Bloodnok

2 hours ago, FoxUnpopuli said:

What brand are these servo-based point motors?

They are a MERG kit: https://www.merg.org.uk/kits.php#sect30. I'm using the '681' kit plus the optional '683' microswitch kit, which I will use to power the frog.
There are other combinations of parts for other mounting positions, plus custom mounts for signals and level crossing gates too.

The servos themselves are not included in the kit, you need to source them separately. They are the common SG90 / 9g type which are cheap and widely available.

Third yard track gluing...

Starting to lay track in the storage yard:

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

As for the 510 Brush type 4s all of them had their engines rebuilt and derated at nearly the cost of a new loco.

This one is particularly galling, as they should have received the superior LVA engine. But because of a failure to communicate between different country branches of Sulzer (the UK branch not getting the memo about the badly designed locating pin in the bearings, and choosing to blame BR for the resulting problems), we ended up with de-rated LDA powered locos.

However, once "fixed", the class did go on to do what they were designed to do, just not quite as well as they could have done with the LVA engine should we have received the french modification to remove the 'idiot pin'.

Instead I'm going to nominate the Class 40. Introduced for express passenger work and taking it's place as the pride of the fleet upon introduction, they were already being bumped off express passenger duty by superior locos before the last of the class was even in traffic. In this case, there was no 'fix' coming -- 200 locos were cascaded onto lesser work.

Perhaps if BR had have accepted the uprated EE engine they were offered mid-series, things might have turned out a bit different. But that would have made them almost as capable as the Class 44, so ... maybe not.

Well, it's been raining on and off today. I normally do sawing and sanding outside so the study (where this layout is) doesn't fill up with sawdust. So I've not been able to finish the new baseboard piece.

Instead, I have the yard exit points gluing, plus the first bits of the clearance block sections:



I've fitted the point motor on the most difficult point (the one in the foreground) to prove to myself that there is enough space.

I'm going to be using current detectors to implement block sections, and thus it's not as simple as throwing an insulating rail joiner on the end of the electrofrog and adding some flex track. I want to know if a train is close enough to the point that it's a risk to run something past it. So a second set of insulating rail joiners is required a bit further away from the point.

2 hours ago, 3rd Rail Exile said:

Having been born and raised in Beckenham, the thought of Brighton expresses thundering through the suburban backwater of Clock House station is highly amusing!  Unfortunately, Selsdon to Elmers End closed just before I got interested in railways, so I didn't ever actually "do" it...

I doubt it would have been the crack expresses going that way most of the time -- the route is longer and twistier, after all. So you probably wouldn't have seen expresses unless there was a closure somewhere.

But transferring traffic across will certainly free capacity on the mainline. Effectively what you've got here is a second pair of slow lines, plus service to Brighton from a lot more intermediate places.

I lived near Oxted for a while -- being able to get to Brighton from there by train, without having to go to Croydon and back would have been very useful...

I'm going to have to nominate two short bits of railway:

Uckfield to Lewes, and Selsdon to Elmers End.

Why these two?

Because with these two intact, what you have is a second London to Brighton mainline avoiding all the traditional pinch points.
A truly vast amount of money has been spent wringing every last drop of capacity out of the Brighton mainline. This route would have instantly added two additional tracks end to end on that route.

I have bitten the bullet, cut the 'wrong' piece off, secured the part of it that I'm keeping, and marked out a new piece to fit in the hole using the cut piece as a template.

This fixes all the problems in one go -- it was the same part which was both warped and too narrow. At least I made all my mistakes in the same place...

Hopefully the new piece will go in without warping.

The yard exit has been marked out and is currently having it's underlay glued down.

 

One step forward, two steps backward...

Stepping forward, the underlay has reached the other end of the storage yard. Track spacing has been widened around the curve, then it narrows back to streamline standard for the exit points.

Buuuut, as I was working out exactly where the edges of the underlay need to go (which requires precisely locating those exit points), it's ... all not /quite/ coming out as per the plan. Tiny differences between the plan and the real world all add up to nothing fitting quite how I wanted -- the ends of the curve are awkward, and a point motor intersects a key crossmember it was designed to avoid.

Some real-world re-design is required. Time to break out the cardboard and string...

Has to be a Class 47 for today's poll.

Hmmm. It's been a while.

This all came to a screaming halt when I got some kind of insect bite on my ankle, and it swelled up like crazy. I lost about 7 days altogether, including a complete long weekend.

Last thing I did beforehand was get the last two point motors fitted.

As I couldn't do much in the way of construction while I had an ankle that wanted to LARP as a barrage balloon, I moved the servo controller across from my desk to the layout and connected the point motors. Well, four of them at least -- the leads aren't quite long enough to get to all five at the same time.

I also got a PC set up for the layout. I have two available spare PCs I could run the layout from, but for various reasons both of them run Linux. The software I'm using to run the layout works fine on Linux, but the config utility for setting the servo movement up is another matter. This has proven to be a significant challenge -- one I haven't managed to overcome yet.

