BusDriverMan

Hi all,

I'm gearing up to start painting models. Late 70s in N.

On a bit of a budget - my painting equipment so far extends to a 3M spray mask. I don't have an airbrush or compressor (yet).

On my workbench right now is a Class 122 that'll be in plain blue, and some Peco wagons I'm not sure what to do with.

This is the plan:

Prime with Halfords Anti-Rust Primer Grey

Main body colours with Railmatch spray cans (yellow ends directly onto grey primer, mask ends with Tamiya tape, then spray sides)

Brush paint details with Vallejo acrylics / generic acrylic paint / metallic Sharpie

Gloss varnish with…? Used to be Krystal Klear but I've heard they've changed the formula?

Railtec transfers without Microset / Microsol (as per DM from Steve from Railtec - thanks Steve)

Matt varnish with…? I've heard Hobbycraft do a good spray varnish but it can't be posted, I can only buy in-store?

Weathering - either pastels / oil paint or deferred until I can get an airbrush

I live alone in a one-bedroom flat, so spray painting will either be in my kitchen with an old sheet set up to catch overspray, or in the yard out back with the model firmly blu-tacked to a stick.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

A contemporary view of the same site.

Heartbreaking, isn't it

I've just finished "The Arbroath and Forfar Railway" by… a disappointing author. The book was good, but rushed exponentially towards the end. I wanted to know why Forfar got this new(?) signal box in its later years.

Found another photo here, a 1981 railtour from Edinburgh Waverley to Forfar, with a 122 leading what might be a 108. Very inconsiderate to marshall the van end of the 122 at the front of the train and deprive passengers a view forwards!

https://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/80s/810725db.htm

ps @sulzer27jd John - I like your location

Amazing thread Izzy! Two things I found inspiring in particular - the folding integral sector plate, and the motor bogie. I think I have some of those motors, bought for another purpose and unused.

Tempted to plan a similar layout based on nearby Kirriemuir, a fictional version that was still open in the 70s and served by blue diesels. Should fit well with living in a rented one-room flat.

Those 309s are incredible! I have a minor nitpick - should the intermediate ends retain side-buffers? I think they were omitted.

edit: found a photo in amongst all the 3/4 views of the driving ends: 

Are the tantalum stay-alive units off-the-shelf or DIY?

On 18/07/2020 at 23:09, railtec-models said:

Nice job. If you're doing more then it may save you time (and sanity) to know that I'll be making a parallel 2mm offering that gives you any EMU set number, matching side vehicle numbers, depot code and data panel already made up:

Brilliant! Any chance you could do the same for DMUs in N / 2mm?

Quite the transformation!

Can you do the window frames with a silver Sharpie and a steady, well-braced hand?

Excited by the possibilities of 3D printed cabs, etched sides, donor chassis / subframe - just wish there was an equivalent of the Replica Railways motorised chassis for N gauge!

Oh nice! Didn't realise the layout already exists despite the first sentence of your first post… d'oh

Incidentally - if there's colour light signalling, there's probably also power-operated points. Point motors almost always have a facing point lock built in, so if you're controlling this with a lever frame, you wouldn't need FPL levers.

The desk in my living room, where I've spent almost all my waking hours since the middle of March, overlooks the site of one of the stations on this route. Trucks go past all day.

As an aside to the history of the route, where should the new Strathmore Route go?

I'd take it as a given that it'd take more or less the historic route from Stanley Junction via Coupar Angus to a new site in Forfar. But from there - to Dundee via Broughty Ferry/Monifieth? To Arbroath via Friockheim on the original route?

My preference is to have a new through route from Forfar to Brechin to the ECML south of Laurencekirk - thus allowing an alternate Aberdeen-Perth route avoiding the single-track section between Montrose and Usan.

When I moved to Scotland, I spent a year or so driving buses to most of these places. A train would've been better!

Can you squeeze in a headshunt around the top left curve, and change the connection to a trailing connection on the other side of the scissors?

This eliminates the facing point and lets the last siding act as a headshunt / catch point to stop runaway trains going straight into the Down main line.

