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DaveArkley

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  1. DaveArkley
    I've tried several types of coupler on my N gauge stock to avoid the hand in the sky approach, Cruikglen will feature two stations where shunting is required, as well as the engine shed.
     
    To date the most reliable have been D&G type, although I've found them very prone to damage. I've recently been experimenting with the new Dapol magnetic couplers and have found them to be excellent. With care in setting up the magnets and couplings themseleves reliable results have been achieved even with the magnets below the sleepers.
     
     
    These photos show installation of a Dapol magnet in the shed area.
     
     
     


     


     


  2. DaveArkley
    My friend Alan Powell bought an N guage layout which included a shed with a turntable.
     
    When he first demonstrated that turntable I was gob smacked at the low speed and rock steady rotation it was capable of. Even in bigger scales the turntables I'd seen on various club/exhibition layouts rotated at unrealistic speeds or were very juddery or both. Here in N gauge was a turntable which had neither of these problems ... I wanted one.
     
    The previous owner had kept all of the invoices and warranties for everything he had bought, and so Alan and I read through the contents of two box files until we unearthed the order for a 'slow motion' DC motor. It turned out to be a !2V DC Hankscraft motor which you can find here
     
    That motor will turn increadibly slowly, down to 0.5RPM when unloaded. Of course an N guage locomotive on a turntable bridge constitutes a load so I've had to make do with 1RPM! Whilst the motor allowed for the slow speed rotation the turntable bridge juddered like every other turntable bridge I'd ever seen.
     
    The judders were accompanied by a low frequency rumble, and then a high pitched squeal. Carefull observation showed it to be caused when friction between the runners at each end of the bridge caused drag, which builds up and then is suddenly released. Rotating brass runners at each end of the bridge eliminate almost all of the frriction which allows the bridge to roll around the base rather than drag across it. Two lumps of lead weight added beneath the bridge stabalise it and damp any vibrations. Pictures explains better than I'm able to in words:
     


     


  3. DaveArkley
    Sometimes, forward progress on the layout is almost exactly counterbalanced by backward steps. Last week I made headway on the scenic (gradual) slope from the mainline to the retaining wall around the shed. Multiple cycles around the fill, sand, check for smoothness cycle and we have the gentle slope I was hoping for.
     


     
    I’d achieved a nice smooth joint between the retaining wall mount, and the slope into the shed. And then as I sanded one more time, and trimmed hold-melt glue overspill the whole board fell between the two ‘A frames’ I’ve been using in lieu of legs.
    Sods law dictates that both ends of the board had to hit multiple times during their descent to the floor. Where I’d laid and ballasted the branch track I’d left a couple of inches overhanging at each end. One end acquired a 90 degree bend, the other a subtle slope which was never going to be flattered again. The ballast, which I’d finally tweaked and tidied to a state which was looking decent, cracked like the cheapest crazy paving. The A frames kindly dug into the Colotex foam and swiftly levelled the terrain at a speed which any landscape engineer would kill for. All the smoothed and sanded filler cracked to leave a fairly impressive representation of the San Andreas after a bad day.
     




     
    That was last week and I haven’t been able to face it until this weekend. It will be repaired (in fact I think it is already looking better than it was) , hopefully next report will be all forward movement.
  4. DaveArkley
    I’m fortunate (or not) enough to be involved with two new layouts. Farnham and District Model Railway club’s N gauge group are busy planning for a new layout, as Basingstoke is showing it’s age, and my garage has been cleared of junk and is available as a railway room.
     
    The club layout will be a prototype, and after new members were consulted it was not going to necessarily be a Southern prototype, as the new members all have interests which lay elsewhere. The predominantly Southern loving existing members had whittled a short list of over one hundred candidates down to twelve (which became known as the dirty dozen), all Southern. We of northern, midland a west country origin argued that another part of the country should be considered, and so we were asked to submit proposals before Christmas 2010.
     
    I hail from the North East so love all things Gresley, but also have a hankering for Stanier locomotives. In my ideal world I wanted an excuse to run both. With that in mind I researched a couple of lines, the ex L&Y Calderdale route and the Waverley line. In the mid 1950s to 1960s timeline one could see a wealth of ex LNER and LMS locos running on both lines. After much research I proposed, in early December, two candidate stations, Brighouse in the Calder and St Boswells on the Waverley.
     
