BluenGreyAnorak

Thanks, Adam. I do like things to be reasonably neat and organised. The downside, though, is that it takes forever to get things done 😬 I spent a happy couple of hours this afternoon just installing and routing three wiring looms. They're not even connected to anything yet 🙄🤣

Station Control Panel As I'm all caught up with the story so far, I'm now modelling in 'real time', which is obviously a lot slower 🙄 I've spent the last couple of months working on the control panel for my station most of which, it feels, has been spent creating wiring charts. My approach to this task has evolved over time and now essentially comprises an Excel spreadsheet for each type of component (levers, LED’s, connectors, etc) with a semi-diagrammatical representation of what each wire connects to. For example, the wiring to the point levers is recorded as follows: And that to the LED’s on the mimic panel: These sorts of charts enable me to easily count the number of connections required and assemble the panel ‘by the numbers’. They also make fault finding pretty straightforward. This panel is one of two that make up the main control position with that for the junction. The carcass of the panel was built quite some time ago and follows the same design as the earlier ones: Between the two panels is space for a controller and what will eventually be a small slave panel for the fiddle yard. This should, with the fiddle yard pre-stocked with appropriate trains, allow me to run the entire layout as an end to end with the station from one control position. Assembly of the panel itself is a work in progress. So far, I’ve installed all of the LED’s, the 0v and 12v internal bus complete with voltage regulator and today I’ve terminated all of the lever wiring on its’ tag strip. The wiring to the levers is a bit of a challenge as each comes with its own 9 wire harness, of which most aren’t used. I didn’t really want to cut all of the surplus ones off in case I want to change the configuration in the future, so I’ve settled for tying them up. This does, however, mean that there are a lot of surplus wires to deal with. My solution to this is to introduce a false floor in the panel, with all of the surplus wires hidden below. This is what it looks like without the false floor, with multiple connections to the 0v and 12v buses and the surplus wires tied up: Here’s the same area with the false floor in place, which creates the space to make the control wiring connections: Overall, it currently looks like this: The next job is to install the three looms that control the points on each of the three station boards respectively. I’ve already made these looms up, terminating in 25 way D connectors, so it’s just a case of bolting them in, routing the cables and soldering all of the connections. How hard can it be?

I also use 25-way connectors for points and signal control to three boards, but decided to connect the DCC bus via a separate mono jack plugs and sockets. This was partly to ensure no voltage drop but also partly to keep the DCC cabling separate, as far as possible, from everything else to prevent interference. Seems to work ok.

Coaches in Fixed Formations As I mentioned at the start of the thread, my interest in railways really lies in their operation and that means having trains to run. My endeavours to build cassettes and sort and catalogue my stock has allowed me to assemble a good number of representative passenger trains as fixed rakes. These aren’t specific real world trains but I hope will be plausible enough to run a schedule with some variety. The practical limit for trains on the layout is a loco plus six coaches, although I’ve stretched this a bit for my Motorrail train, which is four coaches and three flats. Generally though, each train is stored in two 900mm cassettes for easy assembly in the fiddle yard. For the intermediate couplings of each three coach set I’ve used Bachmann’s fake air pipes, whilst those between each cassette half are magnetic from West Hill Wagon Works. The outer ends of each rake retain their original tension locks. All of this makes for rather nice close coupling and so I’ve fitted concertina paper corridor connectors between vehicles, which really improves the look of a rake as it passes. Here’s a quick video of my Sleeper train, to give the idea: There’s much more to do on the coaches. I’ve recently acquired some Accurascale Mk2b’s to add into the mix and am working on a little project to add interior lighting to all of my Bachmann stock, hopefully as a standardised kit of parts.

Thanks, Phil. The Warship plate came from a guy who'd hand-made a variety of them, bought on the platform at Minehead about 15 years ago. This was long before laser cut timber became such a common thing.

Thanks. There are a million ways to do this sort of thing so the key really is to decide what you want out of it. For example, I decided very early on that I wanted LED indication of how points are set and for that indication to be driven by the point motors rather than just the panel. It's a belt and braces approach that results in even more wiring, but makes me happy. One of the things that I found really helped was to keep detailed notes. I spent an age planning the wiring, using a combination of Excel spread sheets and hand drawn diagrams of individual circuits. Given the timespan (first panel built about 8 years ago, final one under construction now), these have proved absolutely invaluable. How you do it has got to suit you but don't skimp on this stage.

Ha ha, thanks 🙂

When I started to build my layout, garage sized with around 50 or so points, I spent quite a lot of time deciding how I wanted to control it and what those controls should look like as this dictates, to a large degree, how the wiring needs to be arranged. The first control panel I'd ever built was this one, which controls my fiddle yard: I wanted it to be as simple to operate as possible and so it works on the basis of route setting. However, the downside to this is that much of it is driven by diode matrices and so inside is rather less sleek: It took me a good while to build all of this, which included learning what a diode matrix is and how to build one, and the design directly dictated what the wiring to the points looks like, e.g. those for the two yards incorporate switches for LED indicators whilst those for the junction don't. All of the points are electrofrog and all are switched by frog juicers. Conversely, my control panels for the operational side of the layout use Cobalt point levers as I wanted them to have the look and feel of a signal box: The point motors that they control are also different - some are servo and some are slow action - which again dictates the wiring arrangements. With a couple of exceptions, the frog polarities of all of these points are changed by switches in or on the motors. The particular panel above currently controls servo motors so the inside must accommodate that: This has taken years to put together and I've, of necessity, had to learn all sorts of new things along the way (which is part of the fun). Electronics isn't part of my day job and I'd never used a soldering iron before embarking on this little adventure. The point I'm slowly getting to here is twofold: firstly, decide early on how you want your layout to be controlled, both in terms of panel design and location and secondly, break it down into manageable chunks so it doesn't feel like a huge, single mountain to climb. Unfortunately, all of this stuff is necessary to make your railway work, so if it really doesn't look like fun, or at least a manageable means to and end task, then you need to reevaluate your plans. Good luck.

