AndrueC

Audience participation time!

 

Following on from the earlier post, I'm now open to suggestions (polite ones, please  ) on what I can put on the newly 'turfed' areas. I've got some pictures here with a double bogied wagon to provide scale. The ideas don't have to be prototypical (that ship has not only sailed, it's won the trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific speed records and is well on the way to winning the circumnavigation contest ).

 

I'm after 'interesting' suggestions. Things that will be fun and interesting to construct and to look at. . Things that might even teach me a new skill. For instance on the first area I have a vague notion of a ruined building on the corner with a ruined bridge reaching out across the lower track and to the staging yard where the engine shed is. In this case the green wagon would be where the track has been smashed through the first part of the bridge.

 

This area seems like some kind of 'yard' might be appropriate as it's the two entrances to my staging yards and basically where 'Railway Company Property' starts:

The only thing I'd like to point out is that the flower bed is 700mm from the edge of my baseboard so only a sadist would suggest that I build something hugely complicated here. A diorama that I can build off-site then deposit in place would be preferred

 

Last but not least another corner piece:

 

So if you have any ideas please let me know. No real prize on offer but I'll let you choose the name

 

On 22/07/2021 at 09:21, deepfat said:

I thought rapido were going to do N gauge if there was enough interest?  I studied the APT-E as part of my MSc at the open university and saw it as a boy so I have one even though everything else is steam driven on my layout. That's why I needed to hide her when she's not in use. 

I know that Revolution Trains were going to but they abandoned it in May siting lack of interest

 

http://www.revolutiontrains.com/projects/expressions-of-interest/apt-e/

 

I suppose another option might be card as that doesn't require a significant investment whereas 3D printing clearly does.

 

I seem to have fate against me because the other loco I'd like to have but can't is a Princess Elizabeth. I have a Queen Elizabeth courtesy of Graham Farish but that is not the same thing.

 

Honestly it's almost enough to make me give up on N and move to OO. What keeps me on N is being able to run almost metre long trains round a figure of eight layout in my spare bedroom

There's something fishy going on..

 

Not wanting to risk a lightning strike I decided today was going to be a train day rather than golf. The morning went quite well. I put down some more mainline ballast - almost the last in fact, just some difficult to reach turnouts that might never be ballasted. I glued my last buffer stop in place and chucked down some scatter.

I put some brown umber and PVA on a few parts of the cliff face beforehand as it needed a bit of grass.

 

Then I dropped some bushes around the cliff edge next to 'the scrap yard'. This is currently where I leave 'tools and stuff' that I can't bothered to put back in drawers but I'm beginning to think it might make quite a nice diorama one day

 

I completed the scatter and bushes around my 'giant's footpath'. I wanted a pedestrian tunnel really but I had a spare WS tunnel portal so needs must. We can pretend an old railway line ran through there

At least when the line was closed the local council embraced the alternatives, built a path and even painted the arch. A lot better than what HE do with some of their old railway bridges..

 

In the afternoon I decided to run a couple of trains because we all deserve a reward. The first of them (Little Bertha and her coal train) stalled just outside the staging yard entrance but that's where I put the scatter so a swift wipe with a track rubber and off she went, happy as Larry.

 

She came steamingdieselling out of the tunnels after Wilf's Junction and immediately stopped. Locos have done that before and typically it just needs another wipe. Except that I haven't done any work there recently and 'Mr Magic Sky Finger' prodding the loco didn't make it budge. Hmmm. That area of track has history:

The feeders were added a few months ago when trains couldn't exit the tunnel when running on the central loop. The blobs of solder on the joint itself were added today because I can't be bothered to drill more holes and do a proper job. Not being completely lackadaisical I traced the line along and discovered the other problem joint. Now that's near the centre of my board so about 600mm from the edge. A bit tricky to get at but with care I managed to bodgefix it up.

 

If nothing else this confirms what all the wise modellers have always said. Solder a dropper onto every piece of track. I'm hoping I don't get too many more failures. My layout uses Setrack curves so there's potentially a lot of fish plates that can fail.