    After several rounds of voting neither was chosen, St Boswells being piped at the post by one vote. (I’m duty sworn not to reveal the winner, all in good time !)
     
    My research for St Boswells had involved the thread here heavily, and the consumption of several books on the Waverly and Borders branches. I’d fallen for the Waverley line, and decided that my own modelling would be based there.
     
    Having returned to railway modelling fifteen months ago, after a twenty year break, I’ve spent a lot of time planning, so that I have a stable wish-list for my railway:
     

    A rural, three dimensional layout. - I dislike flat ‘on the baseboard top’ layouts, the railway must cut through the landscape. ‘Mainline’ running – A roundy-roundy allowing the running of eight to ten coach trains hauled by express locomotives, and prototypical length goods trains, without the front end catching the back. Sidings and a branch – So that I can drive trains and shunt. A small MPD – cause I like steam sheds! DCC control – I’m a software engineer, it will involve a computer, I will be able to drive it manually too. This may sound like a lot for a typically sized layout, but the aforementioned garage allows for an eighteen by seven foot model. Given one of the seven foot long sides will contain the fiddle yard, this gives me about forty foot of running for the mainline (a scale mile as near as dammit), plenty of room to run long trains without looking silly. Although these generous dimensions sound perfect I found I could not fit St Boswells in without some foreshortening and bending, the MPD was a wee bit small for my liking and the Kelso branch starts some mile and a half south of the station. After kicking around with track plans for Hawick and Galashiels I couldn’t come up with a plan which gave me enough landscape around the railway, nor exactly the facilities I wanted. Like dozens before me I copped out, and decided to model a ‘might have been’ on my line of choice, and so was born Cruikglen.
     
    Exactly 37 track-plans later I’ve arrived at a layout that will give me all the operational flexibility I need, the type of scenery I want and a final plan which I haven’t felt the need to ‘tweak’ for two months now. Cruikglen v38 is what I’m going to build, and this blog will document it’s construction. I don’t plan to publish the track plan all in one go, but will reveal it in stages as the layout is constructed. I’ll explain my thinking behind the design, the actual construction, my successes and failures as a record for myself, and also something informative for you, dear readers.
     
    Onwards and upwards……
     
     
  5. DaveArkley
    Twenty years ago my layout was built on three boards each constructed with a four by three foot sheet of chipboard on two by one softwood frames. They were noisy, even with cork under the track, were incredibly heavy and warped out of true so much that I could never get reliable running over the baseboard joints.
     
    Returning to modelling twenty years on, I’m older and wiser, and realise that joinery is not one of my skills. So I began to look into the use of alternative baseboard materials. Although Cruikglen is not intended to be exhibited, I wanted the layout to be transportable so that it could be relocated without destroying it. It’s development will be a long term project, I’m planning that it takes me well into retirement (I thought that was about 10 years away, but our government seems to have other plans for me.) So I needed something robust, yet as light as possible.
     
    Visiting a number of exhibitions I talked with modellers who were using various plastic foam board products. Some were using a traditional frame and securing the type of foam board with a plastic coating on each side, others had used loft insulation board with a four millimetre ply outer (a foam sandwich) whilst others insisted that plywood was the only worthwhile material to build baseboards with. Faced with conflicting enthusiasm for number of different construction methods an techniques the only thing to do was experiment.
     
    My good friend Alan Powell is a cabinet maker by training and has joinery skills I can only dream of. He suggested another alternative, Wediboard. This is used in the construction of bathrooms, is very strong, very light and impervious to moisture. He quickly knocked a prototype board together, using Gripfill. The prototype board used the Wediboard as the surface and as uprights beneath the board. We jumped on it, walked on it and tried twisting it by each holding one end, but could not make it warp or twist. However it suffers from one problem, it does not take and hold screws easily. Much of track bed of Cruikglen is elevated from the baseboard but the main and branch stations are on the level (to stop rolling stock from rolling away!) and so we decided that Wediboard, robust as it is, was not something we could use as securing point motors would be a huge problem.
     
    In the meantime I’d been playing with 10mm thick foam board. Again it was used to make a prototype, again was pretty strong (although it would warp when manually twisted by gripping each end) and very light. Again it suffered with the same problem as the Wediboard, the inability to take and hold screws. Onto plan C.
     
