Harlequin

Sorry Cliff but that really doesn't work.

The gradients up and over the bridge will be too steep even for minimal clearance (say 65mm rail top to rail top). You have to take into account some length of track to curve in the vertical direction at both ends of the gradient. If that vertical curve is too sharp locos are likely to derail, especially at the top where the track is still turning as it levels out. With such curves included in the red and green sections at top and bottom the gradients will be something like 1 in 25.

Also:

• As the green gradient descends it won't leave space for any kind of station infrastructure for the central station.
• The spacing between the double tracks varies around the layout. Why? Is there a good reason for that?
• Facing crossovers in your station: Why facing? Why 2 so close together?
• Level crossing at top crosses one line but not the one right next to it. So where does the road go?
• How is the right hand industry worked? Without a run round loop wagons have to be propelled for a long distance along the mainline before entering the yard, and worse, wagons leaving the yard have to be hauled in the wrong direction on the mainline. That's not realistic.
• You have a run round loop in the shunting yard on the left but there's no room for a loco to clear the loop points so it serves no purpose. The same propelling in, wrong road out problem applies to the yard on the left.

Along with the reach problems mentioned above you really need to rethink your plans. IMHO.

How big is the space inside the garage? What most people would do is build baseboards around the outside of the garage with a space in the centre for you to stand and operate the layout. That allows you to reach everywhere and make the best use of the space available. Could you do that? You will find lots of track plans using that basic format in books and magazines to take inspiration from.

Most transportable layouts are made of several modular boards, not a single board.

Then it's a question of the volume available in the car, not simple width by length.

It's subjective, I know, but to my eye "RMweb" looks ugly.

My position is that, even though "web" might be used in the phrase "world wide web", people commonly just refer to it as "the web" and "Web" is a valid standalone word in any case (ho ho).

So "Web" has equal value to "Railway" and "Modelling" and thus should be capitalised like they are. That is actually how you see lots of folks write the forum name (see current status messages...)

😁

I have a question: This has been bugging me for a while...

Why is the "w" in RMweb not capitalised? If only the first word in the phrase "Railway Modelling Web" was capitalised, like a normal sentence, it would be "Rmweb". If every word was capitalised, like an acronym, it would be "RMWeb". But "RMweb" makes no sense!

I'm a programmer and when we run words together we use "camel case", e.g. "WeRunWordsTogether". (It's called camel case because it has humps...) So my fingers are incapable of writing RMweb, they always capitalise the W.

😃

Another open ended question without enough context to get useful answers, I'm afraid.

There are different reasons for fixing down track in different ways. Factors include: the type of track being used, the substrate you're fixing to, whether you need or want sound deadening, etc...

Is there enough pure scenic running length? The station takes up a significant portion of the circuit.

Is there enough room around the track to represent the Cumbrian coastal scenery?

Make the lifting section across the doorway just big enough to carry the track(s) across the gap if its not going to be scenic. That’s easier to build, easier to ensure alignment and easier to lift.

19 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

The Whitewash coach will be an interesting model - but I don't think I could justify one at Henley-on-Thames.

Due to the excellent state of the permanent way at Henley? 😉

I don't know whether all Dapol's smokebox door access steam locos are the same but FWIW here's the inside of the Large Prairie, during installation of a bigger speaker:

The body came off in the traditional way (2 or 3 screws underneath). Ignore the pink wires and the big speaker temporarily mounted on the front of the chassis for testing.

You can see the decoder plugged into the carrier board and the carrier board plugged into the large black socket on the "motherboard".

The motherboard is where all the permanent wiring is fixed to.

The carrier board (and decoder or blanking plate) is what you pull out and push back in through the smokebox door when the body is on. They must be removed to get the body off.

It would be very easy to remove the motherboard (it's just located in a slot) and wire a decoder directly to the pickup wires and motor wires BUT you'd have to find a way to get the body back on with the hard-wired decoder in place. If the decoder is very small that might be easy. If it's big then you'd probably have to leave a lot of slack in the wires, thread the decoder through the smokebox as the body went on and then bundle the wires up and push them and the decoder back in.

