Horsehay Railway Modeller

some new additions. I can take no responibilty for the excellent weathering as these models were purchased as seen from "The Weathering Works". Ive made several purchases from them in the past and will most likely buy more in the future. I purchased a Heljan Hymek which i have DCC Sound fitted with a loksound v5 and stay alive. As well as the Maunsell c Brake for the parcels train. As a side note I've been trying to photograph all of my stock and document them in a database - updates to follow.

I've been looking at the branchline workings... i think the passenger service will be relatively minimal and served by DMUs . As an excuse for the branchline to remain open im looking at some sort of reasonable goods traffic which is yet to be decided. I am also looking at adding some parcels traffic either through the station platform or another building. After browsing both online and in magazines I've come up with a shopping list for a parcels formation to replace one of my planned passenger trains for the branch. This formation is based loosely on my understanding that various designs stayed in use for decades combined with newer mk1 stock. i also belive the BSK is needed to provide accomodation/ toilet facilities for any travelling postal staff. does this make sense ? David

how about 3-4 coach parcels with an implied sorting office / distribution depot, plus 2 or 3 coach DMU and a 121 bubble car. some mixed goods struggling along plus an industry siding yet to be selected

Just thinking about the branchline. I'm keen to run dmu passenger stock plus one or two 4 coach mk1 rakes. For the goods side I'm thinking some mixed local goods (whatever could reasonably be leftover by 68-70) and then some sort of maintenence/ permanent way yard. Is there any other small industry which would provide a reason for my branch line to remain open (other than rule 1). I've thought about petrol and I suppose coal could be an obvious one, any other niche industries which could necessitate a branch line staying past Dr Beecham atleast until Tops.

Custom pcbs have arrived from China. I've got a test connector soldered up. Male 24pin atx on one side and female 24 pin in the other. Labelled terminal blocks for each side plus power Indicator leds on the two 12v leds to show the connector is pushed fully home. Also the jumper to enable a 120 ohm cbus termination resistor.

Haha, yes magic smoke is the worst.. I've heard all electrickery runs on it and if you let it out it stops working. Fortunately the smoke in this instance was caused by me heating some flux to create smoke on the soldering iron and watch the airflow through the casing vents.

The boards have reasonable space for air flow and I've tested this by watching smoke flow through the air slots I drilled in the bottom of the casing, up through the boards and out of the fan grill. My next electrical project will be the interconnector boards before moving on to the district cutout box probably next month when I can buy more kits. ............. On a side note do these coach formations make sense? All based on mk1 rakes from various magazines or youtube videos of Original film footage from the era. The blue grey/ maroon rake may have some inaccuracies as its from rather grainy film. The red and green colour coding shows what I own and what's on my shopping list. Greyed out coaches are optional depending on if I run 6 or 8 coach rakes (or longer) David

Dcc Controller and booster fully assembled now. Managed to squeeze in the controller booster and usb board into one casing. I added a high quality noctua fan for cooling and thus far it runs cool in testing. Output is via an atx 8 pin connector which will plug into another box of tricks with 4 dcc district cutout boards. ( yet to be made). But I have also provided a secondary track output for testing as well as a program track output (both on the terminal block) There are three inputs : 15v dc 6A for the track power, 12v dc 2a for all of the cbus boards and electronics, and 12v dc 5A for lighting and servos. The front has switches and led Indicators for each psu plus indicator leds from both the booster and command station. The blue led is to be illuminated by a can act which will show activity on the can bus but I've yet to order a kit. Finally there is a pair of voltmeters and ammeters to show the track voltage and current as well as the 12v accessory bus voltage and current. The boards are mounted on trays ( one 3d printed and one made from 2mm plasticard) ...

A quick test this morning proved successful, now I'm on to mounting in the cases. David

Lots of progress today and this weekend MERG CANCMD2, CanCab and booster assembled and tested today ready to be added to some aluminium enclosures I have been working on over the weekend. Temporarily installed heatsinks, however thhey wil be removed once the pcbs are installed ino the metal chasis and the components bolted to the sides. Enclosure very much a work in progress but the general idea is a switch for each psu (15v dc to controller, 12v dc to cbus, 12v dc to accessory bus) Voltmeter and ammeter for both track output and 12v accessory bus. Plus Indictator leds. Will probably make a nice front panel eventually (I mucked up the original aluminium plate hence the temporary 3d printed finish) although to be honest I might just touch up the hot glue holding the meters in place and leave it as is. David