Trains arriving and departing from the station on either line will both need to reverse on the Down main line. With the original design, there's direct access to the Down platforms, but getting to the Up side of the station requires two reversals on the main line to use the Down scissors, or travelling right through the station to use the Up scissors.

The yellow subsidiary signal in the yard before the crossover to the main line only applies to travel over the crossover - movements in and out of the down headshunt / last siding are unsignalled. I'd imagine the crossover and the two signals next to it would be controlled by a ground frame released by the main signalbox.

The two Down signals next to the scissors might be redundant - the  platform starters could do the job. I've sketched in subsidiary signals for travelling onto the Up line to reverse at the Up signal by the scissors crossover - the Limit Of Shunt signal (fixed red subsidiary signal) stops the train running on the wrong line all the way to Holyhead. Alternatively they could be eliminated, and trains would reverse at the subsidiary signal by the Down yard crossover to access a different part of the station.

There might need to be route indication on the Down line subsidiary as routes can be set from it straight into the Down yard or any part of the station. In which case, I'm not sure how it'd be operated - the signaller would clear it for routes into the station and the Up yard, while the shunter would clear it for routes into the Down siding? Doesn't seem insurmountable.

I was procrastinating yesterday and found a fascinating document on the RSSB website (while googling for something else entirely) - "Signalling and Operational Telecommunications Design: Technical Guidance". A 327-page PDF written by Railtrack in 1999 and filled with far too much detail even for me - but on page 199 there's signalling diagram for a fictional junction station with multiple-aspect signals controlled by a lever frame and a description of the interlocking, followed on page 273 with the same location but with relay interlocking and NX panel control. Found it quite interesting!

I picked this up as a "DMU Chassis" as part of a small ad a week or two ago along with an aged BH Enterprises Class 121/122 kit and a few other items. Took a little while to recognise it for what it was with those external driveshafts! Runs OK with a 9V battery across the tracks - I don't have a DC controller.

Was thinking of using the chassis and kit to make a grimy Scottish Region Class 131 as a modelling exercise, as I already have a Dapol 122 cobbled together from spares. This would mean replacing the bogie sideframes, adapting it for DCC, and ideally replacing the wheelsets with something less pizza-cuttery.

My question is, in the year 2020, is this a good use of the chassis? And if so, can I source better wheelsets somewhere? I've searched a bit but haven't found clear answers.

Meanwhile, it can push a CCT back and forth under the monitors on my desk

28 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Tiles ?

That rings a bell.........

Oh my gosh, that's adorable and also extremely cool.

I got (re)started into railway modelling a few years back because of DCC++ and from a Robin Simonds (The N Scaler) article about block detection. I've had an interest in railway signalling since I was a toddler and wanted to build something with interesting and accurate signalling and interlocking.

So instead of doing anything like that, I acquired a 20x120cm baseboard from the local model railway club's scraps pile and built Inglenook on it, for fun and experimentation.

Initially it was DCC++ driven by JMRI, then I built a basic controller, fixed to the board edge, with these features:

- Four pushbuttons and a rotary encoder for input

- Four-digit seven-segment display for output

- Favourite loco addresses hard-coded into the firmware

- Clunky programming mode added after I lost patience with DecoderPro

- Connects to the DCC++ Arduino Uno via a serial connection

It also has an engraved control panel - I bought a "T8" CNC engraver after watching a few too many sponsored YouTube videos. It's somewhat underwhelming due to the components it came with but can be fettled up into something more useable. Principle lesson is that engraving doesn't really suit plywood

A second Nano operates the points, which are servo-driven, with a second engraved plywood panel. It is independent of the DCC components except using the same 5V power supply. The servos are superglued directly to the underside of the board and operate the tie bar with a straightened paperclip. Occasionally the servo angles need to be adjusted by a degree or two to fully close the point but without the servo buzzing - this can be done by plugging the laptop into the Nano and sending commands over the serial connection. The servo angles are stored in the Nano's flash memory.

