AllScales

Actually, I'm counting on the curves giving extra traction as the flanges push against the sides of the rails. Having done some experiments using a test track (with load), this looks very promising! The curves are standard Roco HOe curves: 261.8 mm/10.3 inch. I guess if it makes it up a straight stretch, then curves should be OK. But it is on my list of things to test this weekend! I have also done some experiments with N-gauge stock (Farish and Dapol) and using a Kato Unitrack, the V2 set makes a 1 in 25 gradient. The best performers were the rebuilt Royal Scot and the LMS Black five in steam category. The Dapol locos were nowhere near as good. The only to make it to the top was Flying Scotsman. Class 66's (Dapol) and the Deltic also did well. but the Dapol Voyager was terrible..... I'm aiming to have the little HF 110's haul 3 2-axle coaches and a 2-axle goods/luggage van (i.e. one coach more than the rake above). In testing they have proven quite good haulers, unlike the Liliput ZB U1 and U2... The other slope should only be about 1 in 50, so no great worry.... Will J: Yes, one of the aims was to have a long visible part so the train could be seen actually travelling from A-B. It is all wired for DCC as well so you can start one train off, switch to a different loco, set that one going.and so on... The idea is that something is visibly moving most of the time when operated by two people. I'll let you know how I get on, later this week or on the weekend.

I have finally figured out how to get the photos in a size that will fit within the 2MB limit. So here are two photos of the new track plan, precariously supported by some Kato Unitrack pillars. This shows the right hand side of the layout. At back on the bottom is the fiddle yard, perched above it is the upper station. Next is the left hand side of the layout, you can see both tracks leading up the top station. The only concern is the far up slope. This needs to rise 5 cm (almost two inches) in a little under 1.5 m (5 feet). We'll have to see how some of the smaller loco's cope with it. The Mh's, the 2095's and Gmeinders shouldn't have a problem, but something like this might: Unfortunately getting these to double head is going to require some work if that's what's required!

It's been a long time since there has been any real movement now, but I think I've had some good excuses! Back in March work went absolutely mental, and most of my waking hours were spent working, or keeping the essentials going. I had also adopted a homeless cat and was trying to get her living inside. She loved it inside, but did not get with the other female cat in the house, so eventually I gave her up for adoption via a local rescue centre (and just this week I had news that she has found a new home). The in the middle of it all, my employer decides to relocate the office from central London to Watford. As I live on the Kent/London border, I did not fancy the commute! So throw in finding a new job for good measure, not so easy at the moment! Anyway, suffice it to say that I succeeded and did still manage to get some things done: All loco's have been chipped, so now only my most recent acquisition is unchipped. A spiral was commissioned, but ultimately the clearances (or better absolute lack off) around it proved insurmountable, so track plan variation 'B' is now what I'm working to. My tests in trying to use SEEP's with Roco HOe points proved that this was the wrong choice as I could not get them to work reliably (for me anyway, YMMV). However as I cut the motor mounting lugs off the points already, I now have to replace quite a number of points and buy Roco motors, this is an expensive lesson! And that is a mistake that I will not be making again! So it has been off to KGR numerous times to collect points and motors. A great thanks to Andy! As the Roco point motors use much less power than a SEEP, I can also use a Lenz LS 150 with a Fleischmann power supply (which I have from way back) to drive two motors from one outlet. This means that for the 17 points on the layout, I will only need 11 outputs. Saving a whole LS 150. Once all the points and motors are in, then I'll be finishing off the fiddle yard and station finally by nailing down all the track as I have left the nails sticking out a little to allow me lift it if required (just as well). Then it's onwards and upwards. The board for the upper level has already been sourced cut to the rough size required.... Hopefully the weather will turn a little warmer soon and I can get back outside to cut wood. It's a real pain to have to do this inside (as I don't have a garage or workshop). The new track plan has only one place where the tracks cross, and there one of them is on the level, so no complicated joins required at a height. Unlike the previous plan, which would have seen at least five joints. So I hope to be able to post some photos soon, now that there is a chance of some progress again!

My dad sent over a link from some New Zealand snow ploughing on the Athur's Pass route from Chistchurch to the West Coast. Go and have a look on youtube... No snow plough required. Maybe Network Rail needs to go downunder for some training? Search for "New Zealand snow plough".....

I have a copy of "an historical survey of Southern sheds" by George Reeve and Christ Hawkins. Hither Green shed (modified and relocated) here I come!!

