Progress (or otherwise) on Jeff's new layout

Illustrating what I said before about the radii, I have posed a piece of set track 3rd radius track (Hornby R309) beside my freshly laid curves and you can see that mine are not quite to commercial radii but are somewhere between 3rd and 4th radius (inner) and 4th and 5th radius (outer), being a little closer to the second figure for each.

I also allow a little extra room for clearances between the tracks but close the spacing up a little along the straight or very gently curved stretches.

That Hornby track matches very closely the radius of the inner curve on the lower level (in fact, I used it as the template for that).

While I was waiting for some downloads and updates to complete on the train room computer (it's an old Pentium D one cobbled together from left-over bits after upgrading the good desktops), I cut some thin card to form a template for the level crossing. This will be refined a bit before finalising it.

What gates are you going to use for that Jeff?

Ed

I was planning to use the old fashioned style of gates, at least initially, with the possibility of leaving them as plug-in units so I could swap later to more modern image barriers, depending on what era I choose to run.

I do have some Peco gates, and the old Airfix level crossing kit had some half decent gates as well (now in the Dapol range).

In the meantime, I have been active again this afternoon, laying a little more third and fourth rail, with the usual swearing as chairs pinged off repeatedly into the distance! This is filling in a gap that I had previously left out, between the tunnel mouth and the crossover on the inner track. I am trialling some code 55 rail with this lot.

I still have to add a ramp on the third rail ending just before the point at the crossover.

I get that feeling that you would have preferred to put then 'third rail' in prior to the top decking going down…! ;-)

I will say, what a great job you're making of the third rail, excellent. :thumbs

Cheers, Gary.

Thanks Gary.

You are correct in a sense; I have been deliberately leaving most of the bridges, viaducts and tunnels loose for the time being, to allow me easier access to the low level tracks while I fit the third and fourth rail.

For the same reason, tempting as it is to race ahead, I have not fitted any backscenes yet, which would get in the way of laying the third rail on the upper level, even though those would improve the appearance and the photographic opportunities immensely. It really is a case of keeping an eye on the order that things must be done.

And today, while getting frustrated with the computer, I finished off the third and fourth rail laying on the branch line. I have to add the flattened ramps at the ends of the outside (third) rails … when I find where I have put them!





This now completes the third and fourth rail this end of the layout - roughly one-third of the visible track. I have to keep going through the station loops, then the crossover and plain track at the other end where I tend to take most of my photographs (it has the only greenery at the moment!).

It is interesting to contrast the difference between London Transport's bus red and train red.

I have been breaking my back lately, not just with the third and fourth rail laying, but also wiring up the points. I deliberately left the tags only slightly bent over on the Peco point motors, so I could remove them to solder the wires on without too much difficulty. That was the easy bit, as reinserting them into the slots from underneath while trying not to dislodge the Peco micro-switches proved a little awkward with a couple of the points which were positioned behind some of the framework under the boards.

Peco studs and probe are used for control, and power comes from the 16V AC output of my ancient H & M Duette. On test, even the crossover can be thrown with no hesitation whatsoever from both solenoids throwing at the same time (from the same contact). I have been using twisted pairs of wire to double-up the feeds to allow full current to be carried. Even so, I ran out of coloured-pairs for colour coding the wires, so there are a couple of mismatched feeds I'll just have to live with. While there is not much to show, the studs in the control panel give the game away, and also show that I still have one crossover left to wire up. I ran out of wire, although I know I have another reel of it somewhere l I tidied it up and can't find it!




Behind the panel, I have sealed each of the contacts with hot glue to ensure no possible contact between adjacent studs.

On a different tack, I got fed up with forgetting which side of the Power Cab Panel (PCP) I had to plug the NCE Power Cab into for the programming track, so found a white paint pen and put some marks in that I can't ignore!

I bought some more wire today to finish off the last of the point motors. I couldn't get the multi-coloured ribbon wires I like so settled for some fairly substantial automotive wire instead. It has totally destroyed any semblance of colour coding I had for the rest! It all works now, though, although one of the polarity feed wires dropped off the micro-switch while I was reseating the switch, but all fixed now.

This is very similar to the previous shot but shows the last empty holes now filled with the Peco stud contacts.




And this is what it looks like from behind. Note many of the signal switches are still unwired. That's for another day.

I wired one more signal in today, a small two-aspect signal in the tunnel mouth.






