60700

I have used pond liner as a fall plate could be used for your job.

Try squeezing the rail joiners on all point connections that feed into point.

If you want to see or try some animations come to the Derby roundhouse exhibition on May9th and 10th 2020 to see the Thomas and friends layout. There's even a flaming Dragon.

Over 20 years without modification to my electrofrog ballasted point have given me reliable running.

So sorry to hear of everybody's loss at this time.

Terry

Yes Big Jim this was also noted by myself and informed the club personally to highlight the fact.

Used to go fishing in that lake around that time and remember the railway but had no camera when I was 10 years old .

Thanks for that Gordon Finsbury park viewers platform was my spot in the 1950s. Happy memories.

A few from 1980/1

Didnt the Paington model shop have a large amount of stock stolen in a bugulary not so long ago?

Not suggesting anything suspisious

SWMBO lived in the flats at Chettle Court, overlooking the ECML near Harringay station, during some of her formative years and she recounts the noisy trains keeping her awake at night. She describes it as a 'droning' sound. I am led to draw the conclusion that it would be emanating from 18 cylinders of Napier engine fitted to one (or more) of English Electric's finest.

 

I would have given my right arm........

Spent many days up on the hill overlooking the station in the 1980s.

Looking forward to seeing Hornsey Broadway at Burton in June as I used to live on the boarders of Hornsey and Finsbury park from the 1950s until the 1990s. Love the layout Kier.

Thanks Johnster and everybody for their suggestions but i have found the problem which was my own making by fitting Kadees to the ponies the screw holding the Kadee was slightly fouling on the buffer beam causing the chassis to lift slightly,

Problem solved.

Thank you 

Terry

Thank you all for your feedback to my problem. I have recently changed the coupling on the ponies to Kadee's and as suggested this could have been the problem ,I could not find any Mazak faults and the chassis sits square. The track work is also 20 years old and has never given me any problems apart from two point changes, which are all Peco electrofrog. All other locos perform ok. 

I have left the two body retaining screws off, and loco has no problem, so I think I am happy with that as points and gradients are no trouble.

Thank you again for all your replies.

Regards

Terry

I 

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I have a split chassis Ivatt  2-6-2 Bachmann over 15 years old that has recently started to wheel slip mainly on points and gradients. I have bought a new set from Bachmann and installed them but the wheel slip still occurs ,take the body off and all is ok. Could the retaining body screws distort the chassis ? as that is all that I can think is happening.

regards

Terry

The ECML bridge over Holloway road in London N7 carried this as I remember it well in the 1950s.

Two units lorry mounted left Litchurch lane Derby this afternoon heading for the M1

Thank you Steve for all your wonderful photos and workmanship on Finsbury Square .I have only just found this and will follow with interest as all my spotting days were done on the Spotters platform in Finsbury Park where you could see what was coming up Holloway bank in the 1950s. with Kings Cross, St Pancras and Liverpool Street so close those where the days of a happy childhood, only disappointed that I did not have a camera.

Regards Terry

Mickleover members have a substantial "00" layout called Farkam which has been exhibited extensively in the UK and Europe and can be found on YouTube.

I think however that a closed bidding system for the layout is in progress.

Contact the Mickleover Model railway group based in Derby for details.

Good Luck.

Hi 60700

 

Most 1980s diesel  locomotive sheds were the same as they had been built or in the case of old steam sheds how they had been modified. Some locomotives would be serviced in the newer HST sheds.

 

Where in the country will your shed be based? Each region in the late 50 and early 60s had there own idea on how to service and maintain their new diesel locomotive fleets so there are defined regional differences, like building design, fuel pumps, fuel tanks etc. This was the same basic infrastructure in the 1980s before the massive changes that took place post privatisation. Oddly the approach to tack layout in many cases followed a similar pattern.

 

Before I carrying on waffling, loco depots were located where predicted traffic flows would end , terminus stations and marshaling yards being the most common. They were there to ready the locomotive for its next duty. they were also ideally located as to provide examination and repair facilities of an appropriate level.  By the 1980s many sheds had either be upgraded or appeared over provided for their work load, this was because of changes to the traffic from the predicted levels of the 1960s.

 

The most basic layout could be seen at Ranelagh Bridge, if you were to look at Toton or Stratford you will see the refueling points set in some loops and there is a headshunt so the locos can reach the shed or sidings.

shed 1.gif

The locos enter the stabling point to be refueled, they go straight on to the fuel point. Here they also have there water for the train heating boiler topped up (if fitted), sand boxes replenished, windscreens cleaned and if required an A Exam. Small repairs like new wipers could also be done at this stage. They then moved on to headshunt A and reversed to headshunt B. From here they would be stabled until they are next required on the sidings. There is a flow system through the fuel points so locos that have been serviced are not trapped by those undergoing servicing. Think of a typical garage how once you have filled up you are not waiting to reverse while the geezer behind you tops up his 4x4, you drive forward. A locomotive fully fueled and serviced doesn't earn money if blocked in.  You may have noticed that the balloon loops will act as a run round for when the fuel train arrives and departs.