Hi, my big project for Winter (yeah I know but I like to plan in advance) is to install turnout motors and LED signals on my layout. I'm currently using an NCE PowerCab and run a maximum of two N-gauge locomotives at a time with six others sat powered but idle. Should I add a second power bus just for the turnouts? Should I buy a booster so that though controlled from the same 'Cab they have their own power?

 

There will be over a dozen turnout motors but they will tend to be switched infrequently, mostly just to select a different train to run rather than as part of a route or for shunting.

 

I'm going to be using DCC Concepts Cobalt-SS motors and associated kit.

18 minutes ago, ITG said:

Are set track points really first radius? In OO, some stock will not handle first radius curves; is that true in N?

Yup.

 

https://peco-uk.com/products/turnout-1st-radius-right-hand-2

 

My 4-6-2 can handle a single one now that she's been adjusted but one of my sidings has two back to back because the entrance to the siding is a curve and she still can't handle that. Luckily the other sidings are 'back to front' so she can go in any of those.

 

You can of course mix Setrack and Streamline but doing that with turnouts mean you lose the inherent geometry in which case you might as well just go all Streamline. That's what I'm going to do on my next layout but it does seem to consume a bit more space.

My first piece of advice would be to avoid first radius curves if you can.

 

My layout is n-gauge built from 2nd radius curves and Setrack turnouts. Most of my diesels are perfectly happy but I had to remove the buffers of the class 58s because they would foul their couplers or wagon buffers. My class 56 (triple axel bogies) sounds a little piqued running round the curves but I pretend it's just the sound of it 'working hard'

 

My single steam loco - a 4-6-2 Queen Elizabeth - was quite unhappy with the turnouts and not keen on the curves until I sent her to be serviced. Having come back with corrected B2B she's now a lot happier. Meanwhile a Hall I bought to replace her simple won't run on my layout at all.

 

I also prefer layout 1 although I sympathise with the length of siding issue. One of the things I love about my layout is being able to run almost metre long trains. But then my board is the size of a double bed

15 hours ago, russ p said:

 

I read this the other it looks to je someone in highways England is empire building 

Unfortunately it's trait of modern society where someone comes up with something which alleges that public safety is at risk shouts very loudly and no one will dare to oppose them 

 

On 17/01/2021 at 13:56, John-Miles said:

The simple answer is yes. You can optimise for anything; it gets more complicated when you try to optimise for several things at the same time and there have to be compromises. Rather than thinking of optimal solutions, it's better to think and talk about good solutions.

I'm a computer programmer and agree with this sentiment. It's a problem I face frequently, especially when working on live/legacy systems. Add in the resources available for modification and 'It'll have to do as it is' is sadly sometimes the only option.

On 10/01/2021 at 15:42, sir douglas said:

The move could be seen as a Tory cost saving move rather than facing the ongoing cost of maintenance/repair these structures.

All governments spend too much money (which we are forced to give them). Unless there is a material detriment experienced by a significant proportion of the population then I'm in favour. A bridge that hardly anyone uses(*) is not a bridge. It's a waste of resources and/or a potential danger due to neglect.

 

Mind you I'm a little sceptical of how much some old bridges cost to maintain. There's one at Brackley that has a public foot path over and under it - a well signed path to a local park in fact - that often has stones on the ground underneath it.

 

https://goo.gl/maps/gdxav9o48wodUFQZA

http://mkttransport.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DSC_0012-1-1024x683.jpg

 

(http://mkttransport.co.uk/photography/disused-railways-in-focus-brackley/)

"Today the section of line west of Brackley high street has become a walking and cycling route, allowing it to be walked for a short distance up to the former Banbury Road bridge, where a new junction with the A422 bypass has cut off the route. "

 

It is a moderately interesting feature so it'd be a shame if it were removed. On the other hand it'd be an even bigger shame if someone got killed by falling masonry and I'd struggle to justify the cost of renovating it.

 

(*)I include 'a lot of people like to look at it' as 'usage'.

Don't mention APT-E. I'd love to have one of those on my layout but sadly only one company has ever done one in N gauge and the chances of picking one up are low. One day I might get into 3D printing and try and make my own.