After that, I had a short running session. A Western interloper was seen passing Newton Broadway on the loop line. The green cab interior is actually just the green signal shining in and reflecting off the light cab interior walls!




All of the signals and the signal box interior lights are being run off a dedicated 12V DC supply. They are all a bit on the bright side, even with the correct resistors in line, so I will experiment later with an extra resistance at the source to step the voltage down just a little.

Jeff really enjoying  seeing the build, it all looks great, just one question are you using hornby track and points ?
:thumbs:thumbs;-):cool:

Hi and thanks for the compliment.

I use Peco code 100 flexible track and streamline electrofrog points. Generally I try to stick to medium and large radius points but may resort to smaller radius points when I get to the engine shed and goods sidings.

I found long ago that the Peco track is far more robust than any of the others I tried. Buying cheap track was a false economy, although I have no experience with more recent track from Hornby, except for using one of their R609 third radius curves as a guide for laying my own curves, which are actually slightly larger radius than that.

Great Progress Jeff,
I do like your walled Railway Cuttings very true to life.
Best of luck with all that wireing as well.
Derek.

Thanks Derek.

Some parts of the cuttings are using temporary textures and walls, mainly for photographic purposes until I can get the 'real' scenery in place. Some will be different later, other bits will remain the same but will be glued in place! The walling around he station area is the final product but needs a bit of weathering and some wall capping to complete.

All in time!

Here's one that might interest DougN: we had a friend drop over for a visit the other day. She has a G gauge garden railway but decided she rather liked the Model Rail 4mm LNER D11, so bought one and as a result, Newton Broadway had an unusual visitor. This was the first time it had been out of the box, but it ran beautifully when placed on the tracks (on DC analogue power).

The Pullman coaches were the nearest I could find to be even remotely suitable in appearance for the D11 to haul.









I have to admit that apart from cropping the photos, I have "photoshopped" the third one to eliminate the baseboard edges.

Great looking loco Jeff, and the right shade of green  :thumbs


Ed

Nice one Jeff,Very elegant looking loco,Your friend has good taste.A big change of scale for her from G gauge.
Cheers,
Derek.

great looking loco Jeff,but then I am an L N E R man layout looking good too,
:thumbs;-):cool:

Not entirely convinced that the Vollmer viaducts are doing what I want, I have been experimenting with the Wills viaduct. The Vollmer ones have the brick finish I really want but the arches are a little narrow and don't quite give the view through to the trains that I would like. The Wills one has wider arches but is only available in a stone finish.

Anyway, I bought a three-arch kit to start with and have been cutting down the piers to suit my needs. The leftover pier components have provided material for a nice buttress to support the girder bridge section. 

I have another arch and pier kit on the way. Once that arrives, I can paint it all properly, but in the meantime I have done a wash of Humbrol #29, with a thin wash of their dark grey weathering wash to fill the mortar joints. I will be picking out stones in more colours but I want to do the whole lot in one go to keep it uniform. Then the full weathering will follow.

The clearances are very tight, so I may have to remove a little from the bottom sections of the piers at the baseboard edges, or I may add a thin strip of wood to the edges (25mm x 25mm square section, perhaps?).










 I am re-using the Vollmer viaduct section further along the line, so it won't be wasted at all.

A couple of pics of my new Bachmann E4 0-6-2T, 32500, in BR late crest livery.


After initially running it in on the rolling road rollers, on DC analogue power, I found that I had to tweak the wheel-back pickups slightly as a few of them weren't quite stretching the whole distance when the axles were pushed to their sideways extremes. Otherwise, it is a superb runner.


I fitted a CT Elektronik DCX75 6-pin decoder to mine. Initially it was a bit slow and pulled weakly on DCC (but was fine on DC, before fitting the chip). I have had no previous experience with CT Elektronik, so had to do a bit of digging on the Internet to see what needed to change. Anyway, after playing with a few of the BEMF and PWM settings using JMRI Decoder Pro, I now have a powerful little locomotive with a reasonable top speed that will move fractions of a millimetre in one second on speed step 1, albeit a little "chattery" when doing this … a few more refinements to the tweaking should fix that. 


Once I have some 'definitive' settings that I am happy with, I'll post the settings here, if anyone else is interested. I need to keep track of them for myself as I have the LBSC version of the E4 still to come, and another CT Elektronik decoder awaiting the E4's arrival.