Hi all

At 11.20am on October 1st, my Class 20 with an unlikely train comprising an ex-PO coal wagon and a 4-wheel brake in BR maroon circulated the shed on the down line for 3 or 4 laps.

The first train to run

 :chicken :chicken :chicken

Very beer-fueled afternoon……………….hic!

Bashing on….

:doublethumb          Well done……..you must be a very happy camper.

Hi Barry. Very well done. You seem to have been so down on yourself , but of course you have been pulling our little legs. You were secretly confident all the time, I’m certain after the way you found my famous short circuit, which I am still grateful for. Best wishes Kevin 

Wow Barry - congratulations !  Did you crack a bottle of bubbly to celebrate ?   :cheers

It's a great feeling when the first train runs.  From now on, you can test as well as lay - just make sure the former doesn't take over from the latter ………….. :cool wink.  

John/Kevin/Peter - thanks for your comments.

Spurred on by the sight of something going round, I have gained new energy and energised the points and track for the PW yard at the end of Yarslow and got the Up line working as well - 2 trains circulating at once bought a tear to this man's eye.  Tomorrow I hope to have a bash at the final few storage sidings (including the cartridge) so that I can finally complete the whole of the storage area and think about getting some more trains out.

At the moment, only the recent loco purchases (2 x J27's and a sick Q6) circulate with the "unboxed" rolling stock acquisitions that live in a plastic container.  That said, I can muster a 28-wagon freight to represent the longest trains proposed and they look great!!

This afternoon I made a list of the jobs I want  to get done before I start on the peninsular.  It looked a bit daunting but having a list focusses the mind and after ticking a few jobs off today, spirits are on the up.

For those wanting to see more (and, unfortunately, moving pictures of the author  :shock:), there are regular postings on my YouTube channel - just search "Yarslow Model Railway".  Subscriptions always welcomed!!!

Bashing on……….

Hi Barry.   Thank you for your reply. Why is the Q 6 Loco sick? And if I was a good kit builder, I wouldn’t have so many wagons, but the part built wagon kits that I have would get finished. I should have begun this Railway adventure, albeit Model, when I was working because since retirement my schedule has gone out of the window. When I first retired and my Brother was still alive I had a schedule and I used to stick to it, I even took my brother halfway around the World by plane and train . Best wishes Kevin 

When I say "sick", I mean, the Q6 is now a non-runner  

Having started smoking (!!) the poor thing only runs for an inch or two before stopping.  If I turn the controller off and then apply power again, it runs another inch before stopping once more.

I will be chatting with Hattons on the morning.

Meanwhile, I have wired 18 of the 21 sets of points at Yarslow into Peco lever frames - I had a few, bought a couple from the club stand and acquired a final one online.  The handles are all different colours but I don't mind.

I have also approved the final design of the Master Cab Control Panel and hope to get that back from the graphic designers this week.  I will then drill the holes for the rotary and on/off switches before wiring it all up.  That will allow me to wire up the various controllers already installed and do away with the plethora of jump leads and crocodile clips!  I will then have the 2 storage siding controllers in and the 4 at Yarslow - main lines, yard and PW yard.  The latter is already (bodged) in an allows me to shunt a few wagons whilst 2 trains circulate on the main lines.

The next big job after that is to fit the cartridge racks which will now sit over the storage sidings and may incorporate the storage controllers and secondary control panel (for the terminating trains from Trinity Square).  Then I can cut the cartridge bay out of the baseboard and build a couple of cartridges to prove that they work.  The Trinity Square storage sidings are 90% done - just a few yards of track to lay at the UP end.  I will leave the loco storage area until later.

Once the final Yarslow point motors are done, the MCCP wired, the cartridges built and the final couple of storage sidings laid, the messy in-shed jobs are done so I can think about the peninsular which incorporates the branch and Trinity Square.

Always good to have a plan!!

Bashing on………..

Hi Barry.  Thank you for your reply.   My ambitions are not as great as yours, a shy Southerner I fancied the near naked unfinished look about it hornby hornby Q1 which got a bad write up from Petermac no less. As I understand it was a Southern Workhorse I watched the first video and became even more interested in kit building , although I am useless at it. Patience which I haven’t got much of, plenty of part built kits I have a plenty. And you wouldn’t believe it, but, I have just purchased another kit, I cannot even get the scenery done, too busy shunting, when I can manage the stairs.   Best wishes Kevin 

Hi Barry.  Following on from my previous reply, at the time of writing. I am happy with WIT Points , but, if I feel that I am fit enough to extend my two part plank. Then I would like to purchase a point motor and utilise that point. But that is another story. Best wishes Kevin 

More progress as we go into October.  The picture below shows the cartridge racks built over the storage tracks giving me somewhere to store 11 -12 cartridges for those trains that dont run very often.  The cartridge aperture has been cut and the approach track fixed in.  I need to build a couple of cartridges now to determine an efficient design.  The trains here are made up of all that "unboxed" stock that I own - easy to liberate from its crate!



