jukebox

Of course do you think I could find that one just now? (well, it is 5:00am here. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

Jeff; As you terraform with more plaster, just keep in the back of your mind what you want the beck to look like. The more water it holds, the less meandering - and IMHO, the less character it would have. I'll go out on a limb and suggest the two extremes of this a represented in Blue and Red on this mark up: And these translate in real life to scenes ranging from this: to this: Me? I like this look the best... ...shallow and winding. But your tastes are your own. I'm just giving you a poke to help you plan, so you get what you want! Cheers Scott

The way our petulant Fauntleroys have been carrying on, we'll be glad to get 94 in an innings, let alone from an individual... Between them and our swimmers, I am fed up to my back teeth with the sense of entitlement and egotism they have: it's the antithesis of what sportsman appeared to be like when I was growing up.

94, eh? Typical Aussie knock, I guess - just missing the century... Guess I'd better work a bit harder for the next 5000 posts. Happy birthday, K/L! Cheers Scott

I (still) love those modified slips! Note to self: must have a go at trying that on Stockrington when the time comes. Scott

Not wanting to be the lone voice of dissent here, Jeff, but.... it does seem like a very drastic soloution to what you would hope should be a very sporadic problem. I just am concerned that by having a removable section, aren't you now placing some very rigid - if you'll pardon the pun - constraints on the scenery in the valley floor, in order to disguise those joins? Would it not have been possible to build a cross member into the benchwork 300-500mm off the floor, that could support your weight, so you could use it like the bottom rung of a ladder, to stand on and lean into the layout and reach to the back? Hard to judge these things from photos, but just I hope you can incorporate the sliding section without compromising the hard work you've done to get valley looking right. Cheers Scott

Thanks Barry - I think the lining and wasp stripes really lift it's looks - well worth the effort. *** My workbench has been dormant for a year rnow, with the majority of my modelling supplies packed away owing to the upheaval required for the house extension that now is home to Stockrington. So as a bit of a taster of what I was up to back then, since the RSH has been so popular - some video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=inNcATlTlqQ And at the other end of the scale http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4ol7UauGBPg As much as the layout build is great, I'd really like to get that P2 completed! Cheers Scott

Jeff - Woodwork? Nope, definitely waaaaaaay down the list for me. A necessary evil, that is mercifully mostly done and dusted before the much more serious play begins. I do like the L-girder construction as a concept, though: I am amazed how rigid they are for so little timber, and yet such a blank canvas for terraforming when it comes time for contours to evolve compared to a board-based foundation. Michael - you've been mind reading, haven't you? Despite the builder leaving that barge board in a close approximation to LNER Tourist stock cream and green, I too, was worried that enthusiastic visitors entering the room might cop a chestful (or if the are vertically challenged, a face-full) of timber if I didn't give it a 2013-style HSE livery. I'm actually seriously thinking wasp stripes like those on my steelworks shunter for the side facing the door (after all, the only time anyone will see it is when the door is open and it is locked down in place, which is exactly when they need to really be aware of it). The inside frame - and indeed, inside of the trough - may well end up matt black, to keep the visibility down and not draw attention to the scenery free feature, compared to the rest of the layout. Templot transitions are all as good as sorted. When I looked at the plan posted on RMWeb, rotated through 90 degrees from how I drew it, there was one last "lump" I didn't like, so I re-did that part (circled): Except that I need to sand it back and paint it, I could have the swing-up flap in place by the end of the coming weekend. Still on hold for laying out more top bearers until the blinds arrive, but I can cut a load of them to length, and maybe even pre-drill them to take DCC and 12V buses. I do want to get Round 1 of the woodwork done before I change tools, and start thinking about droppers and soldering… Cheers Scott

