I mentioned in my last post the Albert dock branch. This is a self contained 'mini' layout located on the opiset side of the garage behind the door. The layout is joined to the main garden layout via an incline running down to the parcels depot. Last night I layed all the track in the dock area todays job wiring it up! Here's some pics of the work in progress. Note the track decending under the road bridge (the headshunt is actualy level)…………

I bet that APT looks the business in full flight around the garden!

And they say Im a fast mover !!! There cant be much room left in your garage now ?

How much room do you have on your headshunt, is it long enough to get the stock from the dockside in and out?? Just asking as by reversing the crossover you could get straight off the dockside and onto the branchline ?

John
RJR

Sure wish I could help you with your reed switch problem Dave, but I'm afraid that would be worse than the blind leading the sighted.

I can keep you motivated though ……. Great Job!

Wayne

I bet that APT looks the business in full flight around the garden

One day hopefully! To be honist the APT is a bit of a disapointment. The articulated bogies keep derailing partly due to the 'tilting' mech and partly the way that the bogies are in two halves. One of the power cars has two powered bogies while the other power car has been adapted to provide extra pickups. They are electricaly conected via a brass bar between the cast bogies with the other conection via the brass rod running allong the roofs. I have managed a lap of the garden with it but it was being powered by a 24v power supply!! The train is on the 'to do' list over the winter when I will be looking at rebuilding the troublesome bogies and possably remotoring the power car with a newer five pole motor. I have even thought about ditching the origanal drive mech and replacing it with black beatle motor units mounted in the articulated bogies!

There cant be much room left in your garage now ?

How much room do you have on your headshunt, is it long enough to get the stock from the dockside in and out?? Just asking as by reversing the crossover you could get straight off the dockside and onto the branchline ?

I did think of reversing the crossover but that would make shunting 'too easy' The headshunt is long enough to acomadate an 08+wagon so the dock area is a bit of a shunting puzzle. The station is long enough to acomadate four mk2's whilst leaving enough clearence for the loco to run round. This will be usefull for 'reliving my youth' as many happy times were spent at Kyle filming the 37's in the 1980's. Most of the floor area is now taken up in the garage. The main station area and approch run the full 16 feet along one wall, the TMD sits on an island in the middle with the canal section at the end of this while the new extension runs up a very narrow shelf across the back where the big door was then continues up under some shelves to the dock area situated behind the small door. The new bit is aprox 15 inches wide by six foot long. Just to complicate things further my origanal N gauge layout is ten feet by six feet and sits above the 00 one. Hence the big legs sticking out of the tops of buildings!! One day I might even get round to finishing this other layout. As the garage has a 'proper' roof i'm in the process of bording out the attic space above with the eventual aim of moving my music studio up there although I did get ideas for a third layout………:hmm

Managed to get a bit further forward with the automated control side after almost a week of head scratching. Now at last I have the system working 'almost' as it should with just a few 'minor' mods to do mainly the repositioning of three reed switches. I also have some reeds to fit outdoors to fully control the sidings. The operation is now as follows. Three complete trains are held in the sidings. An aproching train will now trigger the system as it leaves Lakeside station. This will set the first train in motion and this will pass the incoming train as they are both on the lower wall section between the garage and the garden. The incoming train will take the place of the one just departed and in the process set the points and track power ready for the next train in the sequence to depart. Again the sequence is repeated with the incoming train setting the outgoing train in motion. As a fail safe I will be modifying the track supply to the incoming line so that the power is kept off untill the sidings ahead are clear to accept the incoming train. So far the system has used eight relays to control the point motors, three relays that latch in turn controling what siding is powered, a further three relays that actualy switch the power to the track (controled by the previous three), two relays wired as a latch that enable/disable the reed switches thus preventing triggering by the loco/dvt at the rear of the train, three relays doing the same function with the power selection reed switches and finaly another three that take care of the exit  control. CONFUSED. Now you can see why it's taken a week to get this thing working!! I still have to add the relays for the fail safe modification and signaling but for now it works perfectly. I will take some pics at the weekend when i've finished tidying up the wiring but as for a wiring diagram DONT GO THERE!!

:thud 

On a lighter note thanks to HP st Davids station now has a backscene in place. I first printed off the sky. This took 28 sheets of A4 paper. I found that setting the printer to photo paper but putting good quality 'normal' paper in the printer gave the best result. After sticking up the sky I then printed off some buildings. These were then cut round with a knife and stuck onto the sky background. The buildings have been positioned slightly higher that normal to emphersise that the platform level is actualy below street level. Now that the backscene is in place work can finaly start of the overall roof. Another job done has been the painting of the wall section leading up to the garden. This has realy brought out the track balast effect that was sprayed last week. The 'new' railway room (formaly the garage!) is starting to come together now with the instalation of the insulation up in the roof (try saying that quickly after a few!). Today I got some frames for the prints I bought last weekend and these look realy cool now they are hanging up. As tomorrow is the last 'quiet' day of our holiday we have decided to go to Morcombe for the day so any pics of the updates will proberly be taken on saturday and uploaded sat night.

