barney121e

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

I suppose it might be feasible to build it partly  'inside out' so to speak and re-scribe the bricks on the end walls. (Says he who's never tried to scribe MDF or whatever it is in his life !). Or just overlay it with Slaters brick styrene or brick paper. 

I emailed the guy who does them and he can print it so the steps are on the left, which is very helpful.

17 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Jim Summers' book 'Signalling the Caledonian Railway' has all the details of CR boxes.

 

Jim

16 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

The first link in this link goes to the Pop-Up Models site, including a dimensioned drawing:

 

https://www.crassoc.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1881

Thanks

Exactly what i need. Only problem with model is the steps are on the wrong side, wonder if they can be moved to other side.

Hi

Hope i have posted tis in right section. I am looking to get dimensions of Caledonian Railway signal boxes, i believe the exact one i am after is a CRS4 one, but all i can find our photos. 

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Cheers

Ok, have marked on plan where i think i need plastic rail joiners. Can anyone check they are in right place.

Now other question is do i need a dropper on every piece of track?

8 minutes ago, john new said:

Hornby part R8232, bent bit of spring wire that drops in between the outer rail and the respective inner rail. See photo at -

 https://www.trainshop.co.uk/electrics-oo-/365-dcc-electro-point-clips-5010963482329.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwxIOXBhCrARIsAL1QFCbX_T0-YsNLGW9dHKTHOSuUQidy-epbSkIamlS2DXUB9PB2edUuaAcaAr-FEALw_wcB

Ok, that makes sense. So either use the clips and plastic rail joiners or leave them as are but provide power to each piece of track. Makes sense. Do they fit peco points? Where exactly do they fit?

1 hour ago, john new said:

It depends if you modify the points either with addition of  wiring as @AndrueC mentions (or the much simpler spring clips that look rather like a [ ) to join the two adjacent rails between the switch-blades and the V. I have done mine with the clips, effectively making them semi-live/electrofrog style points, albeit still with a dead frog. If you do this then yes the insulated fishplates or gaps are vitally needed whether running in DC or DCC. I found adding the clips made the running more reliable as it meant the power feed connection of the rails with the route set via the switch-blades was mostly guaranteed to be live as that moving part when all is working properly is fed from both ends. That means a failure to connect at one or other end when the point is thrown does not result in a consequential dead length of track.

 

Your call but fitting the wire clips is a cheap and quick option for improving running reliability.

To be honest, completely confused by what you mean about spring clips? Not planning on modifying the points at all. And will not have DCC sound, if that helps. Also if it makes any difference, looking to add extra pickups to the locos.

Hi

Am i right in thinking that,  although not totally necessary, it is good practice to put insulated rail joiners on the V's of the points?

Cheers

1 hour ago, RobinofLoxley said:

A single gauge doesnt help you to lay tracks parallel, only to identify spots where it is or isnt in gauge. With four, you could establish that complete lines are parallel to each other. You also need notice board pins, a box of the long coloured ones, to hold track in position while you lay other sections.

It is only laid loose at the moment for testing to start with, which has been positive. Because it is a dcc layout i will need to solder droppers etc but just wanted to make sure a train runs ok on it.

48 minutes ago, ITG said:

I’d check the long vehicle overhang on those inner curves as they pass the end of the two spurs on the inside edge of the FY, don’t actually foul either stock on the spur, or even a buffer stop there.

Yeah, i can curve them round slightly, dont look so close on the software.

17 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Barney have you got any track guages? If not you need some setrack gauge ones, which are widely available.

Yeah got the peco one, spacing is nearly right, might just need an adjustment here and there.

So after lots of joining, unjoining, cutting flexi, throwing it away with many expletives decided to stick with solely setrack. In the future will revisit flexi but for now i am happy how plan is looking.

First pic is front of layout, second is the fiddle yard area. Although against the wall it is movable but will definitely fit a piece of ply at back to stop trains falling off.

16 hours ago, Chimer said:

I suspect the signal cabin might be better on the outside, so down 6" and right 18", just to give the signalman a better view round the bend.

 

Looking at the photo, the sooner a very very gentle curve away from the baseboard edge can start, the better.  Best done by eye rather than computer, I think .....

 

Cheers, Chris

The gentle curve is giving me slight nightmare have added a small curve on left and shortened straight slightly so a piece of flexi will fit.

Not decided on goods yard/engine area yet, but will sort it out.

Thanks to you, @Harlequinand everyone else who has helped get this far, the plan is exactly what i want, which is the most important thing.

Would the building positions work?

Just connected up some pieces, used setrack just for now. From edge of board to track is 75mm. Gives me a rough idea.

10 hours ago, Chimer said:

 

1.  It's always been there from the first idea, so I left it in.  It could be a loco servicing siding, or serve a mini-industry although shunting it wouldn't be easy.

 

2.  You can put anything you want in the middle!  Personally I would have a goods yard with 3 sidings and a headshunt, so I could shunt the yard and have trains circulating at the same time.  But the general weight of opinion pointed towards a simpler setup with no headshunt.  But if you want an engine shed of some sort, go for it .....

How much of a problem would it be to design a goods yard as you suggest? Just so i have different options.

4 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

1. It's there to add operational interest. Even if it only gets used very rarely I think it would be worth keeping. It might have been an end-loading dock or a cattle dock in steam days. In present days it might be overgrown with weeds and used for storing failed wagons.

 

2. Whatever you like but it would originally have been a goods yard and if you keep that in mind then it should help the realism. For instance, how the two sidings are aligned and whether they splay apart or stay side by side.

 

1. Thats a great idea, like the overgrown siding.

2. Would it look strange to have have the sidings split, one to engine shed and one to goods yard (maybe add a second line)?