Just got the new Dapol catalogue, Schools, West Country, Battle of Britain? Maunsell coaches? Add to that Grafar Bulleid coaches and the revised Merchant navy class == Bliss!!!! All I need now are class 375's and networkers! Maybe a Javelin???

Hiya, Sorry for replying earlier, work has been heel! it is a lovely runner and has recently been chipped with sound... If I were you I would get the replacement bogies first and try to re- gauge those... Cheers, Friso

Well that was a very productive week: I've managed to lay all the track in the main station and the fiddle yard. All the remaining track will be up in the air so this is a major milestone. Most points have a dropper for frog polarity switching and each of the loops in both "stations" has droppers connected to the DCC bus. I'll post some photos once image upload issues here have been resolved. Next will be the fitting of the point motors (11 in all) Hopefully it will go better than last time! But the guys from KGR have given me some top tips on how to get the alignment right, so I'll be trying that as soon as I get around to it... Happy New Year everyone!

Yumm!! Wish I had a shed for things like that! My dad has a double garage, no room left for cars, even the bike has had to move to the shed down the garden. All due to things like that...

Last week I finally bit the bullet and started putting down some track for the main station: Gerlos. I had glued down the cork using PVA after cutting, so so far so good! As I'm using Roco sectional track, this should be a piece of cake! How wrong can you be..... Lesson 1: Even though I measured out the distance between the edge of the board and the track before nailing each piece down, I should have looked along the line of the track. It's not quite straight. Lesson 2: If you need to join a piece onto a piece that is already down: Don't hit the pin all the way down! This is especially true if you need to fit a point.... Especially if you're using the point motor to switch frog polarity... Lesson 3: Prepare, prepare, prepare!!!! Look at everything from every angle... So now two loops of the three in Gerlos are down, the point motors need to be fitted still but I'll do that once I've finished laying all points on the base level. This is one more loop in Gerlos plus the loco shed, and the fiddle yard. At some point I'll need to start blogs for the other scales: N and O-16.5. For N I really want to buid a proper mainline layout, and Paddock Wood with a preserved Hawkhurst branch does look like a good idea. Billing it as the "Kent Festival of Rail" would allow me to run anything! In the meantime (due to space constraints) I'm looking something that can hang under Gerlos and be brought out as a table top layout. For O-16.5 my ideas are evolving, at the moment it's largely on hold, but the Orpington and Down (or District) light railway is still something that convinces me would be a good idea. Reading an N Gauge journal I saw an article about the Sussex area group's modular layout. It could be a fantastic idea for a modular O-16.5 layout... So how's my to do list for Christmas (as for once I'm actually going to be at home!)? 1. Finish Gerlos station and fiddle yard 2. Repaint engine shed to look more Austrian 3. Fit proper bearings to some of my coaches to improve rolling characteristics 4. Give each engine a proper workout (HO, HOm, HOe and N) 5. Start building the ramps for the climbs required on Gerlos I think I'm going to be busy! Merry Christmas

Having spent all summer in the garden, nothing much has happened on Gerlos for a while... However with both Dapol and Graham Farish having released some wonderful models, my stock collection in N is slowly growing. It had a major boost over last weekend with me acquiring Leighton Hall, and 4 Collet coaches in late 20's early 30's livery. I had thoughts towards doing Paddock Wood in the modern day with the Hawkhurst branch as a preserved railway, but that is waiting on loft conversion (when I can afford it in 5 years time) and for someone (HELLO Dapol, Bachmann!!!!!!!!) to do class 375's and class 466's in N... So as an interim, I have come with 175cm X 70cm layout that I could hang from underneath Gerlos. This gave me the idea of Holman Jn., junction between the Southern Railway and the Great Western in the grouping period. Now all that is required os to build that, just as well I have plenty of holiday left to take before the new year.....

Back to the train shop this morning to see what had happened to the steering coach! It turns out Andy had accidentally mixed it up. So now the shuttle train is complete. Here it is going round the test track: Back to the real work, building something for it to run on!

