AndrueC

Out of curiosity does yours have pickups on the tender? My Queen Elizabeth doesn't but a fellow member of my club has a Coronation Class of some kind and it has pickups on the tender.

My revised instructions for the Ratio Covered Station Platform Bridges. Completely construct the bridge and the two towers first. Then connect the three items by attaching the steps and the sloping roof sections. This solves so many problems with alignment (esp. of the roof and supports) but also the critical angles of the steps. The sloping roofs are the only weak point of the kit itself. I didn't really get any of mine correctly sited.

It's been a scenic couple of weeks. I've run some trains (and found a few issues) but I've also rebuilt a bridge and installed some people and some animals. First off the problems. One of the turnout motors on the Doorway Interchange wasn't throwing far enough. That took a bit of fiddling to sort out. Firstly I had to work out which turnout controller was involved which meant following a rat's nest of wiring around. The controller is of course just too far for a single lead from the motor so I've had to use an extension and that means the wire goes past the controller, underneath the keel of the lift-out section across to a clip then back under the keel to the controller. It'd be so much easier if the controllers were labelled.. The adjustment seemed odd as well to the extent that I'm suspecting a fault somewhere. It seemed like I only had two choices: 'Not quite far enough' and 'a bit too far'. It clearly doesn't want the same setting as other controllers. Anyway I've left it at the latter. Then I found that my Queen Elizabeth was sometimes derailing on entry to the yard (I might have mentioned that before). The solution there was to file down a blob of solder for a dropper that was a bit too proud. Then I found that coaches sometimes derailed coming out of Castle Tunnel. Yet another blob of solder that needed filing down. Secondly the Bridge I always felt that the first three way bridge was a bit too large and the coping around the arches a bit too rough. So I've redone it with better coping and less material. It looks a lot better but the main section is at a slight angle so I'll need to fettle the middle ramp a bit. Thirdly Animals In addition to the existing horses I've installed a flock of sheep in the middle field. Fourthly Platform Work We have some people on the station platforms. They aren't glued down though as I've decided that I want to replace the station platforms. I was forced to replace the bridges. One of them fell apart while I was installing passengers and I couldn't face rebuilding them. Sorry York Modelmaking they are great kits but just too fiddly for me. So I bought a couple of Ratio platform bridges. These have the big advantage that the stairs are preformed so there are no fiddly steps to insert. I do however think that the instructions are incorrect so my next post might be what I consider to be the correct order of construction. I've decided to relocate the surviving bridge to the North Yard Entrance/Cafe De Marche (the latter not yet even started). Fifthly Railway Workers We have workers at the Doorway Interchange (investigating the turnout motor perhaps, lol). We have workers at Wilf's Junction. We have a couple of odd balls doing something at the entrance to the yard - perhaps the last driver of the QE made a complaint. Sixthly Installed some Junction Box Platforms These were from a Scale Model Scenery kit (much recommended).

Yes, it's odd. I have a Gaugemaster wheel cleaner and if I put the 08 onto it the wheels will turn immediately and reliably. But put it on the track and it's hit and miss until it gets up to speed.

My Farish class 08 is a great demonstration of how to fit a speaker into a very small body but it's never been a very good runner. Good job I don't do any shunting on my layout.

There's the https://www.coastaldcc.co.uk/products/esu/ECoS-v2.1-50210 if you can find it on sale anywhere (seems permanently out of stock) and stomach the high price. Alternatively you could probably build a dual controller using MERG kit for considerably less. Also the NCE PowerCab supports multiple handsets (or at least two anyway).

I think you should pat yourself on the back for making the effort and learning a new skill but start laying code 55 so you can see progress. My layout is code 80 and with painted rails it doesn't look too bad so I think 55 should look good. Ultimately you're doing this for fun and expending time an effort on a single turnout doesn't sound like fun.

Didn't one of those once fly at 126mph? 😁

Nah. Maybe I'm an anomaly but outside of building a model railway I have no interest in trains. I used them back in the 80s to get home from Polytechnic a couple of times a year and around 2014 I spent 14 months commuting between Banbury and Birmingham but never particularly enjoyed it since it wasted 90 minutes of my week day and prevented me playing golf in the evening. My layout is a way to channel my creative urges and keep my technical brain interested but the rails and rolling stock are little more than a way to animate a diorama.