I'm in the process of designing and building a complete replacement with these features:

- 128x64 OLED screen

- Layout fleet and point config information stored on an SD card

- Point servo angles configurable via the controller

- Trains driven with a genericised version of real train controls: separate power, reverser, and brake controls

- 3-digit 7-segment speedometer display

- Driven by ATMega328P microcontrollers in a modular I2C network

I'd originally planned to cram Timesaver onto the board too - there's just about enough space to fit Inglenook and Timesaver together behind a headshunt long enough for a loco and five 15ft-wheelbase wagons, raising the possibility of simultaneously solving Inglenook and Timesaver with two locos and transferring trains between the two. The idea is definitely ridiculous, I'm just not sure if it's workable or worth the effort!

I'm quite excited by the potential of more realistic train controls than the traditional turny-knob plus decoder-defined momentum. Should make shunting trucks more interesting.

Moving forward - I now have a working 3D printer, and a 121/122 railcar - might go for a more advanced controller with a notched power controller and gear selector, and see if I can make it dual-purpose as a model railway throttle and as a Diesel Railcar Simulator game controller…!

Going back a bit - if producing the entire panel in one go is too expensive / inflexible, might be worth emulating the real thing and building a panel as a series of tiles? Even if it's only cosmetic and there's just one monolithic wiring harness behind it.

I used to drive the bus through Inverkeilor. The underbridge south of the former station with the 13'9" height limit - IIRC we operated a bus which was placarded as 13'9" tall or thereabouts, but the memo came round we were to cease operating them under that bridge. Driving south, the road descends, then abruptly levels off just before going under the bridge. I think a colleague discovered that if driving with the requisite aplomb, the suspension will compress when the road levels, and bounce the bus upwards enough to strike the underside of the bridge. No idea if it happened or not though

Anyone got a spare 122 roof (destination blinds rather than headcode panels)?

10 hours ago, Paul80 said:

the hardest part with the 14 is routing the wires so they don't get crushed when the body is refitted, IIRC they need to be routed down the side of the chassis not over the top

 

 

That's what got me :/

The tight spots are:

a) the gap between the top of the chassis and the inside of the long bonnet end - the chassis needs filing down to make space for the decoder

b) the gap between the gearbox cover and the cab interior moulding, the middle one with the driving controls

I tried to reassemble with too much wire on top of the gearbox cover, and popped that cab interior moulding loose. Not easy to put back without removing the entire cab from the running plate and I don't think that's possible - so might just live with it!

The two capacitors are in series across the motor terminals - same as the 04. More research says they're not needed when used with a decoder, and interfere with the decoder's speed control.

I removed the capacitors from the PCB on the 04 I'd previously wired, and low-speed performance immediately improved.

I removed the entire circuit board on the 14 by removing the motor and using desoldering braid, and the tags on the motor are much easier to solder wires to than the PCB surface.

Conversion is complete now! Runs nicely and slowly.

Hi folks,

My mission for tomorrow is to hard-wire a decoder to a Farish Class 14 that's been decorating my desk for six months.

I successfully wired up a Farish 04 before, but that was far roomier inside than the 14!

I saw a comment on a locked thread about another N-gauge low-bonnetted diesel - someone saying he'd remove the DC motor PCB to get the precious extra millimetres. And the decoder manual (Digitrax DZ126T) mentions I should remove RFI capacitors in the locomotive wiring. Is that what the PCB on the end of the motor is, with its two capacitors - should I remove it?

Hey folks,

I have a basic 3D printer, and a desire to spend my money buying coaches and DMUs from Worsley Works, and not on buying donor vehicles for inflated prices on ebay...

I have in mind to 3D print a jig matching the vehicle's roof profile, and use it to accurately and consistently shape a piece of brass sheet into the correct profile to form the roof. The roof could then be reinforced and further held in place with a 3D-printed ribs and spine glued underneath. Since no 3D printed part is visible on the finished model, the surface quality of the print should be less critical.

Has anyone experimented with this approach before? The only thing I could find about 3D printed jigs was an American modeller printing a jig for hand-built turnouts.

21 hours ago, The Johnster said:

AFAIK no UK non gangwayed stock ever used buckeyes, and of course no flat ended design ever used them either. 

Various non-gangwayed EMUs and DEMUs used drophead buckeyes, same as corridor Mk1s - all the EPBs, HAPs, 3H etc.