Well I had more than my share of interruptions yesterday, so didn’t get to capitalise on a long weekend on the construction front. But I did move forward, which is always good. I trimmed up the hardwood that will form the hinge for the swing up section, and screwed down the 300mm piano hinge I bought for the job. This was held in with twelve 10mm screws – these are quite small, and so I couldn’t power drill them in… despite making pilot holes, they took a good bit of wrist work to screw down tight, which I guess is a good thing. So that gave me a tidy, tight closing hinged flap (It's not screwed in yet, so that is why it's not flush with the top - which is where it will be when it's attached). The problem at hand is that one side of the fixed part of the hinge section sits just 50mm off the room wall, so I cannot get into that face to screw those pieces together as I build – I need to pre-fabricate, whilst still making a strong attachment to the benchwork. After contemplating how to proceed, I have come up with the following: The Blue represents the hinged flap, and the Red is the assembly I need to fabricate. What it means is I can build the upper parts of the attachment away from the bench, and fix them to the swing section. This part built assembly then slides onto the top of the Right hand L-girder, and gets screwed on. As the weight of the swing up section is all passed through a hinge to this support, the load here is almost all straight downward - the only overturning is the small moment created by the distance from the hinge attachment point to the far side of the 80mm wide piece it is attached to. With the assembly fixed and bearing down on the Right hand L-girder, I can then come from underneath, and attach the long bottom cross member from below. This piece will provide lateral stability by being fixed to both L girders, lock the assembly onto the L-girders to resist any overturning forces, and transfer any of the residual downward force that may come from the side pieces (if the Right hand L-girder were to flex, for instance – as doubtful as that seems) into the verticals of both L-girders. Looking at the drawing, I might be able to pre-fabricate the whole assembly and just slide it onto the open end of the benchwork, but that would restrict how I could screw it onto the top of the L-girder, and would mean I’d need to be extremely precise so that it was all snugly fit. By screwing the base on after the rest is in place, I can shim and or adjust if I need to. This is the span balanced in place as I checked some dimensions ~ It will be sanded back and painted before I fit it. Time to go away and take some measurements, and make sure I have enough hardwood to build it all next weekend. Cheers Scott

I posted a photo of a loco I built from an Agenoria kit a few years back now over at the Lunester Lounge. Here's a few more shots, just to break up the boredom of Templot rumminations! Quite large for a tank, I picked up the kit as I loved the muscular looks and feel of the prototype. It was fiddly, but a lot of fun to build. She will have a home as an industrial renegade on Stockrington. Maybe she can service the harbour branch? Cheers Scott

I have to confess I'm not tempted to try building my own turnouts, Michael. I'm sure I could get the knack of it eventually, but I did the sums early on, and with >30 turnouts to deal with, even if I got myself up to speed of say 2 hrs/ea, that's a lot of modelling time that could be directed elsewhere. Conversely, I expect the bridge builds will take many, many hours... At least with the turnouts, there are people available to outsource the work to; The chap I have been corresponding with has a base price of £15.95, which is less than what I would value my own time at to build one, and only a little more than a bog standard Peco curved turnout would cost, so it's a good result. However, out of curiosity, I might have a go at building the diamond I need, just to try it out. With no moving parts, I'm thinking it might be less of a torture than trying to make a turnout... we shall see. *** Another four hours on Templot - still not suite sure if I am using it right, as every now and again, it will not let me lay a transition when I do exactly the same as I have done the past three template elements... oh, well, it matters not now, as I finished Templotting out the whole Southern (station) end: Curiously, when I looked at the revised geometry, I saw I might be able to use a flyover to re-route the release track from the Up Loco Holding point more prototypically to the Up Slow line. The gradients here are a bit iffy... but it looks the part. So I'll run those off on the plotter next week and see how it looks 1:1. During the evenings next week I'll have a stab at the Northmoor MPD... *** I spent a few hours starting to fabricate the lift up section this morning. Turns out those 30mm thick barge boards are not precision cut (!). One has a 5mm bow over 1200mm. Perversely, even the groove that is mitred into the back of them is not perfectly straight - I'm guessing they use the edge of the timber to set the alignment. So there was a bit of messing about getting the slats to sit in a level plane as I screwed them in - and a bit of head scratching working out what I had to do in the first place. In the end, I realised that the track is sitting on the slats, so it matters more that they are in a plane that I can then align with the benchwork either side before I fix the swing up section in place. The sides are just for strength, and I can adjust the supports for them relatively easily (compared to having a twist in the track slats). Now I have the bones of a bridge frame, I just need to fix robust approach supports on each side. I've got a piano hinge to try out for the pivot point - or pivot line, as the case may be - so can also set about getting that part built up and tested before I assemble to all together. Cheers Scott