 

Either that or buy a spare HST, and attack it with a scalpel to push the windscreen inwards

58 minutes ago, ITG said:

An added factor can be whether or not you have DCC sound. Sometimes a ‘dead spot’ may not be enough to halt movement, but can interrupt the signal to DCC sound, ie it goes off. With live frogs with power (be that switchers, juicers, built in switches or what have you) it can go along way to eradicating that hiccup.

Now that's interesting. I don't currently have any sound enabled locos (sadly still uncommon in N gauge). I did have one for a short period of time but it never ran well (if at all) and got sent back to the retailer within a couple of days.

 

I would like to add sound to my future layout (and just about anything else I can think of - it's my second hobby for my eventual retirement).

 

I'm actually going to have stations this time (yes, a loop-de-loop but this time with the pretence of going somewhere useful ) so was thinking of a tannoy system for those as well as train sounds.

4 minutes ago, ITG said:

True, I used Peco track pins on 9mm ply, but on inclines of polystyrene (a la Woodland Scenics), I used double sided tape.

Not sure how I'm going to do the inclines this time around. I might go for Woodland Scenics again but now that feels like a cop-out. One of my proposed inclines (a decline actually) is on a curve which will be interesting. I've never had any issues with the ones on my current layout so thought I'd step it up a bit

16 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I find streamline it much easier to work with.

You can mark out where you want your sidings then just bend the track to shape.

You don't need to buy a selection of different track. Plain track is plain track, not different straights & different length/radius curves.

Interesting. I didn't find that much of a problem with Setrack as I only have one radius of curve anyway but I see what you're saying about sidings. I was 'forced' to follow the geometry but it was just assembling a jigsaw and everything just fitted together.

 

Actually one more question would be track fixing. For my current layout I didn't fix anything until I was done and then just sprayed 'wet water' over the track and dribbled PVA down the middle. I'm assuming that for Streamline curves I'm going to have to fix them in some fashion during initial construction. From my brief experiments the track will tend to straighten out a bit unless it's held down.

My current layout is built with Peco Setrack (apart from the straights of course). The only problem I've had is with one diamond crossing which because I can't get to has to be painted to prevent shorts. None of my locos (Diesels and one 4-6-2) stall or stutter going over plastic frogs.

 

I'm currently planning my next layout and it will be built out of Peco Streamline. Construction won't start for probably two years but having come up with a design I'm now pondering whether I should stick with insulated frogs or go for energised frogs. I imagine everyone is going to say the latter. But it sounds like additional hassle for (from my point of view) little benefit. I'll concede that having silver frogs instead of black would improve the aesthetics.

 

I first thought of using an auto-reverse or frog juicer but have since realised that if I use the DCC Concepts kit as I intend to for my current layout over winter a lot of the hassle does seem to go away.

 

The new layout has three connected loops so I'm thinking about splitting it into three sections if that makes any difference.

Thanks for that. I've accepted that Streamline will be more difficult to work with but the idea of printing 1:1 seems like a good one. For my current layout I could just plonk things down in about the right place then tweak until it fitted. The benefits of a fixed geometry. But as you rightly say Streamline is more realistic so that's what I want for the big layout and I just have to accept the difficulty factor and using the track plan as gospel is a good move.

I've started early planning of my next layout and like my current layout it will have staging yards. My current layout uses Setrack and sidings are spaced by having an opposite R2 curve connected to the diverging route of each turnout at some point to bring the track back to parallel. This is simple to design and easy to build.

 

Playing around with AnyRail suggests it's more difficult with Streamline so how do people normally do it? Do you just work out the siding spacing then cut a section of rail to fit?

A little more work this weekend. I've been experimenting with track weathering so took a risk and decided to upgrade Wilf's Junction (built in honour of my late father). I'm pleased to say that it turned out quite well:

 

 

The green ties on the right are the result of an earlier experiment so I'm going to adjust that later. And yes, I've removed that bit of fluff

I have two removal sections on my layout.