    When I last did any loft insulation rolls of fibreglass were de rigeur but these day sheets of insulating foam sheet are used. There are dozens of brands and thicknesses available, but I experimented with Celtex TA400 - 25mm foam sheet. Removing the silver paper coating left a board which was strong and impervious to water, but which could be carved and sanded to shape. Given the 3D nature of Cruikglen the idea of being able to carve beneath datum was appealing. The foam sheet is not robust enough to be used without an outer coating, so I looked at a 4mm ply skin to cover it. This skin also provided an anchor for screws – it looked very promising. And so a test track was built, a simple oval with a small station with passing loop and a three track fiddle yard.
     
    It is important that point motors fastened beneath the point they are to operate do not have any lateral movement. If there is even a little slack then the throwing of the point becomes a hit and miss affair leading to unreliable operation. To avoid this problem the point motors were screwed to 6mm ply and then the foam was routed out underneath to a depth of ten millimetres and the ply inserted into the routed hole, being secured with the afore-mentioned Gripfill. This worked extremely well, the electrical feeds for the point motors being terminated on PCB board glued to the ply. This looked promising.
     
    Before the winter chills of 2010-2011 set in this test layout was set up in the garage. It withstood the range of temperatures encountered in the garage (I’ve yet to install heating) and held up very well. But, (there had to be a but!) It proved to be incredibly noisy. Even with cork over the foam surface each rotation of the motors in locomotives was magnified. Even smooth running wagons and coaches made a loud rumble as they ran around the test track. It turns out that the air cavities in the foam which help provide the high degree of insulation, act as miniature sound boxes amplifying every vibration of the surface.
     
    Alan had been conducting his own researching, exhibitors attending the Hampshire/Surrey/Berkshire area at the end of last year must have wondered at the guy who spent his time with an ear on the baseboard, and crawled around under baseboards to check out their construction. He dully pronounced ply built baseboards as the answer, with cork or foam underlay providing the track bed and sound deadening. Having experimented with many new fangled approaches we’d arrived back at the tried and trusted method of baseboard construction.
     
    Cruikglen will need 12 baseboards, many of them open plan to allow below the line scenery. However we decided to build a flat top baseboard to begin with, as the board I wanted to tackle first contains the MPD and has a large flat area with all the other track higher than the MPD. I’ll publish a track plan for that board next time. In the meantime I’ve included the plan which was drawn using Google Sketchup and a picture of how the real thing turned out. Without boring you with a blow by blow account of the construction,it is worth mentioning that 6mm and 9mm birch ply were purchased from a local timber merchant, who cut two sheets up to minimise the wastage and provide all of the separate lengths as determined by the drawings. For £96 I have enough pieces to build three baseboards from high quality birch ply, which at £32 per board compares favourably with commercial offerings.
     
     
     
    Sketchup drawings of closed top baseboard construction.
     

     
    The underside. This board has many points and so this rectangular strengthening lattice is dictated. On boards without such an issue I’ll use diagonal straighteners as they provide better resistance to warping.
     

     
    Underside of the first board (actually board #4). Note that the holes are round rather than slotted (much easier to drill) and missing quarter dowel in some corners (I need to buy more). The white paint is actually a water proof sealant, the board was sealed all over before any scenic work began. The hole in the baseboard surface is to provide access to a point motor which is attached to track which rises above the baseboard.
     

  6. DaveArkley
    Armed with a copy of 'The Art of Weathering' by Martyn Welch and 'British Railway Goods Wagons in Colour' by Robert Hendry I've had my fist stab at weathering. Please let me have some feedback on these efforts, they look OK (if incomplete) to me but then I'm biased
     
    In general I want wagons to have a run down, well beaten look, as I'm modelling the end of steam BR era, so lots of equipment is just around the corner from the scrapyard.
     
     
     
    First up a unfitted Bogie Bolster C with load, requires decals and I plan to replace the couplings with home made loops and hooks. this was a Graham Farish 30T Bogie Bolster in Gulf Red.
     

     
     
    Second up a Bogie Bolster D, again requiring some decals and coupling mods. This is an N Gauge society kit.
     