Thanks Michael - it is indeed a lot more fulfilling when you can see you are closer to running trains. The shed area is very generous - as you say, it's only when the plans are rolled out at eye level, you stop and go "Okay...." **** An interesting development this week. I can see that if I chose the 5-road station plan - which is almost a certainty now - it creates a number of bespoke turnouts. Inspired by Gordon and Jeff, I've been looking into getting some trackwork made to suit. At first I figured I could slap an ultra-large radius (60") curved turnout down and fit everything in from there, but when I spoke to a supplier, he pointed out that I was making a beast over 40cm long. He mentioned he was using Templot to set these out... and it made me realise that I really needed to learn how to use it, if only to better specifiy what I wanted built. One thing led to another, and soon I realised I could also use it to get some nice flowing plans to follow when I track lay. So I reloaded it onto my PC and committed myself to a few hours each night this week. So I started with this SCARM output: Stockrington Station - Western Approach (SCARM) I used it as a background image, and started playing around on Monday night. Eventually I was able to redraw it in Templot. Okay, that was part of the problem solved, but then I learn about how to draw transitions in Templot, and so drew it again, but this time letting the program join the open ends, and by tonight I've got it looking like this: Stockrington Station - Western Approach (Templot) I will be the first to admit it's a bit rough - and I've left the (mostly hidden) ramp to the storage yard off for clarity - but it is better than what I had with SCARM, and I'm really pleased how much more realistic and smooth the curves look. And as an added bonus, it outputs in .dxf format, so I can plot it out at work without having to scale it up or down. I don't want to take anything away from SCARM at this point: it was a lot easier to use to design a whole-of-room layout. Templot might also be able to do that in the hands of a skilled operator, but it would be an order of magnitude harder, especially for a beginner. And SCARM's ability to present data in 3D is a real deal maker for me. Templot is like a precision tool, or a stuntman - bring it in to detail out bespoke trackwork and turnouts, or to plot out transition curves. Apples and Oranges, as they say. I've only been playing for about 6 hours, so while I wouldn't claim to have "cracked" Templot, I am actually getting to the stage where I now think I want to use it to re draw Northmoor MPD... Cheers Scott edit: Hmmmm: seems I lost all my tags last week when I updated my topic post. Normal transmissions now resumed.

"I tell you now: when the soldering reaches 100%, we will have steam trains running circuits on Kirkby-Luneside!" lunester-conspiracy.com

