metijg

11 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

I made checkrails in 0-16.5 but I cut myself some PCB slepers and soldered my rails to them which is even more time consuming!

Just had a look at this thread. Wow! I thought i was being persistent that you take it to another level..

Will follow your work, it looks very thought provoking

Followed the link from your comment on my blog. I see what you mean! We have a lot of similarities, i like your track plan a lot, especially that you managed to get both a continuous run on the NG and a reversing loop on the SG which give a lot of space to your sidings. 

Will spend a bit of time looking at the rest of your posts! 

I think i have the answers to the problems that i have invented..!!

• Separate points 9 to individual control so that the middle and bottom lines can be isolated / electrified independently 
•  Add an extra siding next to points 10, which can be electrified by opening the newly separated points 9
•  Add an insulator after points 8 so that the section next to it is only electrified through points 6, plus add a feed at points 6 

Nothing is permanent yet and modifications can still be made. I think I'm sold on the additional siding on the bottom right and someway of isolating the bottom siding so that a train can be parked there and another change from the Track 2 to 1 via the middle route. Jury is still out on modifying the station area. 

Signals and uncoupling are my next targets to get right before really hard-wiring everything 

13 hours ago, KH1 said:

I am no expert here but I fear you are going to find the reversing triangle very difficult to wire up. There are special polarity switching devices but I uspect they may be for DCC

All done! I went through some pain and experimentation (see here), but it works well. The only thing is to think about how to integrate the DPDT into the switch panel so that it is intuitive to use and doesn't short all the time..

Many thanks for the support!

Luckily it's not too late for anything and i had a good crack at screwing it all up and starting again at the weekend..

The positives: 

I replaced the points mentioned in some of the comments  with Hornby express points (i choose these over Peco points to maintain the Settrack spacing etc.) and it works like a dream. They are lovely looking things and even the point motors are a doddle as they are hanging from the track in the foam so they are perfectly positioned. To be honest i may cut similar sized holes in the base board as this direct alignment makes everything so simple (picture)

I was given some Backmann wagons to go with a Backmann loco and the whole shabbang looked so good and it negotiated everything at full speed! They really are wonderful models (picture). Running this train showed how versatile the track layout is though, there is a huge amount of variation to be had and adjusting the points in time is a brain teaser in itself. I'm very happy we have something good. 

The wiring continues to perform, even though we turned the board over a few times. I'm unhealthily proud of the box file, so I've put a picture of the inside below as well!

Two more trestles were added underneath so that the slight dip in the middle has gone

The negatives:

Sadly the negatives impact more than the positives..

The Hornby Mallard and 0-6-0 pannier cannot negotiate a facing standard settrack point without derailing and the remaining crossover is impossible. The Mallard front bogey goes the wrong way and the middle wheels of the 0-6-0 hit the frog. Happily we now have a complete express point / non facing point route so they can run, but its frustrating. The curved points on the left are pretty temperamental as well. I question if it's the track or the trains at this point.

The most time-consuming, annoying, makes you my want to stop it all, thing was the $%^&* point motors! I had a good system of drilling through pilot holes for alignment and the first one went in like a dream, but it was just a false dawn. The pin of the peco point motors is just a smidge bigger than the hole in a Hornby point and the small plastic bit that holds the moving rails together just popped off as the pin came through, followed in quick succession by the spring! While i'm sure a better man could repair them seamlessly, my efforts didn't work. Before i realized what had happened i had destroyed 2 perfectly good LH points.

The final part is that one of the boards (we have a sandwich that reflects the evolution of the woodwork) has warped away, so that the siding points are all inaccessible from the bottom. The top board is a very nice piece of wood, so perfectly flat but the original scavenged piece has gone crazy. 

End result - much swearing, tea and little progress!!! 

Just out of curiosity I'm going to try peco settrack points, while i dont think they'll change the frog-shock much, they should at least be compatible with the point motors. Any suggestions what i can do with spring-less Hornby points, will they take them back and refurbish them?

oh - while i'm at it: How do you trim down the point motor pin? That thing must be made of reinforced kryptonite-titanium...!

Wow! Thanks for your comments. 

I’m amazed how many levels the hobby has. When we put the track down on a temporary basis it seemed so easy and everything worked, if with a little help. As we have gone further we have got more critical and less accepting of problems. 

The pictures are already the third re-start as I realised mistakes can only be fixed by design.

Its raining this weekend, so will put some hours in and see how it goes, i’ll follow the advice you’ve given

many thanks!