     
    Last another Graham Farish Bogie Bolster (what is the correct Diagram for these?) looking pretty grubby.
     

     
    How am I doing?
     
    Cheers
    Dave
  7. DaveArkley
    One of the ‘new’ ideas I discovered, on returning to railway modelling after a twenty year break, is DCC. This is attractive to me for two reasons; firstly I can drive locomotives not blocks of track, and secondly because it holds out the hope of controlling points, signals etc. from a computer.
     
    I have a Dapol 9f which is entirely inappropriate for the branch to Belsey, but comes with a DCC socket and an opportunity to try DCC out. In order to help decide which system to buy I used my good friend Google to research the various systems available.
     
    The most cost effective way to begin with DCC is to buy a ‘starter’ set. This is usually a unit which combines the power control, command station and throttle functionality into one piece of equipment (although some also include a hand held throttle). What I wanted was a starter set which I could use to control Belsey with, yet which would still be useful when I expanded the layout to include Marsalt Gill. I joined the Yahoo DCC mailing list (http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/DCC4EVERYONE/) to see what success stories and abject failures people were experiencing and whittled the list down to the following:
     
    · Lenz Set 100 (http://www.lenz.com/products/index.htm)
     
    · Gaugemaster Prodigy Advance 2 (http://www.gaugemaster.com/gmdigital.html)
     
    · Digitrax Zephyr (http://www.digitrax.com/prd_zep_basic_set.php)
     
    · NCE Powercab
     
    Each of these is a ‘starter sets’ which would meet my requirements for running Belsey, and could be expanded by adding further power controllers. However only two of these manufacturers offer an extensive range of accessories and expansion units; Lenz and Digitrax. This turns out to be unsurprising as these two manufacturers are the designers of the two predominant DCC network protocols available today, Lenz with their XpressNet protocol, and Digitrax with their protocol, LocoNet.
     
    These two protocols define how DCC units communicate with each, not the nature of DCC decoders which live in the locomotives. The DCC ‘network’ protocol is particularly important in computer control situations, and since my long turn goal was to write my own computer control software I researched the details of XpressNet and LocoNet. This is technical stuff, down to transmission of data packets onto the bus and the command and response protocol between control units.
     
    If you never intend to write software then there is no reason why you need to know, nor care about this stuff. However after reading the technical specifications I came to the conclusion that I preferred the LocoNet implementation. LocoNet is also supported by other manufacturers including Fleischmann (http://www.fleischmann.co.uk/), CML Electronics (http://www.cmlelectronics.co.uk/) and RR-Cirkits (http://rr-cirkits.com/) to name the vendors I’ve purchased from.
     
    My modelling buddy Alan Powell is a fan of all things Fleischmann (except their painful points) so I tried out his Fleischmann Twin Centre controller. I’d installed a copy of JRMI (http://jmri.sourceforge.net/) on my laptop, a bunch of open source DCC applications available for Windows, Linux and OSX. One of the tools in JRMI allows you to monitor in real time the commands whizzing up and down the LocoNet bus, so I was able to see the protocol in action which confirmed my understanding of the capabilities of the system.
     
    I visited an exhibition to get with the aim of trying out the Digitrax Zephyr. A very patient gentleman from Ron Lines of Southampton (http://www.ronlines.co.uk/) allowed me to play with one, even fitting a Digitax decoder into my 9F and allowing me to drive for a while on a single piece of flexi track. I bought the Zephyr and three decoders there and then, and have bought more decoders from the same source since (I have no connection with Ron Lines other than being a satisfied customer.) including ‘hard wire’ decoders for conversion of non-DCC ready locomotives. How I undertook my first DCC conversion is a story for another time, but it is a very satisfying achievement.
     