Diesel Depot Point Motors – Part 2 Earlier in the thread I showed how I’d fitted Cobalt point motors to the board that forms my diesel depot, and the compromises that involved. So, having discovered the wonderful MTB point motors, I decided to retrofit them to this board. Because I’d had to slightly butcher the base board to allow the Cobalts to fit, I needed to do something about the holes left when they were removed. This was fairly easily solved by gluing some thin ply patches over them. With that little challenge overcome, fitting the new motors was again quite straightforward. The only slight gotcha was that it’s all quite congested, which could have been eased by choosing different locations for some of the droppers. Not insurmountable though and it all worked out in the end. The wiring was essentially a straight swap from the Cobalts, which was nice 😊

Heh, heh, never heard it referred to as clean and dirty before, but I like it 🙂

Another fan of WAGO connectors here, and of keeping bus and control wiring separate, as much as possible. This is one of a number of removable boards on my fixed layout, where access underneath is restricted:

Station Point Motors We’re nearly up to date! Over the course of a couple of weeks at the end of January and beginning of February this year, I installed all of the point motors to the three boards that form the station. Having learnt from my experience with the Cobalt motors on the depot board, another change of tack was required and this time I went with MTB point motors, chosen for their exceptionally low profile. These point motors are brilliant: small, compact, very easy to wire and very quiet in operation. They come in a variety of flavours and I chose the MP10 model, which is specifically designed to match the footprint of Tortoise motors. I didn’t need that particular feature but instead chose them as being the cheapest that incorporated two switches: Installing the point motors was actually the easiest part of the whole operation. The range of adjustment and attention to detail for doing so makes it a breeze. I spent much more time preparing the way, which included making the wiring looms and making the brackets to support them. It was all worth it in the end though, as it made for a satisfyingly neat installation. Board A – Station Throat Board B – Middle Board C – Buffer Stops My entire layout is wired on the principle of having the DCC bus along the rear edges and the control wiring on the fronts. However, because of the restricted access available to plug in each board from underneath, I've had to compromise on that slightly, particularly on the middle board. I think there's still enough separation to avoid any interference, though. The control wiring looms terminate in 25 way 'D' connectors, supported on purpose-made brackets on the edge of each board. These will be linked to matching connectors on the control panel with off the shelf parallel cables. Because of the large number of 'tees' off the main loom, I decided to support the control wiring on lengths of aluminium angle, drilled to accept cable ties at appropriate spacings. This saved a lot of faffing around with individual cable tie mounts, the need for which was reduced to the cross board runs only. There will eventually be a second loom to serve signals and uncouplers, which will follow the same route, and I've allowed for a second 'D' connector on the brackets made for that purpose. Having these boards removable from the main layout was an absolute game changer in terms of ease of access. If I were to ever build another layout on this scale, it would most definitely be modular.

And here's a little teaser of what I'm currently working on:

Loriot and Traxcavator One final distraction before returning my attention to the layout was the wonderful little Loriot wagon from Rapido. Despite arriving in July, it was November before I looked at it seriously and thought that it desperately needed a load to carry. Inspired by some pictures and details both here on RMWeb and on Paul Barlett’s photo site, I decided that a Traxcavator would be ideal. The best option seemed to be the white metal kit from Woodland Scenics, which isn’t cheap and, as I subsequently discovered, isn’t particularly brilliant either. I'd never built a white metal kit before and making the parts fit together properly was a real chore, requiring liberal application of filler to hide some of the gaps: I modified it slightly with wire operating levers to replace the clunky ones that came with the kit, plus some wire loops for use in chaining it down, and eventually got it to a state that I could paint it. Because of the complex shapes, I painted the lifting arms and bucket separately and it’s only posed in this picture: After much faffing around, I got the whole thing painted and assembled. I spent quite some time carefully picking out the details of the tracks and was feeling quite pleased with myself: For inspiration on how to mount it on the Loriot, I turned to a series of Paul Barlett’s pictures showing similar machines on similar wagons. This is one particular picture that was used for reference, but there are others showing how the Trax is chained down, too: I weathered the wagon, mainly dry brushing rust and gunmetal colours on worn edges, and constructed a tool box similar to that shown above from plasticard and plastic angle. I then set about securing the Trax. This comprised some ‘timber’ baulks, made from lengths of coffee stirrers glued together to get the right thickness, and some chains. The latter are a combination of etched brass hooks and sterling silver chains blackened with Liver of Sulphur. Very fiddly. The whole lot was then weathered in line with the reference pictures, which again is something that's new to me and slightly nerve-wracking on a brand new wagon! I managed to obliterate most of the detail I'd carefully painted earlier but I am, however, delighted with the way the whole thing has come out: There’s one other minor detail that only came to light when put on the layout – it was binding on relatively generous 3ft radius curves. There was nothing obviously wrong so, for lack of anything better to try, I changed the wheels for some Bachmann ones. Much to my surprise this completely cured the problem, suggesting that there’s some issue with the geometry of the Rapido ones. They’ve been re-purposed on a shorter wagon and seem to be fine in that application, though.

Thanks for the kind words. With regards the pulleys, I'll confess I cheated and used superglue 🙂