7 hours ago, Chimer said:

 

That's very similar to the "other version" I mentioned I'd done, a few posts back.  I actually prefer it to the plan I posted there, but it might be a bit trickier to get the two tracks nicely aligned and parallel throughout.  Here's that version, with the measuring grid showing this time ....

 

This one does have the advantage of flexi joining setrack both ends. 

I have a couple of questions for you and @Harlequin

1. What could i use the line bottom right for?

2. At the Ypoint, does it have to be a goods yard, could it just be an engine shed? it will be a heritage line if that makes a difference.

9 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Any of those solutions are fine if they maintain the separation within some leeway and they give you enough of an outer platform. That's up to you to decide.

 

But it's interesting that XtrakCad and AnyRail seem to end up with different offsets to the bottom edge of the baseboard. (And is there another tool involved here?) So in some plans it looks like there's loads of room for a platform while in others it looks very skinny.

 

Did a quick measure and bottom right is 75mm from edge but will lay out plan tonight and try and get exact figure 

13 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

That's lovely, very practical. Thanks Chris!

 

Barney: You could insert a very small straight between the Y points and the connection to the main line so that the inner platform can be a bit wider at that end.

 

 

Yes, good call. It took me a few mins to realise what you meant (duh!) so to be clear, Barney: the two bits of track circled by Chris in red could be cut from R3 and R4 pieces so that there's a more gentle transition between the curve and the straight.

 

What if i use st238 on both curves bottom left, and then flexi ?

1 hour ago, Chimer said:

 

I think Phil and I are both gently encouraging Barney to break out of "parallel to the edges" syndrome 🙂  (hence Phil's interpretation of your original comment), and give a bit of room for a station building bottom leftish).

Can i just check that the thought is the track starts to gently curve from the blue to the red circles? The red line are just over extended flexi.

5 hours ago, Chimer said:

 

Phil, working on it.  I did the crossover that way to try to avoid set-track discontinuities which occur if you take it off the curve - but as Barney's now  accepting the need to bodge things a bit I'll have another look.  What angle did you have your platform tracks at?  Much less than 11.25 degrees by the look of it ....

 

Thanks for working on sorting out the plan.  Nothing too bodgee ideally.

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Hi Chris,

The placement of the station crossover makes the platforms shorter and has a reverse curve in that might make shunting unreliable. Can you get half of it into the end curve? And the same with the small trailing siding?

Is it possible to make the passing loop in the outer circuit longer?

I was thinking of making the goods yard a bit more interesting by having two sidings fed from a setrack Y point so that they don't diverge too much.

BTW: I had the platform tracks running straight and angled so the platforms are a bit easier to build, so the track work is all setrack (apart from the siding) and so that the platform had decent width along the edge of the layout. With the curved platforms I think the outer platform might be quite skinny for half its length - but it's hard to tell.

29 minutes ago, DCB said:

There is enough slop in the set track rail joiners to close the red circle gap.  It's more a software issue than a real issue. software has the joints exactly 180 degrees while real life they can be 177 to 183 degrees  before it starts looking like a dog leg. The "blue circle" inner dead end hidden siding can be accessed from the outer circuit and trains can reverse there and run round the inner. Otherwise trains have to appear from the tunnel mouth as they reverse in or out.     Looks good, workable.  You could do extra sidings and revised crossovers as per Phils suggestion, add a couple of stubs maybe,  lengthen the blue circle road  up to the tunnel mouth etc  but it looks to me like the basics are there now.

I had a flash of inspiration from another plan i was thinking about in regard to the fiddle yard. Not sure if it improves things or not.

1 hour ago, DCB said:

The red splodges on the right hand side looked odd, surely the outer set track curve should follow the inner around with a constant spacing.   I bit of a head scratch and it looks like the top right crossover geometry L/H to R/H is throwing the track spacing wide.    That L/H to R/H crossover geometry is  always an issue with set track.   My MO would be to shorten the R/H point a few mm on the straight road, but that's advanced bodgery.  I prefer to tweak or shorten set track for small layouts but in this case I would swing the outer track wide at the lower right, possibly a set track short(est)  straight would sort it out.

3 hours ago, Chimer said:

OK, here's another go with both fiddle yard crossovers doing what they're supposed to do, i.e. allow trains to change from one circuit to the other and change direction (having shifted locos and brake vans by hand where necessary).

 

 

I have left the set-track discontinuities showing (red splodges).  Using flexitrack for the FY straights, the problems there go away - the ones bottom right might be closable just by wiggling the set-track components, but a couple of tiny bits of flexi might be needed.

 

As before, green curves are 3rd radius, blue 2nd.

 

Apologies for the earlier errors!

I had a play, and only space i have is where the red circle is. My only other query i have is the line above the blue circle. Trains on the inside line will run anti clockwise so how would a train access this line?

28 minutes ago, Chimer said:

Yes, the crossovers dictate set-track spacing and it would look weird if you just closed it up through the station area.

 

I think you need to stick a quarter straight in between the ST-235 and ST-240 top right, to avoid the risk of trains on the two circuits fouling one another on the S-curves into the fiddle yard.

 

And well done for changing the crossover top right back to the way Phil had it - the way I did it would be operationally hopeless. But I've now noticed I've also made an error at the other end of the fiddle yard.  Will rescrub tomorrow!!

What is the error?

53 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Not quite. Spacing using Peco Streamline points is different to 00 setrack from any maker. But flexi is flexi, whatever items it is combined with. In your case, you will use it to maintain setrack spacing.

Thanks, was my thinking but thought i'd check.

This is plan i got to.

Ok, so have managed to get a plan on anyrail from Chimer's suggestion. Still open to other thoughts though.

Quick question, normally Flexi is spaced differently to settrack but am I right to keep the settrack spacing all round?