Fen End Pit

Just a quick plug for the March and District show on Saturday. Fen End Pit will be making an exhibition of itself and it would be good to see some RMWebbers there. Please come along and say hi. For details see their website David

Yes the siding under the bridge was a layby. It ought to be about double the length but the room is the size it is. I'll have a look at that bit of track. The camera is rather good at showing things up David

My son bought me a little present for my birthday, a tiny video camera. It fits nicely on a flat wagon and conforms to British loading gauge in 4mm scale. The inevitable result has been a Youtube video showing a run through the station. It shows up my dodgy track building rather well and I need to get better with the video editing software to fix the colour balance a bit better. I did try the 'black and white old film' effect which is really rather fun but I thought I'd show you the original version! With Fen End Pit going to the March show on 2nd I'll have to work out how to strap the camera onto a 16mm narrow gauge wagon for a trip between the works and the pit! Hope you like it. David

Packaging material from some office whiteboards, as per first paragraph.. David

After an enjoyable trip to the Biggleswade show on Saturday I spent yesterday making a start on the basic land forms for my model of Clare station. I had saved a load of 1/2 inch polystyrene which had been used a packing material for some 'up-market' glass white boards we had taken delivery of at work. I hadn't thought the landscape around Clare was particularly hilly but was still surprised by how much polystyrene was required. Sometime ago I purchased a hot wire cutter and this was my first chance to give it a go. It has proved very useful for cutting up the sheets and making nice angled cuts on the edges though I think it would have been nicer to have one that had a longer cutting wire. I've started by trying to make the hill at the Cavendish end of the station where there is a cutting with the small over-bridge. The cutting was wide enough for a third line which was originally used for loading. The white painted panel on the bridge was for sighting the advanced starter signal. From the opposite direction you can see the end of the lay-by and the single line towards Marks Tey. On this side of the bridge is the home signal and I'm toying with the idea that this might be sighted 'on the wrong side' of the track to make sighting easier around the curve. Going back to the station side there was a track down from the lane over the bridge down the hill which gave access to the now-removed siding. The siding was taken out in ~1955 and replaced by the simple coal siding. I'm guessing that in my time-scale it would still be easy to see where it had been. All that is left now is a hump which appears to be in the right place for a loading dock. I don't have any photographic evidence though of whether there was originally any kind of edge (timber shoring?). The picture on disused stations http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/clare/clare(1950s)old4.jpg shows the raised flat area but no kind of edging. I've not yet stuck any of this down and I'm trying now to work out how the land forms the edge of the river but it is nice to see something other than just flat ply for a change. David

I wanted be able to put a mitre on small pieces of MDF which are used to make walls. I've decided that mitred corners look nicer than trying to interlace or butt joint but sanding the mitre is a pain. I looked at bench sanders as a way to do this but the commercially available tools are quite expensive (around the £80 mark) and mostly very large (sanding disks around 8 inches). So I thought I'd have a go at making one myself. I laser cut the bulk of the components in 6mm ply and 3D printed the 'cone' that holds the grit paper. The motor was purchased on Amazon for £12. It claims to be 'high-torque' and operates on 6 to 12v. Seems quite happy powered from an old Maplin power brick. I've made the front so it can be hinged to 45 degrees, I might try and make a sliding gate of some kind. Initial tests show it seems to work ok. I think I might reprint the 'cone' with a slightly larger hole. I had to drill it out to 5mm because the hole came out a bit small on the printer and really needed a drill press to make the hole perfectly vertical, it is close but there is more wobble than I 'd like. However the results look ok, this is a bit of 1mm ply which I'd laser cut some bricks on the other side of. I am going to need to sort out either some dust collection or a mask. I don't want to breath is stuff in as it might be carcinogenic (bit late to worry about that!) Now to get on with building more fiddle-yard cassettes. David

I've been doing a lot of test running over the last few days, running trains around at ludicrous speeds and watching what falls off where then trying to fix it. I've also had various older bits of stock out and been working over issues on them. So out of the draw came the old faithfully Gibson J15, powered by a small portescap with an extra idler gear. I tried shunting wagons in and out of the coal siding and it kept stalling so it was out with the cotton buds and lighter fuel. Just cleaning the wheels didn't do the trick so it was off with the lid to have a good look. What a lot of fluff! To say it worked better with out that lot in would be an understatement. (alternative title 'nice bit of fluff') David

