dj_crisp

I doubt this update is of much interest as I've just been doing track alignment! For some reason I've never got the closest bit of concrete track right and the alignment was all off being too low. So I've taken the plunge and built a new adjustment switch and relayed the cork track base to have a small camber. Things look better now although far from perfect. Next up is hiding my mess ups which sums up my modelling and especially woodwork skills. I can't cut circles so filled in the incorrect holes with squares(ish) The copperclad exit from the main lines and branch have also been fitted so hopefully this won't move and stay in position. (the branch track will be finished when all roads on the traverser is finished). Eagle eyes will notice I made a right mess up and prior to fitting the backscene cut the rails too short on the (painted) main line and branch. You can imagine what i said to myself! Anyhow I've "created" a safety feature by soldering two very short lengths of rail to the copperclad so in theory they fall off if knocked and not shift the track. Of course that won't happen but at least they seem to have bridged the gap. And finally I've soldered up some of the last roads for the traverser - not a particularly fun task as these lengths of rail have sat on my workbench for the best part of six months. As H&G don't have the size i can squeeze into the space i have it's going to be two halves joined together..,. and if i ever do another layout they're be useful for those too. I'll see how successful this all is in operation, but i was encouraged to see an exhibition layout using this approach and it seemed to work. In this photo two roads are glued so I'll work through the rest as the week goes by. I think it's nearly time to start wiring these all up to see if they work!

Traverser realigned.... phew! Thankfully my aligned jig (two holes in a straight bit of ply) has worked. I now have 4 usable roads for the main line which I think will be better. I also have hopefully left enough space for a potential locking mechanism. Next up will be building a bracket of sorts to prevent the inevitable DMU over a clift scenario. Im in two minds to either have a simple bracket with cover or something like a key lock cover. And the exit copper clad sections have been cut. I hate cutting copper clad as I do it by hand and these are about 2mm thick. Might be all I get done this bank holiday as the weather is pretty good. Enjoy yours!

Thanks Lez - very useful info. I have an aluminium angle which is intended for use on the backscene corners for some strength. I think I'll attempt some precision drilling on that to see if I can drill proper holes. Might have to buy some sharp drill bits! Thanks Will

Seems a good plan!

Hi Lez Many thanks! My tool selection is pretty limited other than an old mini drill. I'd say I'm close to useless when it comes to precision for woodwork... or any of my modelling tbh but am OK with the art of using filler ;) Please don't go to the trouble of designing anything too sophisticated as I doubt I'll be able to execute it. I might have an idea... not sure it'll work though. There's enough space between the base of the traverser top and the top of the table for a metal bar/section of wood that could be drilled to accept holes. So I could fit a bolt to the side and have vertical locking rather than a more traditional horizontal effort. The reason I suggest an bar is that my other traverser is open frame at this point. Thanks all for your help on this! I hope to be able to spend some time Sunday having a bash at the layout.

I think we both have the same challenge with locks...! I'm sure there must be a neat solution.

Hi Rich Thanks for the info.... I've been watching your thread with great interest seeing as you've managed to build an entire layout in the time it took me to lay a point! It is a G&H traverser and I'll be joining two up to get maximum storage in the space I have (so I can run a 50 and 4 coaches). I'm after a solution for locking bars. If I had more space I'd have included an extra board between to cater for locking in a more traditional sense (i.e. a pair of bolts with lots of slots). I'm thinking of having a bolt attached to the side of the traverser with locking holes in the side of the baseboard. Not sure it'll work as the locking will happen a fair distance from the tracks. Alternatively I can only think of having bolts for every road with locking occurring each side of the double track. I think you're right... time to realign! Cheers Will

Thanks Rich. Thankfully I didn't have to think about the gaps between the tracks as they're all set at the double track width... and the branch is simply a multiple of those so there are occaisons when the main line and branch all line up. Also the station exit will be the same to try and keep everything standard. Well that's the plan... I just need to try and execute it! The plan for storage was simple really... the branch to have 2 lines (one freight, one passenger), 4 for main (one "express", one freight, one misc and the other passenger DMUs). The misc one could then also operate both the main and branch. As its nagging me I reckon I'll be having a 2nd go and then get some filler for the massive holes I've made.... then will have to paint it all to hide the mess I've made! I haven't yet worked out the best approach to locking the roads in place and as I'm very limited on space I suspect it'll be difficult. I'm looking forward to some projects that are more about building things than fixing and hiding my mistakes! Still live and learn.