Evening all, As the layout is designed to be modular I have been thinking about ways to connect each baseboard electronically. I will be automating my mainline runnings using MERG electronics and having decided to use a MERG Controller and Booster i thought i might as well divide the layout into sections too. Each section will be on a district cutout meaning if there is a short in one area trains will still run elewhere. It will also allow me to turn off individual sections to allow wiring work or troubleshooting. Now of course everyone knows DCC is ONLY TWO WIRES !!! However I will infact be needing 4 sets of 2 wires minimum. Plus another 2 wires for a 12v DC accessory bus and 4 wires for CBUS. All of that totals 14 connections between every board. combined with the need for some sections to cross board joins both physically and electronically i was looking for decent 24 pin connections that could carry atleast 3 to 6A . Long story short i went through all of the usual suspects including Din sockets, DSUBs and Pluggable terminals (all of which i have previously trialled) but i couldn't settle on a connection i liked. It was then that i remembered PC power supply connections. ( I am currently typing this using a gaming computer i have built and rebuilt myself many times.) 24 pin ATX connections carry 24 pins and good quality ones are rated at 6A per pin. I thought for a while of making my own cables up using a crimping tool however i soon realised i could simply buy cheap 24 pin extensions and cut them in half , using the male end for one board and the female for the joining board. To that end i purchased a job lot on ebay which are due to arrive soon. I then turned my attendion to what would now be bare cable ends attatched to the 24 pin connectors. I could have settled for simple terminal blocks but instead have spent some time designing custom pcbs that will allow me to solder in the 24 cables and have 24 terminals out. Ive ordered 10 from PCB Way as a trial. Itsd my first ever attempt at pcb design but i believe it should all work and the software tells me the pcb traces should be rated at 6A at a 10 degree temp increase whatever that means. hope this graphic makes sense. Bus wires will all be 24/0.2 or 32/0.2 CBUS will be twisted and pinned away from track wires. David

Back at home (work) from visiting my parents for a week. unfortunately that means I am now away from the viaduct module until I next visit, hopefully on a weekend sometime before christmas. I do however have the TMD micro diorama at work which i will be sure to post about in more detail on here. I have also just purchased a load of kits from MERG as i will be controlling and operating the new layout using the MERG CANCAB DCC system and CBUS control modules. I will be posting updates about these as i progress. As for the layout construction i will turn my attention to designing the next module and starting to assemble any buildings etc. That are required with the hopes that i can finish the next board when i visit my parents at christmas. I managed to finsh off the bulk of the scenery on the viaduct but it still needs a lot of work , particularly on the gravel path/ road and the river. i also have an absolute aspects banner repeater on order and will install that along woth cable trunking etc. Here are some photos of the scenery thus far, featuring a class 08 which I have weathered based on images from the transition period and added sound to, as well as my 4mt which I also weathered and is on my list for a sound chip. The wagons were weathered by "The weathering works" on ebay. David

Roughed out where I wanted trees ( all made from seafoam and left over from the previous rendition). Now starting in static grass and ground cover using tile grout, soil and various scatters. David

Base coat of brown on, weathered the track and started painting up the rocks. ...

Today I added rock outcrops to the hills using dried bark, before covering the foam in sculptamold. I then ballasted the track with woodland scenics medium gray ballast. I'm hoping to add a coat of brown paint later this evening to get a headstart on the scenery, its my last full day visiting my parents tomorrow and there's no way I'm taking this diorama back on the train! Hope to get some grass and trees in tomorrow. David

Some progress over the last two days... Track painted with rail match sleeper grime. And dropper wires added. ( currently terminated with wago blocks for testing, pending addition of future bus wires etc.) ...

Thanks for the kind words @MrWolf @TT100 Diesels. Track gluing up on the viaduct. Trying out the peco bullhead range for this new layout. Glued down on 3mm Cork using wood glue and a lot of drinks cans for weight! At the workbench I have repainted a noch boat and figures and added a faller dog. I thought the ensemble looked a bit plastic out of the box. I also did some surgery to remove the mans hat and reposition his rowing arms. I've also made up and weathered some wills lineside cabinets to go next to an absolute aspects signal I have on order. Just grey primer, a black oil wash and some matt varnish. David

This final post brings me up to date. I began painting the viaduct by first spraying it with grey primer and then a coat of desert sand all over. i then picked out individual stones in various blacks creams and browns and followed up with a black wash. Finally I used white, black and green washes as well as a lot of drybrushing and wiping in order to weather the viaduct to match some photographs of the prototype. I am not sure if i am entirely happy woth the results but only time will tell as more scenery is added.