     
     
  8. DaveArkley
    I've finally finished the design of Cruikglen and have posted drawings in my 'Cruikglen trackplans' gallery. Each image has brief notes attached outlining the various sections. More details will follow soon.
  9. DaveArkley
    Since the conversion of the garage has been delayed whilst I get planning permission I've decided to begin the construction of Cruikglen with a single board to keep me occupied until the real building begins.
    I chose board 4 which contains the shed and lies just beyond Cruikglen junction. It contains the most variations in height of the track bed with the Waverley line climbing to the right (as seen in the picture below), the branch falling away to the right, and the slope descending to the shed…
     
     


     
     
    Each square is 6 inches in side, the entire board being 4 foot by 2.5ft. Percentages indicate slopes other figures are spot heights above the baseboard in millimetres. Anyrail, the software I use for track planning calculates the slope between fixed heights, and the 1.9% is a ‘rounding error’ – in fact both mainline tracks slope at 2% (1 in 50). If that sounds a little steep, it is, but this is on the climb to Whitrope and it’s another excuse to use bankers for trains heading south. The different coloured track sections are track occupancy detection sections which I’ll discuss in another post.
    I’ve detailed the construction of the boards in a previous post. Board 4 has a solid top as nothing scenically descends below the shed level.
    The shed itself is 3mm above the board surface, by dint of the whole shed area being laid on thick cork tiles. The junction (which spans boards 2 and 3 to the left of board 4) is at 25mm above datum and so the track to the left of board 4 begins at 25mm above the board. There are three slopes on this board, the descending 2% slope of the branch, the rising 2% slope of the mainlines and the 3% descent into the shed area.
     
    Each of these slopes is constructed from Woodland Scenics Subterrain Inclines. These slopes are made from polystyrene and are flexible along their length allowing them to be curved to the correct track geometry. They provide smooth slopes with and a solid base for the track.
     
     
    Scenery between the inclines is built from loft insulation sheet, carved to shape and then covered with papier mache. The papier mache is torn newspaper soaked in a 50%/50% PVA/water mix. Cereal packet card is shaped and glued onto the top surface of the inclines to provide a base for ballasting and then the papier mache is overlapped onto the card to give smooth transition. Next all is coated with a brown ‘mix’ of 40% cheap sticky brown emulsion, 40% water and 20% PVA. This imparts a rough texture on the scenery, seals the papier mache and provides a tough outer shell which is ready to take scenic treatments.
     
    Here is an overview of construction work so far. The board is 180 degrees rotated from the plan above. The track bed and test laid track at the top is part of the branch sloping down toward board 5, the rising slope in the centre is the Waverley line itself, the beginning of the climb toward Whitrope. The slope nearest the bottom of the shot is the entry to the shed.
     


     
     
    The next two shots are from either end of the shed area, which nicely illustrate the smooth (albeit steep) slope into the shed, and the sweeping, more gently rising track bed for the mainline. The cork tiled area will be the location of the shed and coaling/ash/water roads. The pink foam to the left of the second shot has been carved and sanded and awaits its papier mache covering.
     
     


     


     
     
    This final shot shows the branch dropping away towards board 5. The slope for the branch is another section of the Woodland Scenics Incline having been covered in cereal packet card and papier mache, before being painted with the emulsion/water/PVA mix. The track bed is Woodland Scenics N scale Trackbed on which I’ve laid some Peco code 55 flex track.
    The near vertical gaps in the scenic slopes to the side of the track are gaps into which I will place moulded rocks, before adding dirt and flock to the slopes. The scenic material will be laid on either side and flush with of the track bed which will be ballasted and weathered before the rest of the scenic are completed.
     


     
    In my next post I'll discuss the wiring for this board and my plans for computer control.
  10. DaveArkley
    Slow progress but I’m eating the elephant one bite at a time.
     
    The branch
     
    The first track work I’ve tackled is the section of the branch which dives down on board 4. In the last post I described how this was laid, on Woodland Scenics track bed. I’ve since bought an airbrush, so after practising on scrap lengths of track I sprayed the sleepers and rails with Lifecolour acrylic sleeper grime. After a couple of light coats I achieved the look I wanted, a dirty grey. I prefer this to the rust colours often used.
    After a first stab at ballasting the track I have come to the conclusion that the track bed is too high and inappropriate for a single track branch line. So I filled the bottom of the branch cutting with filler to bring each side of the line up to rail level. and re-ballasted with Woodland Scenics Fine grey ballast. IT didn’t go too well, I think the glue mix as too weak resulting in patchy ballast on the shoulders. I’ll be patching this up with an application of neat PVA in the bald spots. While ballasting I’ve managed to chip away some of the brown emulsion/PVA mix used as a base colour on the scenery, looks like another coar once I’ve finished working in that area.
     