Sticking with the theme of the last two days, the new Gmeinder got a bit of workout this afternoon! The coaching stock is: AB 1 - Ramsau/Hippach AB 2 - Uderns B 28 - Zell am Ziller (Buffet Coach) B 13 - Mayrhofen B 20 - Asschau B 12 - Ried B 29 - Fasslwagen (Barrel Wagon) F 52 - Generator Van B4ip 30 - Bogie coach Cism 480 - DR 3rd BCism 259 - DR 2nd/3rd Pwism 811- DR Luggage van Bi/s 3641-3 - OBB Pinzgauerbahn "mit Herz" Gwk/s - ZB Zillertaler Bier van All this is no problem and takes up more than half the loop of the radius three test track.... Here is a shot of the 12 coach consist: A Roco Mh 6 is able to haul the same train, although it does appear to slip occasionally. For the DR HF 110, 14 coaches was a bit much! Slipping quite considerably, but still dragging it around the test loop. Reducing the train down to 8 coaches made that one happy. Now that I have a total of three HF 110's I wonder if I chipped them all, and messed around with the couplings maybe I could get them to triple head a massive train? Anyway all this playing was done after some serious work underneath the base board. After the I started drilling the holes for the switch consoles (PECO plastic ones), I realised that they were ending up right on top of one the mounting plates of the table's legs, as they were simply screwed onto the bottom of the board. After having toyed with several ways of getting around it I decided to mount the plates on the wooden outer frame. However this left one corner of the plate unsupported, hence the pieces of wood. Today I added the little brackets so they stay in place. See picture here: Also in that picture you can see the two power feeds into the layout, on the left is the track power (the layout is DCC), on the right the auxiliary power for the points. The track power simply loops around the outside with specific spots where insulation displacement connectors will be used to distribute the power. The cable to the right needs to go to the CDU which I have yet to mount. Currently I have a Gaugemaster unit, but I might trade it for a PECO unit as that is cased! All that work makes you hungry!

It really goes to show that I shouldn't work in any scale smaller than HOe as either yesterday or today, I managed to dislodge one of handgrips from the D15 and only noticed once I looked at a photo! So here from the top, the front of the D15: Next a side view, the switches for the headlights are under the square ventilator in the roof: Next we have the intermediate coach side view: The old coaches are about 14 cm long, this one comes in at 20 cm, an increase of between 33 and 50%, depending on how you round things, so a really significant increase! If you are planning a new HOe layout then I recommend that you buys these first before putting down the track. PECO N gauge radius 1 curves or the ROCO HOe curves don't look that bad with the old coaches, but with new ones it does look rather ridiculous. Lastly a bit of zoom shot of the side of the coach, to show the superb detailing: Enjoy your Sunday, I'm working on electrics now and checking out how much the new loco on the block can haul!

I should have mentioned this yesterday: Both the loco and the coaches can be easily converted from HOe 9 mm track to HOm 12mm track. Liliput supply replacement bogies sets for both....

Of course not long after getting back from Skiing I get sick! Proper, unable to move type, sick... So again not a lot got done. I did manage to build a kit I bought before getting sick, so now I have a PECO great little trains 4 Wheel Coach. A bit crooked because I didn't quite get the underframe right, but on the whole pretty good. For the rest the garden has taken a lot of my time, and I mean a lot! It's been back breaking work to clear the mess and get it ready for turning the back third into an orchard with meadow (to save me having to mow it). Today I've been to collect the new Zillertalbahn Gmeinder diesel D15. It should have had a plain coach with as well as driving trailer, but we couldn't find the last bit... Possibly it's arrived, so I'll call Andy during the week, to see if it came in or not. I've just put the loco and intermediate coach on the track for a test run. Fantastic! The loco runs very well, nice and slow and has working headlights. The coach is much longer than any previous ZB coach, so the overhang looks really ridiculous on the PECO N gauge radius 1 curves. Radius 3 isn't much better... Loco features: Directional headlights with switches for configuring push-pull and shunting operations 21 pin DCC decoder socket Speaker socket Comes with HOe bosnia couplings, kaydee couplings and two flat draw bars The coach comes with the following: Built in power pickups on the bogies The same set of coupling options as above A pack of little metal bits to get the power from the bogies to an internal lighting bar A switch underneath to turn the lights on or off (first time I've ever seen that) The detailing in both cases is superb, I cannot vouch for the accuracy though and with my eyesight you can slip quite a bit past me, but with my magnifying glass it all looks fantastic. One issue I do have is the propensity for the loco to become detached when using the Bosnia couplings. As they don't have a loop it let's go rather quickly when there is a bump in the track. Recently I also managed to get hold of a Liliput U 2 (L141481) with the new running gear. Admittedly it runs very nicely, but it doesn't seem to have any pulling power whatsoever! 3 four wheeled coaches seems to be about the limit, which is not really what I had in mind, I had expected a hauling capacity of at least 6! On the chipability front it does seem to do quite well: It has a little PCB with the various connections well marked, so putting in a Lenz silver mini should be too hard! Mine came with a piece of foam under the trailing truck, I've left it in place as the pressure seems to be just right to prevent it from jumping when going across a piece of rough track. This is a problem I have with my 2091 class loco.... I would have included some photo's in this piece but my computer doesn't seem to like my new memory card for some obscure reason.... I'll get some tomorrow!