Thanks Iain - I'm still probably a year behind you at Camden, I'd guess - quite a mammoth task, when I think about it that way. But the work I am doing now is quite noisy - drilling and cutting - and so I can't slip up and spend a few hours mid week. Once I get into track laying, I can spend a few more hours a week. But even so, I'm satisified with the progress - the basic benchwork was completed today (barring any additions I deem needed to stiffen things up), so the good thing is that I should now see things starting to prgress above the L-girders, rather than below them! *** I borrowed thr F-i-L's ute and did the rounds of the local hardware, timber and salvage stores this morning. I even found the sheets of white colourbond that I originally thought I'd use for the backscene... but the problem was, the salvage yard had 3mm white MDF sheets for 1/7th of the cost (and 1/10th the hassle to slice up), so as I needed approx 20 lineal metres, I relented and went with MDF. I do wonder if, in years to come, I will resent the penny pinching (well, actually not pennies - more like £50 savings). Only time will tell. I also managed to find 75mmx35mm x 1.5m lengths of pine on sale for £1.25/ea - and grabbed a load of those to use as the cross members over the L-girders. They are seriously over engineered, but that thickness allows me to screw from the top and the sides without spliting the timber. To follow up on my last post, here is a close up of how I made the base supports for my back scene - it shows the legs, the L-girder, and the cross member that the track risers will be screwed to, as well as the foot on the end that, combined with a stubby block, makes a slot for the backscene bottom to slide into: I sliced up one sheet of MDF to see how the system works - the good thing is, the cut edge does not need to be perfect, as I'm just spliting sheets down the middle (so there is always a factory edge on top). It all came together quite well, and looks like this: I was impressed how much more rigid even adding just two cross members made the structure of the benchwork. As another example of how the planning all needs to be rather advanced, I was able to lay out the plot plans of the areas affected, and make sure that I was keeping the cross members clear of potential turnout motor locations. Here, I lined one member up with the middle of a crossover to be safe, and made sure the one to the left was well clear of the blades on the double slip. Of course if the drawings are wrong... well at least it's not too much effort to fix. The theory is that you can add a new cross member at an offset to the original, and slide a riser in under the trackbed, and then just unscrew the old cross member (they are attached from below) and remove it. I think that is easier said than done, but the logic is sound. Hopefully I wont need to test it too many times. The purchase of the cross members was important, as I could not progress the lift up section until I knew the elevation datum. Now I have a "zero" where the track sub-base will be laid, I know where the bridge has to sit. One last curiosity. Gordon (Eastwood Town) flagged many many posts ago that I should be careful of levels not being "level", after all the cr*p I went though with my floor. Well he was right. Before I screwed the corss members on, I checked them with a spirit level. I actually needed to add 12mm of packing to members on the left hand side of the doorway to keep them flat relative to those on the right hand side. I did know this was the case - remember that's why the floorboards are laid the wrong way - and in some places it would not matter, but I figured on the lift up section - which is designed to be flat - I should make every effort to get it right from the start. The other place I want as flat as I can get will be the storage yard - if the Kadees are in tension, I will have trouble uncoupling them! Here is a view down the tracks into the MPD... now that the layout has more or less reached it's final height, these teaser views are rather tantalising, and a good inspiration to keep steadily at it! Cheers Scott

LOL - no, just the one Jukebox around, I hope. No, of course I don't mind you linking or referring to this thread ~ one of the reasons I migrated here to RMWeb was to present Stockrington as a work in progress, so hopefully other SCARM users can gain something from it. *** I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I seem to get "moments of clarity" in the hour or so after I wake up. Maybe it's the fresh day, my mind not tangled with the issues of work, home, and wherever else that crop up at work and whilst commuting, but a few years ago I noticed that I seem to resolve problems, or what seem like good ideas come to me, around 5am when I'm walking our dog, or showering and dressing for work. By the time I am in the car driving to the station - forget it! By then, 60 minutes later, I'm plugged into my work routine, and my mind is slowly spinning up to full revs... (and my blood pressure probably is, too!) I say the above as an explanation that I think I solved part of my "how to secure my backscene" problem. The floor installer was throwing out loads of offcuts from the floorboards, so I gave him instructions to leave anything longer than 3". I ended up with a large tub full of 12mm thick marri (hardwood), 100-600mm long I had no idea what I would do with these, but knew the looked handy to build something. Well this morning, it struck me that I can screw the smaller of these poking upwards onto to the ends of the cross members I am about to fix over the L-girders. These cross members (spaced at 400-600mm on the L-girders) can then be screwed down with these marri "feet" sitting hard against the wall, and all I need to do is screw an offcut of timber 6-10mm in from each end, and I have the perfect slot/slide/bottom support for the bottom of my backscene. I guess if I make the offcut a reasonable height, that may actually be all I need. The width of the gap (6-10mm) would be the width of the material I use for the backscene +1-2mm for clearance. An added bonus (is there such as thing as a "subtracted bonus????) would be that in the early stages of construction, when the layout is relatively light and can still move around a little too easily - and that is a relative observation, as it's getting very heavy and quite rigid now - all I need to do is make sure the feet stay pushed hard up against the wall to make sure everything is square and aligned just as I have built it. Hmmm. Probably need a picture to explain myself better. Will try and post one once I get a few cross members on over the weekend. Cheers Scott