The sick Q6 finally took up smoking and so has gone back to Hattons for a refund  .  There are still plenty of wagons needed so I guess spending £100 on another Q6 "just because I like them" was a bit extravagant!! - serves me right………



This picture represents the completion of a massive job - climbing under the baseboard 21 times to connect up the point motor wiring back to these levers.  They are Peco units that I acquired yonks ago.  Why I didn't run wiring for the control is beyond me - I did all the connections for frog switching and even paired up the cross-overs etc.  On the final boards over the door, I did attach control wire but not for the majority of units on the 3 large boards.

Stupid boy!!

The CDU seen hanging down will be hot-glued to the underside of the baseboard in due course.

My final big job is the location and wiring of the controllers for the main circuits and storage area.  4 controllers at Yarslow and 3 in storage need to be wired in.  When that is done the Master Cab Control Panel goes in and I will move on to the peninsular as mentioned earlier.  However, I've also been laying the Trinity Square storage tracks during odd visits to the shed and that has started me thinking that I could get all the trains out into storage.  With over 50 to sort out, set up and couple up (particularly the Bachmann coach connection system), that is not going to be a 5-minute job but it will allow me to get totally distracted playing trains when I don't fancy building anything.

On the other hand, that could be very dangerous…………..

Bashing on…

Hopefully this screen print of an Excel spreadsheet will come out OK.  This is the Train Table for the layout showing the 57 trains - 17 in Up storage, 17 in Down storage, 6 in Trinity Square storage, 3 in Wythesney storage (connection with ex LYR branch), 11 in cartridges, 2 branch trains (held either at Highmarsh or Yarslow) and the Inspection Saloon held in the Trinity Square storage area.

The loco allocations have evolved as the fleet has evolved and there yet could be changes but this is pretty close I reckon.  Some trains arrive in the storage area into a dead-end siding and need another engine to pull them out again.  These engines are shown as a "rotation loco".  They apply mainly to the Trinity Square traffic.

Hi Barry.  That is the curse of a large layout, green with/envy for go?( I don’t do envy) but, if I had a grand design layout? Rather than climbing under the counter so many times messing around with a hot 🥵 soldering iron I would have installed hinges to access the wiring.   Best wishes Kevin 

I’m just catching up. Great news about getting things running but yes it can be very distracting!
Do you have enough stock to readily stock the yard?

Hi Chris

I have enough locos and coaches but am about 100 wagons short.  That said, the lengths of the sidings are measured for your average 16T open (e.g. 20 wagons, 26 wagons etc) and, of course, when I add longer wheelbase, hopper and tanker stock, those numbers change - normally downwards.  I expect that my 100 wagon deficit will turn out to be nearer 80.

I have enough brake vans and so can set up all of the freight trains with some of them a bit short.  Those services where the consist changes (main line stopping freight, Trinity Square vans trip and ballast etc) will be made up at minimum lengths and I can add to them later.

The advantage of this approach is that I can seize on any bargains that I find, rather than be in a mad rush to populate the trains.  I found a Bachmann "Coal Trader" pack of 3 opens on eBay for £25 as new the other day - I budget for £15 a wagon so items like this are readily jumped on.

Barry

Isn't it strange how quickly we adapt to price increases ………………..

Your comment about budgeting £15 per wagon is interesting Barry.  Not so long ago, I considered £12 to be "over the top" when I was buying plenty of open wagons in the £7.50 to £10 bracket.  I note a simple brake van is now over £20 …………

I particularly find this problematic when wanting to fit sound to my locos.  I've recently purchased the lovely Oxford Rail N7 at what appeared to be a bargain price.  I decided to use the "savings" toward fitting sound so also bought a Zimo chip, speaker and stay-alive for me to fit here.  The end result was a small but very nice looking 0-6-2 tank engine with sound through a not too exciting speaker for over £200 - and that was without VAT (which the French authorities kindly didn't charge) !!!!