 

The shorter straight section is just Modrock. It started out as Modrock+cardboard supports but it turned out that the Modrock on its own was enough to form a straight section of embankment about 250mm in length.

 

The longer section is a curve and it was built out of polystyrene with a Modrock cover. I could probably detach the polystyrene now but there seems little point.

 

The difficulty in both cases for me was hiding the join (a problem Ernie Wise never had ). For the small section I haven't yet come up with a solution but for the larger curve I just used the old 'hedgerow trick'.

 

Short section:

Removed

 

Unfortunately whilst the small section does give access for cleaning and rerailing it doesn't allow me to actually work on that diamond crossing so I have to keep a bottle of nail varnish handy.

 

Curved section:

 

Some closes ups of the curved section:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jToUnDhjJCufE54T6

 

1 minute ago, jonny777 said:

Occam's Razor will not work for UFO sightings because no one knows what aliens might look like (or even if they exist). 

 

I don't think you understand how Occam's Razor works. It is ideally suited to to the discussion of what UFOs  actually are. It doesn't matter what aliens looks like because Occam's Razor suggests that you shouldn't assume they even exist let alone wonder about what they look like.

 

1 minute ago, jonny777 said:

You would end up trying to prove that everyone mistook the planet Venus, weather balloons, contrails, hoaxes, marks on poor camera lenses, etc., etc.; simply because you do not have access to detailed evidence - or all eye witnesses are immediately branded nut jobs by those who insist any event which cannot be replicated by modern science must be a lie. 

 

No you wouldn't. That isn't how OR works. The entire point of OR is that you shouldn't try to prove things you don't know. OR suggests that in the absence of proof the most likely explanation involves those things you know to be true. We know that humans have indeed made the mistakes you mention. Ergo, there is no need to make up anything else.

 

1 minute ago, jonny777 said:

Occams Razor dismissed the existence of sprites when they were first reported by aircraft pilots

 

No it didn't. Again you demonstrate a lack of understanding about OR. OR never dismisses anything. OR does not attempt to provide an explanation or a definitive answer. OR is there to help you make a decision based on what is likely. OR is the last resort when you have no more evidence but have to make a decision. OR claims (if it claims anything) to improve the odds in your favour of making the correct decision but it offers absolutely no guarantees as to validity of your decision.

 

Yes OR says UFOs are unlikely to be aliens. But if some of them are then it doesn't invalidate OR. If you had to make a life or death decision based on whether a UFO was an alien or not you would (I hope) act on the assumption that it wasn't because it's the least likely explanation. That's what OR is for. What's that relatively famous saying? "If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras'. That's OR in action

3 hours ago, Nick C said:

If you consider the number of stars in the universe, the proportion of those known or believed to have planets, what we know about the conditions required for life to exist, and the sheer distances involved, you end up coming to the following conclusion:

 

1. There are alomst certainly multiple, probably thousands, of other planets out there with life.

2. They are all far too far away for us to ever communicate with, or even know for sure of their existance.

Vernor Vinge has written several excellent books and two of them are very good at conveying the size of the galaxy (let alone the size of the universe assuming it is finite). In one of them he talks about thousands of civilisations that are born, spread across dozens of star systems and then die out all without ever having made contact with another such.

 

I also love his idea of Zones of Thought. A Fire Upon the Deep ends with one of the most poignant chapters I've read. An unknown entity is trying to send a ping around the galaxy and they can only make contact in one direction. They are scared that they might be right on the edge of a major catastrophe (which we as the reader know they are). Thousands of civilisations have been destroyed or at least crippled.

 

If anyone likes S/F and hasn't read A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky they should. Now

29 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Some people will never believe anything about aliens as it doesn’t fit their narrative .

And some people will believe anything and have never heard of Occam's Razor.

 

I love the idea of alien life. As a child and for the earlier part of my adult life I was a huge science-fiction reader. I particularly enjoyed CJ Cherryh's Alliance/Compact series and that of Ian M Banks. I would love to talk to an alien, exchange ideas (*) and see the universe from a totally different perspective. I'd love to travel to different stars.