I was almost pleased with myself.... fitted a backscene panel and then went about installing alignment dowels. I've had a bit of a battle to get this far but it looks like it might just work.... Plan was 4 sidings for the main line, 2 for the branch. However me being worried about the balancing of the traverser has meant while 4 can be accessed by the up line... only 3 can access the down. Really annoyed! And I also need to extend two tracks as I previously cut the rails short forgetting about the width of the backscene. Some days I do wonder about my ability in this hobby! So just debating whether I bin tonight's efforts and attempt to realign the traverser or live with 3 sidings for the main line. Neither are ideal.

Sounds like you got things sorted in the end. Excellent! Should you get a 10 function decoder I found I needed to do some hard wiring on mine. I can't remember if this is one where I bought the wrong decoder type so had to hard wire two extra functions as I think I did less hard wiring with the correct decoder.

Hello Rich What decoder are you using? For mine I've used a 10 function decoder and managed to get seperate markers, tails, night, day and cab lights for each end. It did involve a bit of a re wire but off memory the circuit board was OK to interpret. If it helps I'll dig out my notes on it as I can't remember what I did. Cheers Will

Wow! It really has a great impact on the layout. Looks brilliant!

Thanks for posting! Useful info. I've thought modelling 53867/59372/53920 seeing as think they're about the last BR Blue examples on the network. One thing I wasn't sure about is if they had gangways fitted or not near their end. I see you've marked them as having gangways so thanks for that info. Cheers Will

Well my attempt at building a FB point didn't last long. After learning I didn't have the right template I decided to save some time and install a bullhead version. I'm happier now with the flow from the main line to the branch now being straighter. There's been a surprising amount of things to do and even more how long it took me but its all wired up and I just have a few wires to solder underneath the board. Anyhow the change is from the LH main line point (which has been slackened) to the grampus wagon. I haven't ripped up the short siding and I think it could be fun to leave in place rusting away and overgrown. So I've just stuck a few sleepers down to suggest things are being moved about and see if this scene grows on me. Leaving the siding in place may allow me to model a dead china clay hood or brakevan slowly rotting away. The change has released a troublesome DCC concepts cobolt and a tortoise which I hope to use to replace the final cobalt on the layout. This one would have been replaced had it not been a pain to install a tortoise but as its now not responding that's a bridge I now have to cross. Looking forward to weathering the track to tone it all down!

Great stuff Rich. Impressive that you got it rebuilt for the exhibition and I'm glad it ran well!

Thanks Pete. I had a read and is very useful to me so I'll bookmark for future use! It looks a lovely kit and I like it being platform mounted. Yours is rather inspirational but I'm not sure when I'll get round to building mine though... I've been tempted to hack down my plastic one to be platform mounted as a temporary installation but it'll stay being too tall for the time being till I've done some other layout tasks. I just need some time and inspiration to get the trackwork done, weathered and hidden sidings installed... finish the station building and platforms, remove my last DCC concepts point motor that's failed and replace with a tortoise. Hopefully I'll get that little lot complete(ish) by the end of the year! Cheers Will

That looks rather nice! Excellent and thanks for sharing. It could very well be... mines an old Peter K kit.

This is going to take some time.... And I've cheated and filled a few gaps with solder which is probably too soft. First attempt building my own V... lots of filing. Maybe I should use a bullhead point.

A taste of things to come; Good luck with the move! Tractors look great - I especially like these two, cheers Will