Could it be the wire itself that is getting hot? If some of the strands have been damaged, all the current to the motor might be passing through just one tiny strand and that strand could be acting as a heating element.

I would keep the turntable but use a slightly smaller one if possible.

It's a space saver when set against the length of the pointwork, the length needed to bring the different approach angles together and the spur beyond the pointwork that would be required to replace the turntable.

How long is the handover board? Can you extend some of the station onto it (because 8ft is pretty cramped)?

It would be more realistic to have a good distance of straight track in front of the loco shed.

The kickback goods shed might be annoying to shunt (or fun depending on your viewpoint). It might be better to have the goods shed in a more conventional position, like Ramsgate Harbour, and the Loco shed kicking back, possibly on the handover board.

4 hours ago, John Besley said:

 

Ok so what value for money system would be an upto date option? 

 

I need sound cards and sound from a narrow gauge diesel - have a look at my Exhill Works (link at bottom of the page) to give you an idea 

3 hours ago, BMS said:

Another option is Raspberry pi and JMRI ( Steve Todd's image). Both get updated regularly; cost approx £100 with a power supply. Can use remote screen and keyboard (eg windows laptop) or its own - see Steve's website for more info.

I run both my layouts with a Raspberry Pi and PiSprog running JMRI dedicated to each. The Pi and PiSprogs are actually fixed under the baseboards - they are part of the layouts.

The advantage of the Pi/Pisprog combination is that they plug directly into each other, making a neat self contained unit and no need to worry about drivers if you buy the software already setup on a little SD card. You just plug in monitor/keyboard/mouse. I use a standard wireless mouse which I can take with me to drive or program from different locations - so long as I can see the screen. I think third-party handsets might work with that combination but I haven't tried.

The advantage of JMRI is a mouse driven user interface with room to see what you're doing, text labels for sounds, so you don't have to remember F numbers, and easy decoder programming. But the downside is that you have to be willing to fiddle around with the techy details of Linux every now and then.

11 minutes ago, John Besley said:

I am revisiting this question again (almost 2 years on) the layout is built and running as DC but I'd like to move on to the next step so looking at a sysysten from Gaugmaster their Prodigy 2, any thoughts anyone, I want a handheld controller, building lighting and points will stay as they are for a moment, that may change after a house move when I might well start all over again as regards track.

 

At this stage just need feed back on Gaugmaster pros and cons please

The Prodigy systems are quite old now and because of their American origin the F2 key is always a momentary action. So if your decoder project requires F2 to be latching (i.e. press once and the functions stays on until you press it again) then you have to fiddle around programming the decoder to move the F2 function to another key.

Remapping F2 can be done but it's a hassle you just don't need.

I hope you mean identify the class., not the loco..!

I'm pretty sure it's an 850/1901 class, simply because of the wheel spacing.

Longworth's book lists all the stock that entered BR service and when every vehicle that did was withdrawn:

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780860936756/British-Railways-GWRLNER-Pre-Nationalisation-Coaching-0860936759/plp

28 minutes ago, n9 said:

I just googled "best multimeter" and for better or worse, AstroAI came up quite frequently on review sites as a cheap option with a lot of features, along with the usual suspects like Fluke. I'd never heard of them before either.

 

Likely it's naivety, but I'm testing all my track on DC as I lay it. What won't those tests pick up once I plug in my DCC gear?

You don't need anything fancy for track laying or for most model railway testing that you'll do.

It's just nice to have a meter that gives a meaningful voltage reading of the DCC signal that you can compare with manufacturers specs if you need to.

33 minutes ago, n9 said:

Thank you!

 

I would have gone for one of the RS models, but those in my price range (including that last one) seemed to be out of stock. So late last night, with necessity almost certainly outweighing sanity, I ordered one of the AstroAI models which after a lot more googling seemed to be quite favourably reviewed as a decent and not overly expensive option. They also happened to be available in my local Amazon, which is always a huge plus.

 

Somewhat muddying my choice though, the AstroAI 6000 cost 50 smackers where I live when in the UK and US it's closer to 30, yet what I assumed to be the better model, the AstroAI 10000, cost 55. Given that small price difference between the two, I opted for latter even though it's still overpriced where I live and I suspect I might regret its sexier but probably less practical design.