OK, so some might think Switzerland isn't quite toy town, but having spent over a week in Lauterbrunnen it certainly seems like it! I now have some 300+ photo's to sort out, a bunch of videos (no sound as I didn't bring my video camera) and this will take me a while.... Some modelling ideas: A ski carrier: The WAB has these on its old trains, essentially a low side wagon with a rack on it for skis The BLM: All trains are made up of one railcar plus a wagon The turning triangle built into hillside at Kleine Scheidegg See the photo's here: A ski carrier fully loaded Number 31 and a 2X crossing at Winteregg (the wagon contains a pallet that can be hooked under a lift at Grutschalp) An empty ski carrier and a train backed into the Grindelwald side of the triangle

Any gardener will tell you they have a constant battle with slugs, this is not nearly as bad, it's lug elimination on the ROCO points, check out the difference: Gone are the horrible sticky out bits where the (hugely expensive) point motors attach, leaving a near perfect looking point. I've also had to enlarge the whole in the middle of the tie bar a little so the arm of the Seep can make it through. The two I've done as an experiment look nigh on perfect, just a touch of fine sanding required.... Only takes about 20 minutes per point! Unfortunately I can't do any more today... There's more than a dozen still to go!

Looking at a bit more closely most of of the carriages and locos only go up about 5.5 cm so leaving 6 cm is enough clearance, which means that if I make the final turn go up 7 cm it should all fit! Then I can mount the SEEP directly underneath. I've never used wire in tube before, but it's good idea and I'll keep it as a backup. That will be slightly steeper than I wanted, but testing this (admittedly on a straight ramp) my little Roco Lina loco still made it up the hill dragging three coaches. I suspect that if that can make it up the hill then everything else will as well. Let's hope the curve doesn't upset my planning! Luckily the height of the turns will be adjustable as I'm using threaded bars to build the spiral. The point at the back in the fiddle yard I'll keep as a ROCO point motor, it's not visible anyway.... Thanks for the advice!

I've been raking my brain to find out how to eliminate the ROCO point motors, and I now have the solution for all but one. The problem places are the point at the top of the spiral, the place where the track enters the fiddle yard on the right, and where the front track joins the main through line in the station (Gerlos) at the front. The one at the top of the spiral I've solved simply by shifting the point to the right by reducing the length of the straight to the right of the upper station and moving that to in between the spiral and the left hand end of the upper station... The one in Gerlos station at the front I will have to solve by taking a chunk out of the frame and replace it with a metal plate instead. The point at the far end of the fiddle yard (back right), is the only one that can't be done as far as I can see. If I cut a chunk out the frame, then the point is still so close to the outside of the board, that the screw on the outside is too close to the outside edge of the board... So does anyone know of a way to fix a Seep above board like you can do with a PECO point motor? Or even underneath with an offset... That would be ideal! I can't use the PECO point motors as the ROCO points don't lock! On top of that the ROCO points only have a point operating arm sticking out on the straight side of the point... Meanwhile thoughts about the Orpington and Downe tramway are continuing... I'll start a separate blog about that when it moves from Phantom to Ghost, to something tactile....

Hi, I like the track plan! Very nice, you've got the option of having round and round trains as well as being able to shunt and reverse. Keep it up, I'd like to see how it turns out. Friso

What did you make the stop blocks out of? Is it cardboard? They look like something I might be able to use on my layout instead of having to off and buy them...

I knew there was something I forgot earlier! This is the track fully layed out out on the board: The gap is where the ROCO geometry has let me down, and will need filling in with some flextrack. Luckily I have some PECO crazy track that I can disguise by overfilling with ballast so you can't see the sleepers. It seems to have the same profile as ROCO track, so there should be no jumping of trains.

That looks very good! I wish my eyesight was better so I could continue in N (or 2mm)! I have some HOe stuff that came in a starter set, so once those boxes had been binned, I needed somewhere to store the stock. I found that Maplins sell flight cases which you can customise to your requirements. Search for N50FU on their website and you'll find it. I've now got all my unboxed HOe stuff in one, they take up only a fraction of the space, but never mind.... Cheers, Friso

Hi, You are quite correct, the french do use tramway, I just looked it up in the Petit Robert. The french equivalent of the Shorter Oxford... It suggests it is only really used for urban transport... Cheers, Friso