Having worked on the tmd micro layout for a few weeks my attentions have moved towrads and away from the hobby like usual until last week when sat on a sunbed in cyprus i decided it was time to start the first main module. I selected the viaduct board as it was one of my favourite scenes on the origional layout. It is also one of the more complex in construction and would provide me with some interesting challenges. I designed the board on my laptop whilst away and ordered all of the materials to arrive for this week whilst i am visiting my parents. This has the advantage of allowing me to use all of my fathers tools and paints. Moreover my current accomodation during the working week only just allows for my small tmd diorama and will certainly not accomodate a 4ft by 18" module. The main board is constructed from a mix of 5.5mm and 12mm plywood which is screwed glued and pinned together. The backscene is removeable and there is a hidden raised section behind it to accomodate the incline that will form part of the blt branch on the final layout. The landscape was cut from 50mm foam sheets using a hotwire cutter and a wills kit was constructed for the viaduct. ...

Good afternoon all, This thread has been stagnant for a long time due mainly to me finally starting my career. Meanwhile the shropshire branchline layout had to be dismantled as my parents retired to a bungalow. so no more layout for me. West canal sidings has seen a tiny bit of work but my main focus has been on collecting locos and rolling stock and making plans for the future. I've settled into my job now and have slowly been working on designing a future layout (some of you will have seen this over in the design forum). The idea is to make a modular layout that incorparates all of the themes i am looking for. It will be built module by module and will use all of the buildings and alot of the scenery and track from the previous incarnation of the layout. The main scenes to be included are a traction maintenence depot with fuel exchange sidings, a countryside and viaduct scene and a branch line terminus raised over a very large storage yard. This design has been in the works for several months on and off and i have just finished discussing signalling over in the design forum. It is designed to be 12ft x 17ft and will eventually be installed in a large shed or double garage. Until such a time as i buy a house i will be building one module at a time either where i live at work, at my parents bungalow or at my partners parents house. currently I am building a micro layout which contains the main shed for the TMD and have just started the viaduct scene. The TMD micro layout can be seen in a rectangle in the top left corner of the above image. it is designed around the bachman maintenece depot and is built on a laser cut baseboard i designed and comissioned from flexxgenix. I used a west hill wagon works interior kit for the tmd and have started installing lcut retaining walls. ill post more on this when next work on it but here are some photos for now... standby for a post on the viaduct ...

Appologies I forgot to mention the mainline slopes up across the viaduct to the tmd which is 45mm above datum. Then back down again before the lift out section before entering storage again. the slope is about 1.5% to 2% with easements at each end. The branch line starts at 45mm above datum (on the tmd board and slopes up 3% over 12ft until it reaches the storage board. Here the branch line scene will start and the inlcine reduces into a flat level 169mm above the storage baseboard. (6.7 inches). The branchline boards are hopefully going to be built lightweight enough to be portable and i'm thinking of putting them on hinges to allow access to the storage yard more easily. The idea being the terminus only needs to be just high enough to allow running in the storage yard plus enough height for cctv cameras to be able to view the tracks with fisheye lense. then if i ever need to get hands on with the storage yard i can remove or fold up the branch somehow. here is a rough sketch.

3% . but im only gonna be using 4 coach trains (or goods equiv length) and im planning on using the dcc concepts magnet system for traction with pannier tanks and 08 shunters etc.

another stab, Altered a few numbers also put in a second option for leaving the tmd (BLUE) based on a signal I found somewhere online. Not sure if i need the position light underneath the 3 aspect and what to number it (unless i can still use 254) Heres a sig I found online that I thought could work for the blue star. (its actually a signal stationmaster posted on a different thread) again the stencils would be CB DM UM (cherrybrook branch, down main, up main)

morning, Touch wood I'm hoping to avoid moving anything by hand in the storage yard (particullarly as the branch line terminus is going to be about 8 inches above the storage baseboard. and will shunt any spare stock with locos. If im having derailments frequent enough to be an annoyance then I think I'll be fixing the track laying rather than cursing their proximity. ( I dont mind one or two derailments in a long running session but any mre than a few an hour take the enjoyment out i find) Anyway thanks for the advice, its deffinately food for thaught. For now all of the tracks are at peco streamline spacing (except on the corners) and for now that gives me enough space to move things as necessary.

Took a wild stab. I've also read the banner repeater has no identification for my period, is this true or would it have the signal it refers to plus the BR suffix?