 

Do any of you have experience with AstroAI? I suppose I could still return it if you guys think its awful...

Never heard of them. The site has plenty of blurb about the UI and the safety but doesn't give much away about the fundamental capabilities. The manual says that it can only measure true RMS up to 1kHz but the DCC signal can be around 9kHz.

This meter is the cheapest I can find in the RS Pro range that would correctly measure voltages at DCC frequency. I think it would do everything you need for the rest of your life.

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/multimeters/8732360

10 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

Yes they still look good.

 

Clearly they are “stuck” somewhere…. The first batch was due Nov / Dec, with the second batch due in Jan / Feb. A rake of six is going to be terrific arriving into Henley-on-Thames.

 

Lets hope they arrive soon and they are a success for Dapol.

The disastrously awful conflict in the middle east might be affecting shipping from China:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67731853

52 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

I had always thought boiler straps of that style had a standard 4 fixings to the tank top, but Phil has obviously got evidence of 5.

 

The fixings were never rivets though, they were chunky bolts:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brianews/27843868185/in/album-72157669538653672/

 

(That said, in Dean times, the fixings might have been rivets of course.)

 

Yes, I agree, bolts are far more likely in any era. The drawing I'm using doesn't make it easy to distinguish between bolt holes and rivet holes.

14 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Phil

Another very minor point. I assume the tank top is not the same sheet of metal that wraps around the boiler, and also that the boiler wrapper is a thin sheet covering the lagging. Also the tank top meets the boiler above the widest point of the boiler where the wrapping is not vertical. So what I get on my etched model is a definite line along the joint where the two meet. I am guessing there would be some sort of V shaped groove on the real engines that you could add to your superbly detailed CAD? I plan not to fill this on my etched 517 model, though of course on cast whitemetal kits it is not there.

just a thought

Andy

On the Metro drawing there's a 2 1/2 inch gap between the boiler and the tank. Whether that's an air gap or filled with "lagging", I'm not sure.

The top sheet of the tank stops 3 horizontal inches away from the boiler and then a thin sheet of metal covers the gap. The gap is also covered in the same way at the front of the tanks and you can see the cover strip on many photos.

I noticed that the strip is represented correctly on Accurascale's new Panniers too.

I need to add a load more rivets to my model!

The cover strip shown in the photos of the 14XX that Jason just posted seems to be a much beefier affair - as is the cross-tank strap.

1 minute ago, Andy Keane said:

I have been looking at boiler bands and tank straps in the various kits and models. This leads to a question I have not been able to answer. Where a tank strap was fitted this quite chunky bit of metal runs over the boiler and down to the tank top. But how does it fix to the tank? Does it simply get bolted to the top of the tank so there is a small tab on the strap visible and lying on the tank top surface, or does it go past the tank top and get fixed to the tank below the top and thus nothing is visible except the strap diving below the tank top surface? I have been unable to find a photo that shows this.

Andy

Tank top. Have a look at the plan drawing of the Metro in GWRJ No. 4. The strap is shown below the centre line and you can see five fixing points connecting the strap to the tank top.

Like this (if I've drawn it right):

The problem is the lack of space and then the normal urge to splay the station out towards the buffers in the standard way, which eats up that space.

(You could seriously think about changing scale. TT:120 was designed for you! 😉)

If you stick with 4mm scale then you could possibly make a different station plan that optimises the use of the space and solves your backscene problems: Have the goods handling on the far side, splay some of the goods yard into the corner, where there's space and keep the buffer end of the station tightly packed to fit your long thin main board (three tracks in parallel, from the back: goods siding, run round loop, platform line). That would have the advantage of producing a unique plan with more SDJR "quirkiness". It might even be possible to squeeze a small engine shed on the spur off the run round loop, Lambourn-style.

Hmmm...

You need to find out what went wrong before trying to "fix" things.

Have you got another, non-Fleischmann loco you could test? I.e. one with a completely different motor that you would be willing to sacrifice if it too has a problem? If so, try it with different decoders in.

What are the flashing lights from the ESU decoder about? Is that an error indication, perhaps?

When you get inside one of the Fleischmann locos that has emitted smoke, how about posting some photos here for us to look at?