Over the past couple of weeks I had some fairly major works trying to do a 'proper job' of the wiring which I had previously just jury-rigged to allow me to run the first trains around and around. This work included getting the second road of the fiddle-yard working and wiring up the turnouts at either end of the loop. The sharp eyed among you will also notice that I'd made some of the cassette handles too low for a Great Eastern chimney - doh! The turnouts are operated by MERG 'pocket money kits' servo controllers which just have a 12v input and 3 trim-pots to set the start and end positions of the servo and the speed. I'm operating these from a MERG CBUS board which is located under the mill baseboard which would otherwise have 4 spare outputs on it. It also saves putting another of these board which would only operate two turnout (and thus have 6 spare outputs) under the fiddle-yard. These little boards are very easy to build and cost ~£2.50 to MERG members. Given a servo can be had for around the £2.50 mark these days you have a decent point motor for less around a fiver. I also managed to get the lever-frame into position. The idea is that it can slide under the layout for storing. I still need to get some of the levers painted and get a better coat of black on the base of the frame. Trains have been running and a pickup goods arrived in the yard from Cambridge. This cleared the line for a Cambridge board passenger service. I videoed some activity for those who want to see it move. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X92dEDBB1kQ David

I finally managed to build the last sections of baseboard for my layout, these two sections were both odd shapes and needed to be drawn based on the reality of what I'd already built and not just from the overall master drawing. I've already discovered that 'square' means a different thing to builders and walls aren't always at 90 degrees to each other! The short section over the right hand side of my desk carries a 3'6" radius curve which is does most of the turn back to get along the wall with the fiddle-yard. This meant that I could just support one end on the existing layout boards and the other on a leg next to the door frame. The result means that I can remove it relatively easily when I need to do anything serious with the 3D printer which can still sit in the corner. The truly removable section over the door is almost straight and I built it with only a 30mm depth of framing as it is so small. The result is lightweight but very strong. The track is just ready-to-run P4 track stuck to a cork base. The baseboard ends have a strip of paxolin screwed to them onto which I've soldered the rails. The shaped piece of ply means that the removable section will sit in a rough alignment when it is put into place. Also soldered to the paxolin are some pieces of brass tube which form a simple bolt to get the alignment accurate and these also take the track power across the baseboard joint. I know from experience that I will need to modify these to add a sprung wiper contact as electricity tends not to reliably flow between two concentric brass tubes (yes really!) I put a brief video up on Youtube to show some of the first trains running round the room. Some of the track in this section is still a little jury-rigged so I still have a bit of work to do on that front. I've still got to complete the back road of the fiddle-yard and wire up the two points at either end of the loop. I've also got to make a load more cassettes so I can start storing and swapping stock. I came up with a simple method for electrical connection between the cassettes. The end of the rail is soldered to a length of sleeper strip which goes across the width of the cassette. I solder two L shaped strips of brass (scrap etch) to these and then on one of them a short strip of phosphor-bronze to form a wiper. There are usually 3 cassettes in a row and I'm feeding power from either end so there is a bit of redundancy. I'll see how this works in practice. I am also considering a redesign in the sides of the cassettes. Having a low, narrow cassette with a length of track down it sounds fine but you can't get your fingers in to rerail stock easily. This is particularly impossible with bogie vehicles where you find the bogies have a mind of their own. Making the sides much lower would weaken the cassette too much so I've tried making it taller and then cutting some access holes in the side. Time will tell if this is better solution. Obviously this is one heck of a milestone in the layout construction and one I frankly didn't expect to get to this time last year. Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement both online and 'in real life'. David

I'll have a good look at the relationship between the buildings and the baseboard before I make any decisions. I agree that having a locomotive is probably complete overkill but I think I can be forgiven for wanting an excuse for a small industrial. It is a really probably that we don't yet have a 4mm scale working horse available. The other option would of course be a tractor with pushing bars, seeing one of those radio controlled in 4mm would be fun too. David