Alas, there won't be too many of those heading in my direction for the rest of this year ………………… :sad:

As it is, having had to reduce the size of my layout when we moved house, I need to move some of my larger locos to more appropriately sized layouts ………….  Not sure yet, what the market is like for UK outline stuff over here and I flatly refuse to sell to the well known "box shifters" who only appear to offer enough to cover postage charges plus a pint of weak beer.  :hmm

Out in the shed for an hour this afternoon testing a few engines playing trains.  :lol: :lol:

I have wired up all the points at Yarslow so set about doing a bit of shunting, including dropping a brake van into the siding at the end of the platform.  Points pair 10 sets the access from the goods loop and pulling 11 accesses the siding/clears the trap point.

Problem!  One half of points pair 10 is the single slip on the main line - I assumed that throwing 10 would allow a train to reverse into the goods loop and it did not occur to me that I would need to access the brake van siding without wanting to access the main line.  As a result, when point pair 10 is thrown, the single slip blades change which, whilst it does not affect the routing of the main line, does change the polarity of the frog in the slip and thus the train stops.

Simple solution - split points pair 10 into 2 separate units.  Disconnecting lever 11, I used that to drive the single slip half and then allocated 22 to the brake van siding point/trap point pair.  That number is out of sequence in the track plan so I am assuming that the siding was added later and the signal box lever frame amended by utilising the first available lever. :pathead

I knew that testing was a good idea!!!!!!!!!

Bashing on….

[user=2006]Barry Miltenburg[/user] wrote:

Out in the shed for an hour this afternoon testing a few engines playing trains.  :lol: :lol:



I knew that testing was a good idea!!!!!!!!!

Bashing on….

Hang on there - I thought you said "playingTrains" ?   

[user=2006]Barry Miltenburg[/user] wrote:

Hopefully this screen print of an Excel spreadsheet will come out OK.  This is the Train Table for the layout showing the 57 trains - 17 in Up storage, 17 in Down storage, 6 in Trinity Square storage, 3 in Wythesney storage (connection with ex LYR branch), 11 in cartridges, 2 branch trains (held either at Highmarsh or Yarslow) and the Inspection Saloon held in the Trinity Square storage area.

The loco allocations have evolved as the fleet has evolved and there yet could be changes but this is pretty close I reckon.  Some trains arrive in the storage area into a dead-end siding and need another engine to pull them out again.  These engines are shown as a "rotation loco".  They apply mainly to the Trinity Square traffic.

Very impressive Barry. I would be interested to hear more about how you are handling the “rotation” operation. I do this quite a lot and it would be good to hear how you handle it. 

Best wishes

Hi John

THe rotation is really simple - imagine a station with 2 platforms and 2 storage sidings off-stage.  3 sets of carriages shuttle.  2 start in the station = one departs for storage = the other one in storage comes back to the station = the second one in the station then leaves and so it goes on.

To do this, you need a spare engine which starts at the station.  When a train departs, the engine that is left at the buffers becomes the train engine for the next departure.

Its easier to do than describe.

All I need to do is to make sure that the rotation engines are appropriate for the trains being hauled.  In my case, the spare engine is created by the arrival of the "trip" freight of vans early in the morning.  The same engine leaves later in the day.  The pressure of the rotation can be eased by the use of DMUs.

Quick post.  The Master Cab Control Panel has arrived!



I need to drill the plastic-faced metal plate to take the rotary switches and the small crosses above the dials will take the on-off switches protecting the sections.  There will be a "missile" switch in the bottom right hand corner that shuts down all sections (one of 3 around the layout for safety).

The colour is intended to be BR(NE)R orange and not a bad match according to my sources.  Once drilled, I will spray a protective layer of satin varnish to avoid wear from tactile use.  The knobs for the rotaries are simply circular rather than anything with a "beak" and the switches are straightforward miniature SPST.

The sections are Up 1, Up 2, Up 3 (Up main split into 3 sections), ditto Down line, Trinity Square main line, Trinity Square yard (including loco shed), Trinity Square Storage sidings, Yarslow Yard, Yarslow PW sidings, Storage Area Loco yard, Branch and Branch loco shed.  Controllers are designated A-D at Yarslow, E-G in storage, H = branch and J & K at Trinity Square.  L is a spare in case I find the need of another one somewhere.  I thought that an "off" was a safe option when the section was not in use.

Wiring up 14 sections into 10 controllers is going to be a load of fun but at least I can do it on the bench.  All of the section and point wiring under the baseboard has caused my knee to blow up!  I have realised this week that although I am right-handed, I am left-kneed - that is I tend to rest on my left knee when working at low levels.  Things you learn about yourself as a modeller!!

Bashing on…………