Alexandra Wharf V2 - OO in a Really Useful Box

[TechnicArrow]

Cheers @Ian Holmes!

 

2 hours ago, The Bandit said:

Love the after dark shots. Your auto uncoupler is great - one of the best I’ve seen. Is it a hinged rod under the baseboard or can’t you give your secret away!

 

Thank you! I don't think it's particuarly novel, but it's very easy to blend in with all the inset track. I explained it back on Page 2, it's just a couple of bits of paperclip and some thread:

Just above that post is one explaining the more complex affair for the sector-plate uncoupler; unfortunately that one, the important one designed to help with uncoupling in an awkward location, is broken at present! I need to flip the layout over to sort that one out. Never ending, is it...

[lazythread]

That's a great video!!

 

Looking closely at the pannier, it seems to me that the chassis is binding, which is why it runs unevenly at slow speed. It seems to stiffen up when the right hand coupling rods are at the bottom of their rotation. There may be nothing wrong with your trackwork. I may be wrong but hope this helps.

 

 

[Sweet pea]

Lovely video of your running session. The after dark shots look great. 

 

[sb67]

On 23/02/2022 at 11:52, lazythread said:

That's a great video!!

 

Looking closely at the pannier, it seems to me that the chassis is binding, which is why it runs unevenly at slow speed. It seems to stiffen up when the right hand coupling rods are at the bottom of their rotation. There may be nothing wrong with your trackwork. I may be wrong but hope this helps.

 

 

 

That's interesting, I've a couple of 0-6-0's that behave like that, do you k now of a way of checking and sorting that? 

[Andrew D]

Woot woot! Great video 

[TechnicArrow]

Look who's back!

I haven't touched this thread, or pretty much RMWeb at all, for over 2 months now... it's almost like I've taken on a major scouting role or something that uses up every spare second I have! And I still have a degree to do as well...

 

And yet, amongst all that, I've managed to spend the last two evenings playing railways. Specifically, tidying up the last gaping hole on the layout - the quayside.

 

Firstly, as a reminder since I haven't managed to restore the missing photos to this thread yet, here's how the layout has looked for the past few months:

 

Not bad, but the front was decideldy unfinished and scruffy.

The first step was to add brickwork to the wall; I wanted some dark brown brick, but only had orangish of the grain silo or the pale-pink of the warehouses. I chose orange.

Once I'd applied that, I set about neatening up the scruffy cardboard frontage with a layer of white card. I don't imagine it'll last very long and ideally it'd be a darker colour to not blend with the concrete surfacing, but it does the trick.

 

 

 

Much better already! I still had to leave gaps for the point rods and it's not the smotthest of covers, but better than nowt.

 

Then this evening I set about the shiny new brickwork with some watery acrylic black. I was surprised how well this worked, it was very produced exactly what I was after. The point rods and uncoupling threads are now blended into the wall as various pipes. It doesn't necessarily make sense to have pipes protruding into a dock, but maybe it's not a very well-used dock anymore! Still need to do something about that "water" surface though...

 

 

Whilst I had the paints and glues out I took the opportunity to tidy up a few other corners of the layout. Firstly, the warehouse gained a hoist:

 

The thread is passed over a rod under the canopy and through a hole in the top doors; inside, a nut acts as a counterbalance to the pallet load so it can be positioned as high or low as I fancy. One day I might install a mechanism that lets it continously rise and fall, just for fun... Meanwhile, how this chap got the forklift in here I'm not really sure, he's going to have a job getting it out again!

 

 

And as usual, I can't post without some additional posed photos, could I?

 

 

 

And finally...

This is what a normal student's desk looks like, right? As well as Alexandra Wharf there's some bits floating around in front of the monitor, and the corner of Eastnate Dairy is just about visible on the shelf above it, so it's probably at least 75% railway. Oh and those loose bits might assemble themselves into an addtional diorama soon, so watch this space!

[SteveyDee68]

Always enjoy an update on this thread! Looking very good indeed!

 

Steve S

[Sweet pea]

This micro layout just seems to get better and better as time goes by. Hats of to you Sir. 👍

[Ian Holmes]

Brilliant! What more can I say?

 

Ian

[SteveyDee68]

4 hours ago, Ian Holmes said:

Brilliant! What more can I say?

 

Ian

How about “This needs to be in the Micro Model Railway Dispatch”?!

 

😉

[Ian Holmes]

12 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

How about “This needs to be in the Micro Model Railway Dispatch”?!

 

😉

I think I've said it once already. Pages are waiting in a future issue of The Dispatch...

 

 

Ian

[TechnicArrow]

Not really a proper modelling update, but an update nevertheless...

 

Once again, Alexandra Wharf is packed up ready to move, such is the life of a student. It's why I built the layout-in-a-box though, it makes moving a breeze... in theory!

In practice, the varying additional layouts, bits and bobs add up to make quite a complex puzzle. We've got Alexandra Wharf, Eastnate Dairy and Bearley Yard to go away somehow, not to mention the locos and tools...

 

The first step is to empty out the Really Useful Box (as per it's namesake, it tends to get used for storage), and plonl the layout in it. It won't fit like that though - just as well all the buildings come apart, isn't it!

 

After much jiggling, packing, rearranging, and cursing at various modifications that mean things don't fit as neatly as they used to, it all goes away (to some degree). That's a lot of railway in a very small space!

 

Now I've just got to do the rest of my room, before Wednesday! Chaos as usual.

You've probably noticed that I haven't been very active recently, and that looks like a trend that will continue; I'm not even sure if I will unpack all of this at my next house, since I'm only htere for 3 months. But in the longer term I do have some grand plans up my sleeve, so all is not lost just yet...