There's plenty of wisdom in that analysis, Jeff. As I said, for Stockrington, I envisage trains circulating in both directions on my mainline, while I move locos on and off shed, or bring stock into or out of the storage sidings, and exactly as Thoughtful Line (tender) has said, it's a circumstance where I wouldn't want the whole she-bang to shut down on me. I could probably get away with just two districts - "mainline" and "other" - but if ever my sons (or one day a long way away in the future, my son's sons (!)) - were operating with me, it would be good to know one mistake wouldnt collapse my virtual reality, so I'll split mine three ways. For Kirkby Luneside, I'd be doing exactly as you suggested - start with one PSX (there's no real savings in buying the -2 or -3 versus mutliple individual boards), and have the wiring installed in such a way you can divide and conquer later if you need to. Then play trains for a while and see how it all works out.

Ah, see NOW I find the diagram i meant to reference: I just assumed that in the diagram as shown above the turnout is thrown to the left, so the two left hand contacts are active in each pair (Brown S1, Green S2). Throwing the turnout right, would then switch those to the right hand contacts... So as long as you oriented the bus inputs (Brown C and Green C) the same way as the track bus, the polarity should be correct. Is that how it actually is happening?

Of course I could be talking though my hat with the Cobalts (!) I just assumed the switching worked logically with the mechanical action... probably best I shut up about electrics at this point: I'm a civil engineer because of my utter inability to grasp the complexities of electrical engineering!

Hi Jeff - I think the way you drew it looks fine. You take the "output" from whatever DCC system you use, and then split it in two, feed it into the PSX's, and then the output from these is connected to the track bus. Mine is a little different because of the scale of Stockrington, but the principle is the same: Mains Power -> DCC system -> DCC Booster -> PSX(s) -> Track Buses (Busi(?))

Jeff - a question about the Cobalts: how did you get confused with the polarity of the frog wire? As I understand it, the way the contacts are laid out, the Cobalt switches the polarity from the input on the left, when the mechanism is switched left, to the input on the right, when the turnout is switched right. Is it because you pre-wired them, and then had some rotated through 180 degrees when you installed them, that the mix up came about? (trying to figure out what when wrong, so i don't do the same thing!) Andy - those Cobalt levers are grand! It's soemthing I may well "upgrade" to in years to come. Yes, they stand a good 100+mm high - you can actually get a 3 sided signal box to mount them in, too. (no, they are one size fits all - no smaller ones...) I like the idea that you can also switch a pair of lights and a signal too - 3 sets of contacts per switch - but the tight wad in me wishes there was also a cheaper version that just had a simple DPDT switch within (tho I suspect this would only change the price by pennies - the cost of the switch mechanism wouldnt be that much more for the three switches, as these are custom made for DCCconcepts anyway)

Hi Mixy; I'm glad you came along - I was going to send you a PM over at MRF (we've spoken over there just recently) to come and take a look here, as I wanted you to see that your hard work has started to generate some fruit! I've been using SCARM for quite some time now, and have been very pleased with how I've been able to use it to plan Stockrington. I am fortunate enough to work in an office with a full size plotter, so was able to print out 900mm wide plots of my layout to use as templates. All I can say is thanks very much for making the program available, and that if anyone visiting this thread is looking for a simple track planing and visualisation tool, then to give SCARM a try. LOL! Yes, indeed - at one point, I had designs on a brace of ex-London Transport panniers operating my dock branch... a mini Neasden depot in a corner of the layout somewhere... this was back when the presence of a flyover and quad/sep tracks was suggesting a London-esque / Eastwood Town style of urbanisation. And if I really wanted to apply Rule #1, I could still go down that route... but I have a pressing need to house a half a dozen D/E's somewhere other than Northmoor MPD, so that will take priority. **** In the thinking stakes, I've been taking Erkut's advice and considering how to integrate the backscene early in the build, as it will need to go in early, and the supports should be considered while I am building the benches. Remembering the diagram from Post#18, the West Wall will be the backdrop to Northmoor MPD (in red here): I dont need anything too detailed, and the tracks closest to the wall rise approx 60mm in 3m, so I am planning to have a retaining wall 100mm high that is flat across the top, so the retained height will diminish to around 40mm. This will be 10-20mm off the backscene which will be a monochrome representation of down-at-the-heel terrance houses similar to these. If you click on that link, you can see how the more distant houses become almost like a wash - faded and with less detail. That is the effect I want to aim for - not anything that draws your eye to it, but rather a suggestion of dirty, run down, working class dwellings that back onto or face a major railway MPD. And a brick/stone wall at the top, just a little too high for young boys to peer over and look across to the shed... or is it? There are some excellent resources on Flickr - Newcastle Library has a photostream going back over a hundred years, where if you narrow the search to buildings, there are still around 2000 images to inspire. I was originally going to stitch a long photo together from a selection these images, but now feel I want something more abstract, and theatrical, less detailed... I'm estimating the backscene will be around 300mm high - plus another 100mm to embed it onto the layout, and around 3m long for the portion in question. I had spotted some thin steel/tin sheet with a baked white enamel finish at the local salvage store - nice and rigid - but that's long gone. I need to look around and see what else I might use. It's all a bit chicken-and-egg right now - I need to know what I am trying ot secure, and then plan a way of securing it, before I fit the main bracing, as I also need to fit some form of seating to the bracing to hold the backscene in place at the bottom... But what it does show (again) is that nothing happens in isolation - all these parts can come into play very early in the layout build to make life easier later. Cheers Scott