     
     

     
    Board 4 Ballasted branch line
     
    Album: Cruikglen construction
    Uploaded 14 Dec 2011 - 22:27
     
    The shed
     
    Next to be tackled was the track work for the shed area. First I printed a one-to-one scale copy of the Anyrail track plan for this board and then in true Blue Peter fashion cut and taped together the sheets for the shed area. Here’s how it looks in situ.
     
     

     
    Board 4 Shed track plan
     
    Album: Cruikglen construction
    Uploaded 14 Dec 2011 - 22:28
     
    In the above picture you can see the branch on the far right, the white Woodland Scenics 2% incline which will carry the dual mainline tracks and the paper plan for the shed area. The line vanishing into the bottom right corner will be laid on another Woodland Scenics incline which rises at 3% from the shed area to the junction. Whilst 1:33 is un-prototypically steep the engines will be running light into this area, and tests with half a dozen different locos have reassured me that they can cope.
    I’ve laid the points in position to get verify positioning, the points and turntable will be secured in place first and then flex laid to join them all together. One of the great things with Anyrail is that once the flex is shaped to give smooth transitions into the points then the exact length of the flex can be seen and cut ensuring good fidelity to the plan when the track is laid. By prodding through the plan I transferred the precise position and outline of each point and the turntable onto the board surface. After cross checking carefully with a ruler the laying of points and installation of the turntable could commence!
     
     
    This next picture shows the turntable glued in place. It looks like a standard Peco turntable, but is in fact far from it. I’ll post details of the modifications made to this and the motorisation which enables rotation with a loco on board at 1 (yep one) RPM. Notice some of the weathering has flacked from the bottom of the pit, so some touching up will be required. I’m also planning to line the vertical walls of the pit with brick plasticard, weather the deck and add the railings. More on the turntable later.
     
     

     
    Board 4 Turntable In place
     
    Album: Cruikglen construction
    Uploaded 14 Dec 2011 - 22:28
     
    Next to be fitted were the first two points at the far end of the shed. The position of these is key to ensure a straight approach to the slope out of the shed area, I want the transition onto the slope to be dead flat. The next picture shows the two pints glued in place. The straight rails on the right were aligned with a steel rule to ensure that the shed approach track runs right up the centre of the incline.
     
     

     
    Board 4 First Points In place
     
    Album: Cruikglen construction
    Uploaded 14 Dec 2011 - 22:29
     
    These three pieces of track represent some 10 hours of work to fit and test. Why so long you may ask? The points are prepared so as not to rely on the blades for power to the frog, have slow motion point motors fitted and have been wired in to the DCC bus. I’ll cover the detail of the point work in another post, and the 3 hours spent working out why it initially shorted every time a loco bridged both frogs.
     
    The next point to be laid is one of the new Peco three way asymmetric points. The Traintronics point motors which I’ve used for the first two points are too large to fit under the three way point and so I have some of the new Cobalt Digital motors on order, meaning that point laying has stopped for the moment.

     
    Retaining Wall
     
    Most of the shed will be surrounded by retaining wall. On the right (as photographed below) the main line embankment needs to be shored up to stop it spilling into the yard. The next picture shows the mainline incline on the right, the shed points to the left and couple of lengths of cereal packet card between. This card will form the base onto which Scalescenes retaining wall will be glued. More foam will be added and sanded roughly to shape to fill between the Woodland Scenics incline and the card, and then gaps will be back filled with filler so as to smoothly meet the card. The foam/filler will then be covered in papier mache and painted brown as can be seen on the right. Next I’ll trim and sand the top of the card to follow the contours of the scenery, such that the coloured side is completely hidden.
     
     

     
    Board 4 Scenery between the mainline and shed
     
    Album: Cruikglen construction
    Uploaded 14 Dec 2011 - 22:30
     
    Looking from the shed side the shape which the retaining wall will follow can be clearly seen, including some nice curves. The retaining wall can be lower to the right of this picture as the mainline incline is lower at this end, and the shed incline higher.
     
     

     
    Board 4 Retaining wall base from shed
     
    Album: Cruikglen construction
    Uploaded 14 Dec 2011 - 22:31
     
    Sorry this one has been so long, I’ll try and keep the next ones shorter and more frequent.
     
    Happy modelling
    Dave
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