It's not a distinction I'd used to denigrate someone's efforts but I would consider anything that is normally kept stored in a cupboard and only comes out for special occasions is a trainset. Also (or perhaps because of that) I would say that anything anyone spends considerable amounts of time working on is a model railway. Pulling bits of track out of a box and clipping them together then calling it good is a trainset 🙂

Thanks @ITG. To be honest I'm still uncertain whether I want to go with current sensing. My layout is at an advanced stage and the thought of cutting track concerns me. I might yet decide to go with spot detection instead although of course that means yet more wires under the board. It also raises some questions of efficacy. My layout's running is straightforward though - just tail chasing - so I'm hopeful that it will be more amenable to spot detection. Once you know a train has gone into a block you'll know it'll eventually come out. The only exceptions are the sidings and I'm going to have spot detection there anyway so that the computer can 'reset' it's knowledge of position when a train parks up.

One option that helps with layouts that want to have two levels is the concept of a mezzanine. I have one on my N scale layout. I have a diamond crossing on my mezzanine which is 25mm above the baseboard. On the west side the outer loop spends 2.5m dropping down from 50mm whilst the inner loop uses the same length to rise up 2.5mm. On the East side the outer loop rises back up to 50mm while the inner loop drops back to board level. The outer loop crosses the inner loop shortly after both flatten out. This results in approximately 1% gradient which combined with a 90 degree curve for half of the distance is a reasonable gradient for trains. I have no problem pulling 1 metre long rakes around either loop. For what it's worth there is no shunting on my layout. I went with N because I enjoy watching trains run through a landscape. I have two yards with four sidings and can run four trains at the same time. If I'd wanted to shunt I wouldn't have modelled in N 😉 If you want to go the automation route then I'd suggest that when you come to laying track: Plan track sections for occupancy detection. Isolate sections Provide sections with individual power feeds. You can do this without automation and it has diagnostic advantages. I powered every section via droppers but didn't bother to isolate them so now I'm looking at cutting track or using spot detectors.

Thanks for the replies. I originally wanted to go RFID because as a computer programmer I want as much detailed information as possible. Unfortunately having planned out sections for half of my layout (the inner loop, the upper yard and its loop) I've realised that I'll probably end up with at least 60 sections by the time I'm done. That means I need to for the cheapest sensors for the most part although I accept that at either end of a siding there needs to be something more accurate for exact positioning. So continuing my plan I think what I need is this: JMRI - that can run on my existing mail/video server. Option 1: Run cables for monitor/keyboard/mouse into railway room. Minimal expense because the server runs headless normally so just needs holes drilling in a wall. Option 2: Dedicate notepad using JMRI webserver. Additional cost but could be more convenient. Replace my NCE PowerCab - I'm thinking of going with MERG as that will probably be cheaper. Current sensors, IR sensors. For sections/sensors I'm thinking that on the main runs there should be a sensor covering every couple of metres (my rakes are typically about 1 metre long) as that should allow some tail chasing and improve the resolution/timing for the computer. Am I overlooking anything? Current section plans (coloured track):

I'm sceptical about the nose pieces. They look like those on one of my headsets. They aren't particularly comfortable to start with and now the rubber 'socks' have fallen apart and dropped off they are even more uncomfortable. My preferred pair are these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B083LY7WCG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They don't have a nose piece and are a lot more comfortable. Being able to just push the lens up and away is a benefit especially since they also allow me to use them whilst wearing my glasses. Plus you can't fault the advice given by the manufacturer: 1. Avoid falling from a high place to causing severe impact. 2. For your safety, please do not wear a magnifying glass to observe the sun. 3. To prevent fire, do not xpose the magnifier to sunlight for a long time. Safety Instructions: Please take off the head mount magnifier when you’re walking to avoid falling off and collision. Wise words indeed 😁

Luckily I'm using fixed rakes so no shunting required. It did occur to me that splitting the longer runs of track into multiple sections might allow true tail chasing (perhaps two trains on each of the outer loops). I could have phrased my description better as I'm actually only using frog juicers on the diamond. All other turnout frogs are powered from an appropriate motor controller.

I have an established layout that is currently at the scenic stage and I'm thinking about adding automation. It's a fairly complex layout with two yards, each having four through sidings. There are four loops all of which can be run separately or in conjunction with other loops. Three of the loops are connected by double slips so require constant turnout switching when joined but the outer two loops are connected via a diamond crossing so can just be left to run from one to the other and back. I already have turnout motors installed and live frogs juiced powered from controllers (mostly - there's a couple still to do, lol). All sections of my track have droppers already so I'm thinking that I just need to isolate track sections and add detectors. Do I need multiple detectors for each run of track between turnouts or can I just have a single detector (in which case a lot of sections might already be isolated sufficiently because of the turnout frog)? What I'd like is to be able to just fire the computer up and tell it to 'run stuff' while I watch. Before I retired I was a computer programmer so I have no worries should that be required for the project.