:thumbs 

looking forward to the pics.

John
RJR

Dave

Now you have sorted that out you will just have to sit back and watch sounds like one of those wiring knightmares but you stuck with it and achieved what you wanted well done.

cheers Brian.W

Ok guys here's some pics as promised…….


First up is st Davids with the new backscenes taking shape. Note that the buildings have been set higher than usual due to the station platforms being below street level. I was'nt quite sure about the buildings on the arch section at first but then when I looked again through a section of overall roof the efect is quite convincing!


 Next up is the previous weeks 'headache'. The wiring is still to be tidyed up when the other 'additions' have been added. The top pic shows the 'mimic' display for the system. This was an after thought left over from all the teathing problems. The box is proberly about 2"x4" with the diagram produced on the PC. This shows the switching of the points, the siding in operation and the status of the track supplies in and out of the system. These are indicated using bi coloured leds with green for power on and red for power off. So the example in the pic shows the points set for siding 1 while the red led shows that the relays for the track power have been switched. The bi colour led at the top is showing green meaning that the track supply is on to the section leaving the sidings this will turn red when the power is switched off. The bottom bi colour still needs wiring in. 



This is the mess controling everything. Starting at the left are three relays controling the exit routine. The three smaller relays behind them control the failsafe of the reed switches for the track supply selection. This moves nicley on to the next three relays on the right. These form a three way latch and control the three relays mounted above them that switch the track power. Continuing right we have the eight relays that switch the point motors. These are double pole single throw relays where one set of contacts fires the point motors while the other set is used to switch the other controls. Above this bank of relays are two small relays that enable/disable the reed switches to prevent triggering by the loco/dvt on the back of the train. On the end is the CDU powering the point motors while the strip of termanal block is for the switch contacts on the point motors themselves. These are used for the 'mimic' panel.

 

Here's the pics that I got last week now framed up along with some pics taken of the outside wall section……..

With sunny weather this afternoon I decided to install the outside reed switches for the automated storage sidings. Well one thing lead to another and……….



 …….I made a start on the outside catenery! This is the north end of Parkway station where I have installed two later style supports between the platforms. These were quite easy to make using old lengths of rail for the masts and small brass rod for the headspans. The big diffrence with these supports is the experemental use of jewelmaking beads for insulators. I will add the construction of these to the catenery thread when I make the next lot for the south end of the station.

nice bit of work Dave, those beads look ok,good idea .

lol::lol::lol::cool:

Amazing, Ive paid money to see model railway tourist attractions that have not been as well presented !! When are you opening the doors to the public !

John
RJR

Dave you are abusy person you seem to have acomplished a great deal and all of it is looking really great

Catenary outside aswell i dont think i have ever seen anybody do that before i would imagine you must be one of the first to do that on a model garden railway

Dave are the magnets you have to fit to your locos very big ?

I have wondered about the use of reed switches in the past but i did not look that much there may be a use for them when i do my extention.

cheers Brian .W

What i would give for this layout at my house and garden. Every time i come on this thread it just amazes me each time, i just love it. I see different things each time i look. As some one said i would gladly come along and pay money to see this layout. Brilliant.

Phill

Thanks guys, maybee I should have an open day with the proceeds going to pay off my overdraft!! :hmm

are the magnets you have to fit to your locos very big ?

No they are roughly about the size of a 5p. I got mine quite cheeply from a shop down the town. Well today I got a bit sidetracked again. I started off by painting the OHLE that I built yesterday then I started trying to make the hornby platforms look better. I had already painted the tops matt black a while back but they were still lacking somthing. So the edging stones were painted with a stone colour and a white line added to the edge. Then I added a yellow warning line down one side. The subways were then painted along with the small waiting room. When dry I used a strip of brass as a straight edge and scored some lines across the stones along the length of the platform. I also scored some brickwork on the walls around the subway entrances. The supporting walls of the platforms were given a coat of brick red along with the wall behind the station then the brush found its way on to the rails……..





I then decided that somthing was missing………..

Love the layout Dave but you are driving me crazy with your photo montages as I'm trying to get some pictures for the front page. Any chance of a couple of individual photographs, just to please an old man?

Ok boss no probs.:thumbs

Cheers Dave, looking forward to them.

Ok here's a few pic's for Bob……..

Great, just what I needed. Thanks Dave.