I started my 67 a while ago and always thought it'll be a quick project but as things turn out it hasn't been! The two biggies holding up the project was lighting and glazing so a few weeks ago I thought I should just get it finished. Inspiration came from a shawplan arrival which included some laserglaze. However this joy didn't last long as the version sent must be for the earlier tooling rather than this later version. Not to be defeated I've made my own; I admit I didn't fit the front windows right with my first attempt! But after several goes I've managed to hopefully achieve the flush front effect of the real thing. It also has a black band around the windows edge so I've just used a sharpie drawing it freehand (using the edge of the window as a guide). The windows were then fitted with humbrol clear but finally sealed with black paint to hide any gaps. This is the first and probably last time I'll use paint but as I've fitted cab lights i didn't want any leakage. And I also added some sun blinds from scrap black plastikard. I'm not entirely happy with the light clusters so fitted some oOI shawplan covers. I plan on painting the surrounds matt black but will do this when I've found my missing one! Theres also a few scuffs from the workbench which I'll tidy up when the airbrush next comes out and the number 6 on one side needs improving so will attempt to mix a shade up soon as I don't have any EWS red paint. Anyhow tidy ups aside this one is near finished cosmetically. Lights! Now this was a difficult project! Changing from using 1k resistors to 5k or 10k really helped as I haven't blown a LED on this attempt and I seem to have got away with some working lights! I've used Warm white SMD LEDs which have been soldered to some thin copper clad that I've scraped to the shape of the light clusters to. Very bodge it DIY approach! Lights are a nice warm white colour but my phone has over exposed them and made them look a bit whiter and brighter than reality. For a bit of punishment I've added some cab lights and radiator lights; The loco is running with a 10 function lok pilot so I've set up separate functions for Markers, Day Headlight, Night Headlight, Tail Light and Cab lights which are independent for each end. Sticky black tac stuff prevents light bleed and in order to fit in my sleeper LED creation a little bit of the chassis has had a little hack. It all just squeezes in but using 0.2mm enamel wire really helps! It's far from perfect but the skip is just about getting there! I really must finish my PCV now... or convert some M2f coaches for it to run with.

Looks very nice Fran - the all important shape is well captured. I do like the windscreen washers! Steps and underframe look ace! I might be alone on this but I prefer Hornbys plastic windscreen wipers which don't have the bend - Appreciate they're a difficult item to get right and maybe the metal approach is better for production. On your production samples will the NEM pod be flush as the print looked very good whereas these look like they're not stuck down? I know it's probably a production limitation and a cruel close up but will the tabs on the grills be present in the final version? cheers Will

I guess it's what you see first when looking at a loco that is probably most important to you. For me I see the face of the loco first so my bodge it approach in modelling is to try and make that aspect as good as I can. It just so happens the 37 (and 40) it's the front windows that are the first thing I see. Maybe I've fitted too many Shawplan frames to Vitrains efforts ;) And I can see this detail at layout viewing distances. So for me getting the frames right will decide which one I go for. Not made up my mind yet and have no bias on this subject so look forward to seeing the production version.

Not much has happened on the layout for quite a while but as the garage is getting a bit warmer I've been pondering next steps. I'm thinking I should swap out the double slip for a straightforward flatbottom right hand. Several reasons for me thinking I should attempt to build a new point; - It's probably more prototypical - I'll be able to straighten the transition from the main line to the branch. - I can bin the DCC concepts (failed) point motor currently used on the catch point - It does simplify things (especially point rodding if i get round to doing it) and releases a tortoise point motor to replace the last DCC concepts motor used elsewhere. - While I don't get many derailments the double does worry me that it could cause issues And I always think I'm a bit guilty of putting too much track down so the next idea is unlikely but I was just seeing what a short siding off the back siding would look like I think this configuration is unlikely in the real world so I'm not too sure that it's a good idea. The cork is an alternative plan having a kickback siding in the back ground for an offscene "ponts mill" branch under an embankment and so keeping the branch traverser sidings clear. But tbh this is probably overly complex so will probably be abandoned. As you can tell I'm not being very decisive at the moment so any opinion is appreciated! At the station end there is a temporary arrival of a footbridge, It's too tall and should be floor mounted but until I build an etched version it's allowing me to see what i need to do to hide the station exit. I'm tempted to hack it down but as I don't plan on keeping it there that long (famous last words) thats probably a bad idea. I think I'll add some trees at the front and so need to realign the curb stones. Thats for another day! Thanks for reading Will

Very close as it was a candidate! P471 Not sure I'll add the front window alterations though. Just need to sort out transfers and then improve the front glazing to mine.

This is an interesting question. Thinking about my Hornby ones I tend to pick up two handed using the bogies... or single handled centre of the loco around the fuel tank area. No idea if that's the right way! I reckon they should be safe enough though