The corner of the room has two baseboards, one which will feature a scenic area with the mill and the other, much narrower board, for the fiddle-yard. These two boards don't have the space for the curve which leads into the fiddle-yard because this needs to be removable so that the 'crew lounge' can be used as a bed when we have guests. The resulting extra board is a bit of an odd shape caused by a desire for the rails to cross at right-angles to the the baseboard edge and for the permanent boards to not have too many 'sticky out bits' to catch yourself on while sleeping! The very narrow parts of the board, where the track is very close to the edge on the left is 'off-scene' and will have a wall to prevent anything falling off into the drink. Once in position I was pleased that the cork which I marked from the Templot drawing fitted correctly, I am down to a 3'4" radius curve at this point so didn't have much room to make it tighter if I'd needed too. The cork got stuck down and the sleepers are now in place. I need to get some more rail from C&L at Stevenage tomorrow so obviously he won't have any in stock (just guessing). I had a bit of a play in Templot to see how the mill siding would look if I put in a head-shunt. I can get one in though the point is quite tight ( A4.5 Y). The radius isn't too bad so I think it would be ok. The real advantage is that this would allow wagons in the sidings to be shunted without fouling the mainline and I could use a small industrial locomotive. This could hide in the headshunt while the mainline locomotive exchanged wagons. The mill buildings I constructed based on Ebridge in Norfolk look quite nice, I will probably extend the hideous asbestos part just to avoid them being too twee. The Barclay fireless rather looks the part with a pair of grain tanks. I think I might put in a wagon turntable on the siding away from the building which then crosses the line next to the building to disappear between the two bits of mill to a boiler house behind. That way the buildings don't need the clearance for a rotating wagon and the siding between the two buildings can be tight. So, I'm pleased with the progress, hopefully I should get the track into the fiddle-yard laid next week. Then I need to work on the lifting section over the door before I can got round and round. David

As today wasn't too cold I managed to get out to the laser-cutter and cut the the two sheets of ply needed to make the cassette shelf for the fiddle-yard. This is a single board nearly 6 feet long which is held on the wall by some ply brackets. The shelf is now on the wall and I am really happy with the result. I also managed to get the point to my fictitious 'mill siding' laid. I've used the new Peco bull-head rail joiners to join the point to the plain track here and they are excellent for joining rails on a curve. I'm wondering about revisiting the layout of the trackwork in the mill siding, I'm trying to balance not squeezing too much in with the desire for a wagon turntable and/or a headshunt to allow for a tiny industrial loco (I've got both a Barclay fireless and a Ruston 48DS which it would be fun to run). I did a bit more work on the J20 tender, I was struggling getting the front of the tender as clean as the rest because there is no way to hide the soldering inside. I put the tender behind my D16/3 which used the same tender and realized that actually most of the area is hidden under the cab roof and you just can't see it. I think a coat of 'Stratford special black' will cover a multitude of sins. So the next jobs is to cut the little 'corner board' which sits between the mill board and fiddle-yard, this board is about 2' along each side and just has the single line of the main line on it. I also need to mark and cut the cork for this and the mill board. So back to TurboCAD for more drawings or maybe I'll get distracted by that tender again... David

As a break from plywood engineering (and a cold garage) I decided to do a bit of work on my 'Friday evening project', my 4mm Crownline etched kit for a J20. The engine itself is coming along nicely and is waiting for its day in the wheel shops soon. So I thought it would be a good time to work on the tender. Crownline kits are 'a bit old school' so the chassis makes no allowances for springing/compensation. I cut out the chassis etch to fit High Level 2mm bearings and these are sprung using wire and handrail knobs following the continuous springy beam style. GER tenders had a 6" flare at the top and the etch needed to be bent to make this. I made a up little jig using a couple of bits of ply and some hard brass rod. This has a 'gate' which the bottom of the tender side rests against to ensure that the bar is parallel with the top of the tender. The brass used by Crownline is quite thick by modern standards and I had to resort to a small hammer to bend the flare over. The tender rear was similarly treated there being a gap in the 'gate' on the jig to allow for the tab which locates the tender rear in the foot plate. Work on the tender was fairly straight-forward though there were some times when asbestos fingers would have been useful. Getting the long joints to tack solder, then align, then make the joint clean and solid was the order of the day. The old rule about keeping everything clean being most important. The only part with a high 'F-factor' was the lamp iron brackets at the rear which were extremely fiddly. Also the photographs and plans showed a third knob in the middle of the handrail on the rear which had no hold etched for it on the part. I'm pretty happy with the result, There needed to be more solder used as filler than I'd would have liked around where the top of the tender joins the sides but I think it hasn't cleaned up too badly and will be hidden under a good coating of coal dust and grime. I've still got to finish off all the front part of the tender and make up toolboxes etc but I'm happy with the progress. I know the J20 was a bit of a beast to be going down the Stour Valley but Rule 1 will be applied. I quite fancy a diverted coal train! David

No the handle isn't removable but there is still plenty of clearance to get the cassette out. David

Hi Dave The laser can cut pretty damn accurately, so as long as I got the drawing right, the bits fit. The thickness of the laser <.5mm was enough for the alignment between the two parts to be a nice sliding fit. thanks David

