-ang suburban coaches and a Kitmaster motor bogie. All very crude and unprototypical, but as far as a seven year old was concerned it was the dog's dangly bits. OK so we also ran a Hornby Dublo Deltic and a Duchess of Atholl with LMS on the tender and a blue Sir Nigel Gresley with LNER on the tender, but it was deffo a Southern Region layout, so there! My layouts have been Southern ever since, in sheds, lofts,and spare bedrooms, a succession of running, but never completed layouts due to frequent house moves, followed by 10 years without a layout at all while we lived “over the shop” so to speak. Modelling then was restricted to building kits on a tea tray on my lap. In 1995 my wife and I moved into what we hope will be home for the rest of our lives and the following year I was lucky enough to be able to have a purpose built railway room constructed above a double garage and utility room. So Effingham dates from around 1997. It's still very much an evolving work in progress due to limitations on my available time. Not much scenic work has been done, and that which was done has suffered greatly from upheavals during subsequent layout updates “under the hood”. It probably won't get a concerted effort on scenic work until I am able to retire. (One day, Rodney). It also tends to suffer from extended periods when I can't get to it at all. It's not intended to be a model of any particular place, but is supposedly on the fringes of Sarf London somewhere. You'll probably see trains from all sections of the Southern, plus cross-London transfer freight traffic and some general inter-regional trains too. So if it's not a model of Effingham Junction, why the name? Well before the layout was started, I was given a sign. No, not Divine Inspiration, but a redundant street sign given to me by a colleague. It reads “Forest Road Effingham Junction”. A Southernish sounding name that appealed to my juvenile sense of humour. The sign went on the wall, and the layout has been Effingham ever since. Alan

Thanks for this - I live in Braintree and did not know this "enterprise" even existed! I'll check it out when I'm next unchained from work... Alan

I ordered selection of items at 04:18 this morning, and they were delivered (by Yodel) at 15:15 this afternoon. Under 11 hours from order to delivery...

Two more green'uns sold....

Thanks for the link, Simon. Having read carefully through the various comments, I am still comfortable with the way in which I am using the unit, and the purposes for which I am using it, and there do seem to be others doing similarly. The warnings expressed in the thread are valid, particularly regarding the voltages inside the case, whch I have no intention of opening up, and the point about the supply 0v being the same as mains earth. Yes, they can also have a limited life expectancy, and in a few years of building and looking after PC's including on a commercial basis, I've seen quite a few go bang, some quite spectacularly, but the better quality (read more expensive) units do generally seem more reliable. I can't advise you whether to use one or not, but you do need to understand the potential implications if you choose to do so. Alan

I've been using old ATX psu's from redundant computers for some time for just the purposes you propose, plus lighting. Zero cost as they would have been disposed of anyway. I've taken the precaution of fitting in-line fuses in the outputs, and have not suffered death and calamity (so far). Works fine for me but then I've not seen the thread you mention.... Alan

I have some track laid with steel rail and have found that the power base magnets pull the loco sideways towards one rail or the other, and can ln some circumstances pull a loco off the track and leave it beached on one rail. This has been a particular problem with my M7. I've no experience with kadees but would think it quite likely that there would be an interaction, depending on the relative polarities of the magnets.

on Golden Arrow

a midsummer night

boldly where nobody

to Devil's Bridge

noodle of fate

dozy and dopey

of eternal life

pigs in formation

Not necessarily. As Richard has said, the height of the magnets above the rail is the critical factor. The test results were obtained using the magnets fixed to the loco baseplate, using the pockets supplied in the pack, which does mean there is a significant gap above the rail. Subsequently, I tried sticking another pair of magnets underneath the originals, thus giving 2 stacks of 2 magnets each, which brought them within 1mm of rail head height. The difference was somewhat marked... the loco walked away from a standing start up 1 in 35 with 29 wagons. It would have taken more, but the train would have been longer than the gradient. I have to admit to being impressed - the height of the magnet in relation to the track is clearly critical, but if positioned correctly, the improvement in performance is substantial. I have since fitted another couple of locos using the mounting fret offered by DCC Concepts, and the results have been good enough to convince me to fit the system to the steepest gradients on the layout on the climb out from the lower deck storage, and to equip those locos that currently find these challenging. One small problem that has shown itself is that when the track was laid, some years ago, I deliberately used steel rail on some of the the rising gradients as it seems to give better grip than nickel silver. There are some lesser gradients on the scenic part of the layout that also have steel rail, but are ballasted, so I don't want to pull the track up to fit the powerbase baseplates. The powerbase magnets are powerful enough that any imperfection in the track laying results in the magnet pulling the loco off the track and locking it to the steel rail, even though non-fitted locos do not find a problem. This is not a criticism of powerbase, and would not be an issue for nickel silver track. Hopefully, a little track fettling will be enough to solve the issue when I have the time to do it. As to which is better, it depends on your needs - Bullfrog Snot works well enough, is easier to install on an existing layout and would be cheaper than fitting a lot of track and locos with Powerbase, but might require fitting additional pickups and lead to more frequent track cleaning. It also needs to be re-applied from time to time. Powerbase is claimed to actually reduce the need for track cleaning, but I've not used it extensively enough to form a view on this. I've decided that powerbase best suits my needs and will be using it on those locos and gradients where it can be of use. Perhaps using both systems together would give the ultimate haulage performance... Alan

of Earl sang