...it's just me wearing my Project Manager's hat, you know - trying to plan 5 jumps ahead. Normally, for the typical UK layout, one district is fine, as it's compact, and not a massive amount of turnouts. But for a room filler (or in your base Bunker-Filler), there is a "tipping point". The thing is, shorts wont normally happen on straight track. If they do, you'd be wanting to re-lay and sort out the track, rather than band-aid it. So generally, derailments and shorts will be where there are turnouts. So the question you should ask then is: "If I have a derailment while operating a train at A, how frustrating will that be if it stops trains at B and C as the same time?" I originally was going to have seperate up and down mainline power buses (!), but realised that was overkill. So I will have a main layout bus, a bus for the MPD (where 75% of my turnouts will be) and a bus for the hidden storage - so that if I run a train the wrong way into a trailing turnout, it wont stop all the fun going on upstars. So yes, I agree the yard would be a good place to isolate. You dont even need to do it straight away - just make sure when you wire up, that you can cut and separate the yard from the rest of the layout bus without too much work. I will probably try and wire Stockrington station as an electrically seperable portion, so that if needed, I can add an extra district there. Cheers Scott

More brilliantly observed realism there! How true that the central cess is quite oftejn non existant in many steam era photos - although the ballast may change colour in that area (a useful ploy to explain any mismatch you may get). Always good to see more photos of Grantham - thanks for sharing. Cheers Scott

I really, really, really want to second this, Jeff! I've always planned to get Stockrington operational early, as I need to find out definitively about The Gradient ThingTM,, but it also applies when scenery is going to be constructed - either way, it's about getting the work-a-day stuff perect and bug free before you then complicate it. As an analogy, you wouldn't have started laying track if your woodwork was not all done and you had a firm place to build, would you? I would pause for a morning, and take stock of how much work there is to get all your running lines wired and operating. The goal would be to have trackwork you can then start ot test each of your loco type with - the 9F is a good place to start, with it's ten-coupled wheelbase, but remember as far as trackwork goes, it's almost an 2-4-2-4-0 with those flangeless centre drivers - you might even find a larger Pacific rides your rails quite differently... Also, have a think about short circuit protection for your DCC, too? It may be worthwhile acquiring a PSX solid state circuit breaker - or two if you wire your layout with two power districts. Have a think about how you will operate the layout - is it likely to be "one engine in steam" or will you have trains on the continuous run whilst shunting K/L with a third? Looking at your track plan, I'm guessing you'll just have the whole lot fed by one bus, but perhaps you can set it up so that if you find shorts (such as you get running wrong way through a DCC turnout) are hampering your enjoyment, you can break out the fiddle yard into a seperate power district later (thus avoiding shutting the whole layout down). Something to mull over this morning's coffee. Cheers Scott