So, here is the problem, cassettes are a great way to make a fiddle-yard but a complete pain if you want to make that fiddle-yard part of a continuous run. You need to be able to make the cassettes butt together tightly and align accurately but you also need to be able to get them in and out. If the ends of the fiddle-yard, where the cassettes join the main layout, are fixed at both ends then this is virtually impossible, either you will have a fit so loose that trains will derail or the cassettes will be too tight to remove. I've attempted to solve this with 'the cassette clamp', the theory being that I can make one end of the cassette line be able to expand and contract to allow the cassette to be inserted. Only about 10mm of movement is required. The base for this device was cut from 2 thicknesses of 3mm ply while the operating lever and pinion gears were 6mm ply. Moving the handle left and right moves the expansion section forwards and backward. The rail expansion joint was made from a pair of old switch-blades which were filed to a sharp point. The intention is that this joint will be taken in the trailing direction though it seems to work pretty well in both directions. With the lever to the left there is about 10mm between ends of the rails and the cassette can be lifted out easily. Moving the lever to the right pushes the moving section of the clamp to the left and tightly aligns the cassette. There is a little video clip on Youtube to demonstrate. This is the first iteration, will probably need some refining but we will see how it goes. David

Over the last couple of weeks I've managed to get the final scenic baseboard constructed. This board will house the completely fictitious sidings to a mill. I've already got most of the mill buildings which are based on Ebridge mill in Norfolk. The board is a slightly odd shape to incorporate a removable section which will lead the track round to the fiddle-yard. This is made removable so that the bed which sits in the railway room can still be used when needed as a bed! At the other end of the layout the overbridge is coming along nicely. This is mainly cut in 1mm MDF with a frame of 3mm. I've painted with Humbrol brick red, applied mortar with 'Wilko' own-brand fine filler and then applied some washes of Vallejo Acrylic grey. The white painted section is for sighting the advanced starter signal which is just in front of the bridge. The wing walls will be buried to around 40 degrees in the sides of the cutting. The original bring looks like this. It is a 5 segment arch bridge, which means that there are 5 arcs which form the elliptical shape. Following some discussion on the Scalefour society forum I was appraised that just drawing an ellipse in CAD wasn't accurate as the builders would not have been able to make form-work based on an ellipse. The internet revealed how to construct a 5 segment arch with rather too many uses of the word 'bisect' for my humble brain. Still it's Scalefour - getting it - Alright! A fair amount of consolidation and re-pointing has happened on the bridge so I don't trust that the weathering now is what it looked like in 1955. There is probably quite a bit less soot and a lot more lime leaching out of the brickwork now. Moving on the the fiddle-yard I had another go at making a cassette. This time I used a base of 3mm ply rather than 6mm. This has several advantages over the earlier version. The 3mm version has a little flex in it and actually sits better on the baseboard. The difficulty of making two surfaces completely flat over the size of the cassette meant that the original 6mm version had a tendency to rock along its length. Secondly the use of 3mm ply means that I can make the tongue and groove joint in two layers of different sizes, this then gives some vertical alignment which the earlier version didn't have. The cassette and the entry track can be brought together and we now get horizontal and vertical alignment. I've also drawn up a first experiment for the 'cassette clamp' which I'll try to cut over the next day or two. David

Now I have got the baseboard around out of the scenic section into the corner built I needed to make some track and think about fiddle-yard design. Off-scene I am happy with using ready to run P4 track rather than laying timber sleepers and plastic chairs. I decided that the corner might as well have a small cassette fiddle-yard so that I can use it to reverse trains when the loop over the door is not in place. I've built a B6 point on paxolin which gives access to the cassette or to the circuit around the room. The cassette is a 'first attempt'. The intention is for it to hold two coaches or half a freight train and it is ~60cm long. The plan is that I'll have two lengths, one shorter one for locos and one for 'half-trains'. The ~60cm size means that I can store them, with the stock on them, in the IKEA drawer units I have in the railway room. I should be able to get about 20 cassettes stored in these. I don't like the idea of cassettes any longer than this as I think they get too unwieldy, seeing people at exhibitions moving four foot long cassettes around makes me very nervous! The plan for the main loop fiddle-yard is that the yard will allow one loco and two train cassettes to be inserted into the loop, I'm thinking I can make some kind of 'expansion joint' which allows me to 'open' the cassette line, insert the cassettes and then close it again, clamping the three cassettes together. I've made the ends of the cassette so that they can be reversed and intend to try and build in some kind of electrical connection, probably into the corners at the ends. The lifting loops help when moving and I am planning a slot into which a 'gate' will fit at either end for moving. At the moment there is no vertical alignment and the track is just stuck down with some contact adhesive. I am wondering about making a 3D printed shape which could combine a way to hold the rail, hold some metal rod as the basis of the power connection and incorporate a shape to help rerailing. Any thoughts on that welcome! I have learnt one lesson from the prototype unit, clamp the ply base of the cassette to the bench while you stick the sides on to ensure it remains flat. Alternatively I might try adding some adjustable 'leveling bolts' to the underside so that rather than rest on the length of the ply it rests on a small number of points which could be adjusted to a specific level. What do you think? David