I did order some PCB mounting feet and some servo extension cables I need to install the controllers properly, but the delivery estimates are ... somewhat large ... at the moment.

I'm now back at it -- I have more underlay gluing at the moment...

Good looking streamlined steam? Hands down, no contest, the GE Steam turbines built for UP. These: 

For the ugly example ... I almost went with the DRG 05.003, but then saw this thing:

http://www.marklinfan.com/public/Gian Michele Sambonet/CFJDZ.jpg

... I've no idea what it is, but it's awful.

Favourite narrow gauge loco.

As much as I have fond memories of QR 2300s rumbling back and forth, they really aren't lookers. And we're doing this by looks.

So I've got to hand it to the QR 1250 class. I've only ever seen one, and it's a museum piece. But there's just something about the way that sunvisor sits that looks amazing...

Prototypes?

I bet you can guess what I'm going to nominate.

I'll give you a hint -- it's in the picture over there to the left :-P

(And yes, DP1 was nice too, but it's not a patch on Kestrel).

Hmmm... "stood the test of time", huh?

A split nomination for me.

For passenger stock, LU '38 stock. Still moving paying passengers 82 years later, albeit in a different location than originally deployed.

For freight, it has to be the humble 08. A design that dates from the 1930s, and all examples were built between 1952 and 1962. More importantly, there has /never been a fleet replacement/. These aren't a few survivors working alongside their replacements, we simply never bought any replacements, and they are still working.

Hmmm. Type 4s. Quite a variety of those, unfortunately quite a few that are as ugly as sin, or simply have way too many wheels for their own good...

I'm going to have to go with a Class 50 on this one. There's something about one that Class 47s (my second place pick) don't have.

Type 3s? With a specific subclass?

Has to be a 37/4. Centre headcode, ETH, tendency to appear in large logo ... what's not to like?

Two more points gluing:



Three point motors fitted:



Next two motors will go on once the glue has dried...

Hands down, the best "type 2" is the variant BRCW built for the Southern.

They took their type 2 design previously supplied as a type 2 to other regions, ripped out the steam heat boiler, fitted electric heating, looked at the empty space, added two extra cylinders, and then ended up with something which in power terms was classified as a type 3, but still in the shape/size of a type 2.

So ... that's a type 3 then. Can't have that.

Okay then, Class 21. Not the old Class 21, that was awful. I mean the *current* class 21. These are a mixture of MaK DE1004s bought new by Eurotunnel and some ex-NS 6400s (MaK DE1002s) bought second hand.

If I can't have that either ('type 2' implies a certain age as well as form factor and power rating), then I'll nominate the Brush effort. The version retro-fitted with the EE engine, and with a headcode box, but not fitted with ETH.

The first track got stuck down last night:



My tub of PVA appears to have gone a bit lumpy on the surface, but after a good mixing it's mostly behaving itself -- and I've managed to avoid getting any in the wrong place and gluing the points solid.

The blades are sitting in the centre because the springs have been removed. The point motors I will be using are servo based slow action motors and work best with the springs removed.

I have discovered that drilling holes through this closed cell foam stuff I'm using as underlay is a touch more difficult than traditional cork, as the drill doesn't cut it in the same way. On the plus side, the holes where wires go down are much neater when done, the hole has much less visual impact and should also ballast better. On the minus side, there's a risk of getting the sawdust from the ply built up under the foam, causing a lump to form. Cutting a cross in the foam  with a knife before drilling seems to help...

Most elegant articulated loco, and we're allowed to go worldwide?

I'm going to have to cheat and nominate two -- one Garratt and one Mallet.

First choice: QR Beyer-Garratt 4-8-2+2-8-4:


Second choice: UP Challenger 4-6-6-4:

One step forward, two steps backward.

First, the forward step:

There's something about seeing track on a board for the first time (even if it's not laid properly) that's quite impressive. Also that my curves through the junction appear to work.

Two steps back though -- the ply at the other end of the layout has warped, producing a very ... undulating board surface around the far corner. I apparently either need to add some longitudinal bracing to that corner or re-cut that piece in better ply.

... And I found I had already used the last of the 2x1. None of the offcuts that remain are suitable.

11 minutes ago, Ian Morgan said:

Let us hope it will re-awaken some day.

The linked thread did say it was abandoned after a house move and reduction in space, so somehow I doubt it.

48 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

I want to change from a Class B 4 cylinder compound to a Class A three cylinder compound, lovely looking engines.

See this is what I mean. I go looking for pictures of LNWR Class A or LNWR Class B, and the best looking examples that turn up happen to be Google misdirecting me to LNWR Class E or F locos, which appear to be broadly similar only someone shoved a front axle on them and turned them into 2-8-0s...

As to a Pre-75 overhead EMUs (I see no mention of "British" being specified), then ... the Victorian 'Tait' sets. An honourable mention for the PRR MP54.

If it really does have to be British, then as nice as those AM1s are, they are 4 rail units converted as a test, so kinda cheating. I'm going to have to go with the LB&SCR, probably the SL stock in it's original 3 car formation.