[TechnicArrow]

I just popped back to this old thread to do a small update, and realised I've not touched this thread for nearly a year. Oops!

 

I should start this update by winding back to October. When I moved into this house, I immediately spotted that the smaller windowsill in my room had a perfect width and depth...

 

...and hence the layout has been sat there ever since!

 

But last weekend, I finally thought it was time to make an adjustment. In this windowsill location it's very enclosed; this is fine at the right-hand side, since the siding becomes very narrow, but the low wall and gate at the left-hand end wasn't really making much sense. Therefore, on a recent trip home I retrieved the end warehouse from the original Alexandra Wharf. It was very quickly plonked in place, and immediately makes a massive visual difference!

 

 

A few modifications were needed to suit it to the current layout - most notably I needed to shift the main doors to fit the track alignment. This meant the original pillars didn't make much sense, so I've added the horizontal girder above the ground floor (made from strips of lasercut card offcuts). I then added a fresh pair of doors from scribed card. The ground floor ended up with a different colour brick, mostly since I didn't have enough of the original colour, but also to add more visual interest to the fairly imposing structure. Modellers licence allows me to reason this warehouse may have been repointed or indeed rebuilt at some point! Then just a few final details - door hinges, warning signs, and a light black wash weathering to tie it in the new material.

 

And just like that, it looks like it was always there! I'm proud of how well the "new" structure blends into the old scene, and it makes a much better backdrop to the overall layout. As can be seen from the following gratuitous black & white photo...

 

That's all - just a quick update with the (re)addition, and to reassure that this layout isn't entirely dead.

 

What the photos don't show is that this layout is effectively a large diorama now rather than an operational railway. Every now and then I think I would like to get it moving again; I really enjoy the shunting puzzle format, the mechanical crane, and of course it is home to the Barclay I purchased especially for it. Unfortunately, neither the layout nor the Barclay have ever ran particularly satisfactorily; the rails accrue an oily dust no other layout is afflicted with, and despite electrofrog points, feeds to all tracks and thorough cleaning, the electrical continuity remains patchy. The final nail in the operational coffin has been Watchesh, which is showing a lot more promise in running quality. But it's still here, and won't be going anywhere soon - so one day I may revive it!

[SteveyDee68]

Really like the way you have now boxed in (no pun intended) the wharf with the tall buildings. And lovely to see this boxfile micro again after it being away from RMWeb for so long!

 

Must pull my finger out and get on with my own micro/s!!

 

Steve S

Edited June 4, 2023 by SteveyDee68

[john new]

On 02/06/2023 at 23:53, TechnicArrow said:

I just popped back to this old thread to do a small update, and realised I've not touched this thread for nearly a year. Oops!

 

I should start this update by winding back to October. When I moved into this house, I immediately spotted that the smaller windowsill in my room had a perfect width and depth...

 

...and hence the layout has been sat there ever since!

 

But last weekend, I finally thought it was time to make an adjustment. In this windowsill location it's very enclosed; this is fine at the right-hand side, since the siding becomes very narrow, but the low wall and gate at the left-hand end wasn't really making much sense. Therefore, on a recent trip home I retrieved the end warehouse from the original Alexandra Wharf. It was very quickly plonked in place, and immediately makes a massive visual difference!

 

 

A few modifications were needed to suit it to the current layout - most notably I needed to shift the main doors to fit the track alignment. This meant the original pillars didn't make much sense, so I've added the horizontal girder above the ground floor (made from strips of lasercut card offcuts). I then added a fresh pair of doors from scribed card. The ground floor ended up with a different colour brick, mostly since I didn't have enough of the original colour, but also to add more visual interest to the fairly imposing structure. Modellers licence allows me to reason this warehouse may have been repointed or indeed rebuilt at some point! Then just a few final details - door hinges, warning signs, and a light black wash weathering to tie it in the new material.

 

And just like that, it looks like it was always there! I'm proud of how well the "new" structure blends into the old scene, and it makes a much better backdrop to the overall layout. As can be seen from the following gratuitous black & white photo...

 

That's all - just a quick update with the (re)addition, and to reassure that this layout isn't entirely dead.

 

What the photos don't show is that this layout is effectively a large diorama now rather than an operational railway. Every now and then I think I would like to get it moving again; I really enjoy the shunting puzzle format, the mechanical crane, and of course it is home to the Barclay I purchased especially for it. Unfortunately, neither the layout nor the Barclay have ever ran particularly satisfactorily; the rails accrue an oily dust no other layout is afflicted with, and despite electrofrog points, feeds to all tracks and thorough cleaning, the electrical continuity remains patchy. The final nail in the operational coffin has been Watchesh, which is showing a lot more promise in running quality. But it's still here, and won't be going anywhere soon - so one day I may revive it!

It is on the window ledge. Somewhere in a thread about layouts in sheds and garages there are posts about a phenomenon of poor railhead conditions on layouts where IIRC they are subject to wide ranges of heat and humidity. Could this be why you get this if it gets a lot of sun at times so heats  and cools regularly?

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by john new
Typo correction

[TechnicArrow]

3 hours ago, john new said:

It is on the window ledge. Somewhere in a thread about layouts in sheds and garages there are posts about a phenomenon of poor railhead conditions on layouts where IIRC they are subject to wide ranges of heat and humidity. Could this be why you get this if it gets a lot of sun at times so heats  and cools regularly?

 

Could well be! The tall backscene means the rails are never in direct sunlight, but it is a south-facing room. The room in general varies quite significantly between day and night, especially at the moment, and I would not be surprised if the windowsill would be exacerbating these variances.

 

Either way, I've only got the one controller and it's currently wired up to Watchish, so I doubt Alexandra Wharf will be seeing moving trains anytime soon unfortunately. Maybe when I get around to buying some two-pin connectors and bits.