 

But I'm also a realist. I don't want to play 'pretend aliens'. I want something that can be proven. The USAF footage is interesting for sure but it still doesn't meet my standards. Sorry.

 

(*)Assuming we can meaningfully communicate. I've also read most of Cherryh's Atevi novels and understand that you might need more than just a dictionary to communicate. Or the Tc'a, Chi and Knnn of her Compact series which pretty much nobody has ever worked out how to talk to.

46 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

You obviously have not read this article - 

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eisenhower-met-aliens-says-timothy-good_n_1277133

 

Whether you wish to believe it or not is entirely up to you. I make no comment on my opinions either way. However, it does seem to have a veneer of respectability about it, at least. 

There's almost nothing of any substance in that article. It's a short piece about things that supposedly happened that no-one can actually prove. And it doesn't particularly contradict anything I posted. The main thrust of what I posted was that unidentified craft flying around with their lights on are highly unlikely to be aliens.  That article doesn't say that the aliens that Pres. Eisenhower met flew around with their lights on. It doesn't actually say how they arrived on Earth.

 

I see nothing in that article that would make me revise my opinion.

I automatically discount any suggestion that craft with lights on are aliens because it makes no sense.

If they wanted us to know they existed they'd land in the middle of a motorway (or in front of the Whitehouse) or take over the air waves broadcasting a message to us. The idea that an alien capable of building a craft that can travel FTL or trans-dimensionally being unable to work out how to communicate with us is if they wish to is ridiculous.

Similarly if they don't want us to know they are visiting they will ensure that their navigation lights are off, window blinds are drawn and that the 'hyper-mega cloaking shield 3000' is enabled. They could spend a week hovering over Area 51 while holding a raucous party and no human would ever be any the wiser.

Now having written that I will state that I believe that intelligent aliens exist. I think it's reasonable to assume that some have even discovered how to travel the vast distances between stars. But space is so big that the chances of them ever having come here are miniscule.

And I think that if aliens do ever come here they'll most likely ignore us for the same reason we ignore an ant heap that we happened to see on the side of a woodland path. We'd just not be important enough for them to bother with, stuck down at the bottom of a gravity well we can barely climb out of. If little Charlie has to come up with a project for playschool he might drop a couple of 'spy satellites' off but even then his teacher will probably chastise him for being lazy.

The queen is back!

 

It's been a while since the last update. Because golf. But due to the vagaries of the British weather I have been doing some work on the layout so here's a status update.

 

I have started work on the staging area dioramas. Very early days yet but I'm still hopeful of producing a 'macro photography standard' scene here over the winter.

 

I've built out the embankments on the inside of my two top curves. I think they've turned out quite well and definitely add to the atmosphere of that area. I've still got to paint the rock wall on one of them but that's a winter job.

 

A friend used their laser cutter to provide me with two new bridges:

 

I mentioned a while back that my Queen Elizabeth had come back from Bachman Servicing so I'll finish this short post with a link to a video of her strutting her stuff. She stutters once or twice where I've been doing scenery work (probably needs the track cleaning) and at low speed her tender jumps rather alarmingly at the exit of Wilf's junction. But she ran for nearly ten minutes without a serious mishap so I think I can claim that my track laying is of an acceptable standard.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/x6nUgsoNnuQSLvfr9

 

One thing that amuses me - at times the resonance with my baseboard means that she actually sounds like a steam engine. Lol. No sound decoders were installed prior to the making of this video

2 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

My current car and its predecessor (which was replaced in the catalogue by my current car) have the indicators and windscreen wiper controls on opposite sides to each other. It took a bit of getting used to and I still sometimes mix them up.

Mine has two annoyances:

* The design of the fog light switch means that it's impossible to only have the rear fogs on. You can have fronts and optionally the rears but not the other way around. The switch is on/off for the fronts and push further then release for the rears. My previous car also had pull then release for the rears.

* You activate the rear washer/wiper (which doesn't have a non-return valve for the fluid) by pushing the washer stalk forward whereas I expect it to be pull back - on the grounds that it's the rear window.