Mitche01

I'm concious that I don't have many examples of the running to give a sense of how the layout has developed.

Bit by Bit the wiring is being compelted! I am logging these just to record how long it has taken me to get on and complete this!!

Keeping up on the wiring (grabbing 1 hour here and there) mimic board return wires for all LEDs now finished. Next to do is the LED feed, white wire (with 10k Resistors to be added to each LED leg) and then the Point feeds, Blue wires (coming from 4 CDUs).

Slow but steady progress on the wiring. This is the power feed for the bus wires In order for the track power feeder to work to allow me to use each controller on each track, I am using a common return. note the black looped wire.

On to the relays now for the point LED indicators.

Having drilled all the holes for the switches and LEDs, I found I needed to neaten up the holes for the LEDs, so I trimmed the excess paper with a sharpe blade and then fitted a simple o-ring...143 times! Dimensions are - LEDs 5mm outer diameter, orings are 4mm inner diameter, 6mm outer diameter. Looks a lot neater now. Onto the finishing edges now, plan on fitting some wooden end finishers, then I can wire it all up!

Designing the switch control panel now. The track plan will have green LEDs for power and red for point direction. Then the bigger circles are for the switches, green for power and red for points again. I will print onto glossy photo paper, stick them onto 3.6mm plywood then drill the holes out for the LEDs and switches.

TOP TIP Cutting the point motor rod on seep point motors is quite challenging when the motor is in situ. After trying a few things out, I found these cheap heavy duty top down cutters on amazon for around £14. Saves having to mark up the steel rod in place, remove the point motor and dremmel the rod off, risking over heating of the 2 coils and a way more tricky refit of the motor. official name SPEEDWOX END CUTTER PLIERS 8 INCH. no affiliation, just did the job well after trying 6 other methods.

Tidying up the dropper wires on the fiddle yard boards. making sure I label all wires so I can fault find if needed. Colour coding in place: Red - line 1 Green - line 2 Blue - line 3 Orange - line 4 Purple - branchline Then each line in the fiddle yard has its own identifier, eg F1A = Fiddle yard, line 1, track/siding A. This way I can isolate each track and give it a switch to cut power to the siding when not in use.

Starting on the electrics now. As I am running DC and have electrofrog points, I realised that I need to some how allow a loco to move over a set of points from line 1 to line 2 for example. if I just plugged in 2 controllers to the 2 lines I would have to match the controllers to make a smooth transition between lines. Well I sat and tried to work out a way of allowing 1 controller to manage 1 train over many tracks so I came up woth this idea: Having mocked it up on cardboard I have now made the basic board ready for testing above...four lines from four controllers Above...controllers 1 powers line 3 only. The wiring, incluing the LEDs to highlight the path of the controller. Basically I have 6 controllers, a model Q 4 track and model D 2 track, 4 mainline and a branch line + I can independently manage the branch line sidings. still to be done, a nice facier to make it look nice. not sure how/what I want yet.

OK, All branch line storage sidings now completed. All track is now laid!l, on to the wiring now!!

Fiddle yard for the branchline is progressing well. 1. Table top made 2. Adjustable legs added 3. Cork laid 4. point work almost finalised Looks like I will be able to have 6 forward sidings and 3 reverse sidings (1 of those can accommodate a 156 at least).

Finishing the branch line track, just the return passing loop to do and also finalising the plans for the branch line fiddle yard.

4 lines now working!

Some shots of the testing ongoing... Problems found: 1. points and track have some undulation - root cause - drilling holes for point motors/dropper wires created some cork to sit between wood and cork base giving some "lumps" that pushed the track up in places. reason this happened - drilling holes too quickly after laying cork. Advice - give glue setting at least 8 hours before drilling if using copydex. 2. some wheel on old stock do not like modern track - 1 coach in particular derailed every point. Back to backs OK - but wheel depth is NG. Advice - swapped old wheel to newer Hornby wheels on a MK2b in regional railways livery. NOTE - wiring still to be done! All the dropper wires and frog wires are connected up for testing using croc clips.

Just finished the 3rd loop now, 1 more to go!!

Two loops working now

Track testing ongoing... The fiddle yard is starting to fill up.

So finalised the track plan based on the build so far. Major changes - 1. Dropped the single slip and combined the transition points into 1 location. 2. I have been able to add an additional 3 lines into the fiddle yard, with 2 extra tracks for the fast lines, and 1 extra line that connects the branch line and the inner mainline. 3. Added a lower fiddle yard for the branchline - to store 3 DMUs and 2 steam trains. Additionally I have successfully completed one loop around the room, and have trains running!!! So fiddle yard is starting to fill up with test trains.

Lines starting to take shape - the distance between tracks is 55mm on these bends which gives a worst case 4mm gap on a old Hornby mk4 and mk3 passing on the tightest bends (which in reallity will not be happening as these lines are the "slow" lines so express trains will be on the other 2 lines with far greater radii (eg the inner "concrete" line is 24inches ~ 4th radius curves). I am adding banking to the curves, but my tip would be when gluing down the track - glue one edge only flat and lay all your curves to check clearance/interference with your longest rolling stock (dont forget the APT-E (which i have on good authority from Rapido directly that it overhangs 32mm from radius 2 curves). then add the banking with either wedges or the west hill wagon works wedges etc...

Fiddle Yard completed, all points have 10mm holes drilled for point motor fitment later, all the straight track in the yard has had dropper wires fitted to avoid poor electrical connections and will be switchable once i have completed the wiring. Electrically tested with 0-6-0 tank engine and a Class 91 bo bo - please to say it all works. Some issues I had to overcome - having bought the curved points second hand, a few of them had continuity problems so tweeking the small tangs to make better contact sorted that out.

Fiddle Yard laying ongoing, many tools used to help get the track straight. Tracksetta adjustable gauges 1m steel rule and using Piko track screws to hold down the track, this way it should be easy if I make a mistake or get poor running to adjust. I am testing as I go and already changed the left hand side 2nd lane. All I can say is Hornby set track is not a patch on peco set track and peco flexi track!

Fiddle yard cork down.

Thanks everyone - sounds like I have a good option then to swap between using as a DVT or a std power car

Hello all I have a set of R3944 HST intercity swallow with buffers and the body of a R40162 HST DVT and was wondering if anyone knows if the chassis is interchangeable on the dummy cars? I am conscious the lights need to connect correctly. Thanks