 

shed2.gif

I have expanded the Ranelagh Bridge principle to include a small maintenance shed, and breakdown train line.

 

shed 3.gif

At some locations the servicing was done under cover, Colchester, and Bristol Bath Road come readily to mind. At Colchester there was not a separate  maintenance shed.

shed 5.gif

 

There were some sheds with dead end fueling arrangements Shirebrook and Frodingham (as suggested by Jonny) are examples.

shed 6.gif

 

Having built a few diesel depots I have learned to try and operate it as close to prototype practice. To have a driver say "That is how we drove our locos around the shed" is a privilege. Make sure the fuel storage tanks can take more fuel than the train that is refilling them, nothing looks worse than the Ratio tanks with 3 TTAs sat in front of them. Another thing I find difficult to understand when someone has gone to great lengths to get all their locos right and then plonk any diesel depot building on the layout. Each region had its own ideas on shed buildings, look at the practice of the region you are modelling. 

Thank you Clive for your suggestions. I am looking at the midlands area for the Depot after spending some spotting days in 80s around Shirebrook, Barrow Hill,Westhouses and Derby where I am now living. The Shirebrook plan looks to be the most useful for me so I will get the lining paper and track templates out on the boards to get a better picture. Thank you once again.

Regards

Terry

I am planning to build a 00 blue era diesel depot on 2 two feet by four feet boards and would like to ask how many tracks would look comfortable across the two feet area.

Asking as I am not able to plan with a computer programme.

Good point (sorry).  If 60700 has seen no movement with one loco on either road, but both moving with one on each then that would be fairly diagnostic of such a problem.  (I think you'd also expect the two locos to be rather sluggish).  If that's the case then a small amount of fettling of the contact patches between the switch rail and the stock rail could solve the problem.

 

You could also get this result if one of the wires on the underside of the point that bridges the break the switch rails is broken eg due to a manufacturing fault, no matter how clean the contact point for the switch rail against the stock rail was.  The solution in this case would be to return the faulty turnout to the retailer who supplied it and get them to provide a good one in its place.

Thanks everybody for the feed back, in particular  ejstubbs and Grovenor for their help. My diagram for feeds and isolating joiner s are all correct and  Last evening I tested that there were no incoming power issues with a meter.

I then cleaned the contact area with the switch rail and stock rail on the new point and it seems to have done the trick as road one is now isolated and only one loco moves at any one time when point is changed.

This was such a simple solution that gave me some grief, but thanks to RMweb I did not have to do any re-wiring. Matter closed.

Sorry, I'm having difficulty picturing exactly what you're describing.  Could you post a drawing or diagram of that part of your layout?

 

The reason I raise the question is that I managed to confuse myself mightily with a single rail isolated section at the end of a bay platform (though it didn't have a run-round).  There were two turnouts in a row between the power feed and the bay and it took me a while to work out where power was going according to which way the points were set, and why a loco in the isolated section would move in the isolated section but then stop when it reached the normal section adjacent to the point.

 

By the way, I'd take David's criticism of new Peco pints with a bit of a pinch of salt.  I know he does have a fondness for buying up second-hand track, but I can assure you that - before it had to be dismantled and re-planned due to an impending re-organisation of space at home - my layout ran fine with over a dozen unmodified Peco short radius electrofrog points bought as brand new stock from a high-volume online retailer (I actually held off ordering while they got new stock in) less than a year ago.  Even the odd behaviour in the bay platform was a result of the points were functioning as they were supposed to - it just took me a while to get my head round why, and what re-wiring I had to do to correct it.

My layout section in question is shown attached. The problem is I do not want to do any re-wiring and was not aware that Peco had redesigned the SL-E91 until my purchase of the new one, I have always found the old style utterly reliable.

img002.pdf

It has isolating joiner s after the run round point.

Sorry a little hasty .The isolating joiners are before the run round point.

I suspect that something else may be going on.  You may even have a faulty point (though I'm struggling to understand how a fault in the point could cause what you describe).  All my electrofrog points, bought within the last year, isolate* correctly using only the point blades for switching.  There may be a "ghost" feed coming from somewhere else that's confusing things - do you have a switched isolating section or an auto-stop section at the end of the bay?

 

* Strictly speaking, electrofrog points don't isolate the road not selected, they put the same polarity on both rails.  Which amounts to the same thing in terms of locos being able to move, but can sometimes - with certain combinations of isolating rail joiners, sequences of turnouts and so forth - cause a road to be properly "live" when you don't expect it.  Insulfrog points, of course, disconnect power completely from the rail coming from the frog vee on the road not selected.

Yes I do have a switched isolating section at the end of the bay for run round purposes.