I hadn't realised that the other hall was hosting ComicCon. My younger son went to that. I bet the trains were an 'interesting mix' of gricers and cosplayers! David

An excellent day out was enjoyed by the crew at Steam in Beds in the village of Eaton Bray near Leighton Buzzard yesterday. I suggested adding an incorporating 'Diesel's near Dunstable' tag line should have been added to the exhibition flier! The chancel arch of the parish church was once again filled by Fen End Pit, the layout performed well with very few problems that couldn't be solved quickly. The new M1/A5 link road made for an easy journey and the provision of bacon butties and cakes was great throughout the day. Thanks to the organisers for a fun day out. David

So the fifth baseboard got drawn, cut and constructed, together with the cork for the track bed. Then I got as far as sticking down the sleepers and laying 3 feet of track before the temptation to 'play trains' took over. As I now have a little bit of track at either end of the loop I can now pass trains. I got a variety of stock out of the cupboard to make sure it would run. A Cravens DMU (Bachmann) arrives from Cambridge passing the goods yard, the reason for a Class 31 and 4 Mk1s in the layby is a mystery! Shortly afterwards the ancient E4 (Alan Gibson kit) ]wheezes into view with a pair of elderly Gresley coaches. (The E4 is notoriously fussy and I'm very pleased that the leading wheel doesn't fall off over the cross-over.) Passing the coal siding the E4 slows into the Cambridge bound platform... and then having past the token to the signalman, who requests and get the road, the DMU continues on its way to Colchester. Just level with the rear of the DMU there will ultimately be an over-bridge. This had the advanced starter on one side and the home signal on the other. The original track here was straights not curved as the Stour Valley didn't have to go around a bend to fit into a room. I'm wondering about the positioning of the home as it might look better 'on the wrong side' for sighting purposes. I even managed to video the whole thing! Now I have to stop playing for a while and actually get on with laying the rest of the track! David

To quote Admiral Ackbar "it's a trap" David

After a couple of weeks I've now completed the cross-over and catch point on the fourth baseboard. Following prompting from 'Western Star' I redrew the cross-over using a pair of C8 turnouts which meant I could use the pre-prepared Vs I'd bought from C&L earlier in the year. I'm quite pleased with the results. I also managed to get the baseboard pretty much wired up. Wiring up is quite straight-forward with DCC and the MERG control system CBUS. I drilled loads of holes and threaded through loads of short 'dropper wires', Red for the rear rail, Black for the front rail and then a different colour for each V which needs to be switched. The MERG CBUS controls an 8 output accessory controller which drives a pair of 4 relay boards. On those relays one output drives the input of a four Servo control board while the other output switches the V. This method means that once the circuit boards have been installed the actual wiring to the track is really easy. The rest of the control, the what level makes what point move, is all done in software. So, here is a picture of my Heljan Class 15 shunting the coal siding. The driver's view from the locomotive shows the end of the loop and the line to Long Melford you can see the route into the Cambridge bound platform. Looking back the other way (the camera is looking from the lay-by track) I'm now progressing on the cutting drawing for the fifth board and hope to get that cut during the week. I hope you enjoy seeing the progress. David

The cross over is on a curve and I'd originally used a 1:10 angle V in Templot. However your reply got me thinking because about 6 months ago I ordered a load of components from C&L when I thought I was going to give up on the Stour Valley and do something smaller/simpler. Typically I'd ordered 4 B8 points and was now faced with making 1:10 crossings myself. Your reply led me to go back into Templot and see what impact using a 1:8 crossing would have and the answer appears to be very little, I can still make the turnout fit on the baseboard fine and, while my existing marking out of the cork will no longer be right for the crossover line, the main curve of the track remains unchanged. So I've modified the plan using C8 for the cross over, I've made the catch point as a B8 as it isn't exactly a 'running line' and that leaves the switchblades clearer of the baseboard edge. Looks like you've saved me from having to make 3 crossings by hand - thanks! David

A couple of blog postings ago I included a photograph of my Claud in the platform waiting for more track to be built before it could proceed towards Long Melford. Well it didn't have to wait too long before it could go at least a little further. The siding kicks back behind the station master's garden and it is just long enough for four coal wagons. The siding was reconfigured between 1953 and 1957 as far as I can see. Now all I've got to do is build a pair of B10 turnouts to close the loop. Wish me luck. David