I never have had either. You'd have to install the motor either badly aligned or configured with far too much throw.

How do you do that when trains can pass through the diamond from either direction without any turnout motors changing? My crossing has only two modes - both lines straight through or both lines crossing. The latter requires that the frog polarities be changed by something unconnected to the turnouts.

Yes, if the diamond can be set to allow trains from both directions to cross over (as used in a figure of eight configuration) then a juicer for each frog is the most practical solution.

It seemed to be a banned file type when I last tried (No idea why - security perhaps or just an omission in the web site configuration) but there's nothing stopping you exporting your plan as a JPEG and uploading that.

Usually with Dapol I just grab the body with both hands from above and use my fingernails to bend the body outward. The chassis typically falls out at that point. Others at my club just grab the body and pull the chassis but I have at least one loco - a Class 43 HST - that just pulls the under floor away.

Lol, I don't have much else to do. The rain is making it difficult to get onto golf courses. Funnily enough though I did think today that perhaps stringing wires for my telegraph poles might be next. Trouble is that'd interfere with track cleaning.

Fencing..there may be another way. So the method described above does work but getting the fence wires taut/straight is a bit hit and miss. The problem is that if you insert the fence post by post this requires the wires to be out of alignment while you get the next post in. Sometimes you can bend the fixed post and it will spring back but other times not so much. I've discovered that you can straighten the wires by putting a dab of glue (not superglue) between finger and thumb and running them along the wires to gather the slack then holding the slack against a post. It works fairly well and if there's too much slack you can put some flock down to hide it. But it's a still iffy so I decided to try a different method. For this method I inserted and glued the posts first then wove the wires along the post line. If there is a curve or corner then run the wires outside the posts. The idea is to ensure that when you pull the wire it pulls against every post. You can then add a dab of superglue. This method results in a straighter wire but can be fiddly and irritating. I've so far strung two wires along a dozen posts with reasonable success. I think I'll be able to string the third but in N scale it might be less aggravating to just run two wires with this method. It does look better so this might become my preferred method but it can still be a pain. But whichever method you use don't forget to go back afterwards and dab some paint on the top of your posts 😉

Building a fence. Too much rain, not enough golf. That means more work on the railway. So I decided to try and make a lineside fence. I've tried and seen different fences but they rarely look all that good and some (I'm looking at you, Peco) appear to be manufactured to annoy and confound. I mean..why did they pick a type of plastic that is impervious to every known type of glue? UHU - Nope. Superglue - Nope. Plastic solvent cement - Nope. They have small plastic lugs on the ends of the cross bars that are supposed to plug into holes on the adjacent piece of fencing. A reasonable idea in a larger scale perhaps but in N they won't stay in the holes by themselves. I learnt all this on my first layout and then on one of our club layouts because we wanted to tart her up and I (funnily enough) had lots of fencing that I no longer needed. So I decided to build my own. My first thought was to use matchsticks and silver cotton. Unfortunately I need very thin matchsticks and the thinnest I could find were still two thick. So instead I went for 1mm styrene rods. Still a bit too thick but I think at this scale you sometimes have to compromise. I created a jig out of card. This consisted of two arms where the cotton could be fixed and a long gap for the posts. I cut three notches in the ends of each arm and slotted three stands of cotton in place. I later on learnt that it was wise to glue the thread in place. Sadly this means that the jig is single use only but it's more secure. I'm using A4 card so the maximum practical length of each section of fence is 250mm. I painted the posts brown and worked out that making them 20mm long would allow for them to be inserted into the scenery leaving approximately 12mm visible. I also decided that 18mm spacing (give or take) would be a reasonable distance apart. The spacing might be a bit too much but it makes the fencing less tedious to install and doesn't look bad. It's just another compromise. So know place each post under the wires and carefully spot glue them with superglue. This sounds fairly simple (and often is) but occasionally a post will decide that it doesn't like being glued or you'll nudge it before the glue has set. I've been getting better at it but it's still one of those things that will occasionally make you sigh or even swear 🙄 But eventually you end up with a line of fence posts sitting in the jig. So now just cut the fencing out of the jig et voila: Installation is simple..but again can be irritating at times. It's not just a matter of drilling holes and dropping the fencing into place. The fencing needs some tension otherwise it won't look right. I've mostly been getting away with it but I'm going to do some searching and see if I can find silver elastic thread. I know you can get it in black but I feel that silver looks more visible. Anyway here's what I've done so far. And as a bonus I've also thrown in some of my glorious RevolutioN TransPennine Mk5a coaches.

That's why modern golf instruction advises against a reverse C finish 😉