Newton Broadway

Thanks Pete.

I am spurred on by the fact I'm hosting a BRMA meeting in March, so want something to show since the last time I hosted. I'm not sure if I'll get the upper level actually running, although I may be able to get one track powered in each direction, without any point polarity switching or point motors working. We shall see ...

 

I have had to give track laying a rest while my ankles go down but I will resume on this coming weekend.

In the meantime, I have been doing little improvements at a time to the scenery around the programming track. I have positioned a hut experimentally, and am quite pleased with the appearance ... maybe this one will stay, or maybe I'll find a slightly smaller and grottier hut.

I need to add fences, and more greenery along the road verges, but overall it is shaping up well, I think.

I ordered a heap of different grass mats from Orient Express in South Australia and Modeller's Warehouse in Queensland, and used a couple here as well as some Woodland Scenics scatter materials.







While some shrubbery along the railway line would look good, I am being careful to leave the track as open as possible to allow for testing locomotives and placing the rolling road easily without knocking any of the scenery.

 

Some more photos using the new scenic area, in spite of its still unfinished state: subjects include some of my industrial fleet, soon to be joined by the Hatton's Andrew Barclay locos, a Hornby EWS class 60 (acquired recently but with the EWS body swapped onto it - the original chassis went under a class 92 body), a Hornby S15, and the KErnow gate stock. The latter two also have 'tweaked' versions to look as if they were taken in the 1950s or '60s.

 

I saw that we were up and running again, but it wouldn't let me sign in, nor would it let me reset my password until today. Having now got going again, I have a few catch up posts to do - I am combining what I have posted on some other forums into one longer post here.

I have had a great idea using the same sticky backed 'floor protector' rolls as underlay as I have used at the back of the new section (see earlier photos). For the bridges and viaducts I have been pondering how to fasten the track while still allowing for last minute adjustments, particularly as some of them are plastic or have balsa wood decks, meaning that pins won't stay put. The answer (I hope) is to use the rolls 'upside down' compared to what I did before. For the rear tracks, I used the sticky side downwards, sticking to the baseboards, then pinned the track. This time, I am gluing the non-sticky side to the bridge decks, then I'll place the track carefully on the sticky side. I can then sprinkle some ballast onto the remaining exposed sticky bits.

Photos of the track n the combined lift-out bridges. The glue (diluted) is still drying so I can't move it yet. Once it is ready, I'll lift the bridges out and run the wires from the tracks to a 4-pin connector, which will feed to the bus wires to the Command unit. This will make it the very first bit of track on the upper level to be live.








First test runs completed after temporarily wiring both tracks to the same feed from the command unit. For the future, each track will have a separate feed with a circuit breaker in line.

The 4-pin plug works well. It is only rated at 1 amp, but for a short, isolated section of track that will only see passing trains, this should not be a problem. It is essential to allow this bridge section to be removable, while the rest of the bridges and viaducts will be fixed permanently, thus won't require the plug and socket arrangement for the wiring.

The Heljan ex-BR class 05 was used first and after revealing a few dead spots with glue on the track, has run up and down both tracks in turn at dead slow speeds. A Hornby Sentinel diesel and Kernow Beatty well tank also successfully completed the sections at dead slow speeds.

There remains a bit of cleaning up of excess bits of ballast on the sleepers, and a bit of rail and ballast weathering.




Taking advantage of the new viewing angles available with the extra scenic area, I have a different shot of the SECR C class 0-6-0 592 hauling the matching 'birdcage' set.




An unscheduled new arrival is a Golden Valley Hobbies Janus diesel shunter with sound. This was an NCB blue one which was a repaired return to GVH, and was sold at a considerably reduced price because it was missing a buffer and a handrail. I have replaced the three remaining buffers as well, so it has four matching buffers now; these are turned brass items intended for WR DMUs, but look quite reasonable on the Janus. I have not yet worked on the replacement handrail.

I removed the 'National Coal Board' inscriptions and then weathered it fairly heavily with some grimy black powder and a bit of water, to bring out the grille details and also to hide the marks where the text was removed. The weathering has actually turned out a bit heavier than I intended, but I'm leaving it that way for now - I think it is growing on me! If not, I can easily remove some of it with a damp cloth.

I did have a Port of London version of this shunter on order, but the order seems to have vanished, so I am content to have this one and save some money.






I rearranged some of the trains in the fiddle yard. My back has been bad for a few days but I am able to do some of these simpler tasks for a few minutes. The idea was to check that I have the ability to run the planned 9-coach EMUs or a locomotive and 8 coaches. Two of the loops are a little short bit still accommodate 8 coaches, but at least two more can accommodate longer trains. I have fitted my two Hornby Brighton Belle units with 2 BIL motor bogie frames with NEM coupling pockets (I know the frames are not quite correct, but it is a quick, practical way to get 'multiple' operation for these multiple units!). Kadee #19 couplings were fitted, and the 10-car 'consist' posed in one of the longer loops (second from left in the photo).

Also visible are the two 4 CEP units with an MLV on the left-most track of the fiddle yard, and no less than 12 cars of class 450 units (3 x 4-car sets) on the line second from right.




After looking at one of my earlier photos it was obvious that there was a small gap in the scenery on the older part of the layout that showed some raw, white polystyrene. As I had already pre-weathered some of the brickwork used around the tunnel mouth, I was able to measure and cut some suitable sections to finish off the stairs leading up from the signal box on the lower level to what will be an access path on the upper level. This is now held in place temporarily with some mastic, as I have to paint the concrete stairs and then add handrails. I need to add a column of brickwork on the end of that right hand retaining wall, but I think it is looking half decent already, though.






Further progress with the stairs near the signal box.








This evening, I have been doing a little more tracklaying on the upper level, this time towards the front of the layout.






The Bachmann class 166 Driving coaches are acting as clearance gauges, being the widest and longest vehicles I possess.. A couple of spots are tight but they don't touch.

 

Thanks, Tom.

 

Further tracklaying on the upper level at the front of the layout. I have now put a medium radius point in after initially using a large point and adjusted the alignment, although I can see it still needs some tweaking. The points positioned in the foreground are testing the feasibility of putting a crossover just there.

 

And some further work done this morning, through to the early part of this afternoon, after which my back gave out (I have been suffering chronic back pain for over a year, and the reason was only recently revealed ... arthritis - Oh well, I'm sure a good many of you reading this also have the same problems).

I have realigned both tracks since yesterday's photo, and added the crossover. I'm not entirely happy with the crossover's reverse curve, but all other trial positions with straight and/or curved points just didn't work within the limits of my 2' radius outer curves - the Peco curved points are really nice but the outer radius is 5' and that just doesn't work here, except at the transitions into straights as I have done in this instance.

All three points on the main lines in these photos have now been dealt with to allow frog polarity switching to occur automatically with some Gaugemaster modules.

I have made up a card template to space the tracks on the curves , now, so there will be a little less trial and error for the remaining double track curves, as at the end of the layout (the next bit to be done!).






I have bought some code 75 points for the loco shed and yard area inside the end curves, and also a couple of lengths of bullhead track, so that area will appear much more lightly laid than the main lines. That's still a little way off, though.

Overall, I am pleased with my progress here. I have also been giving thought to how the next bit of wiring is going to be done, because I want to insert a couple of circuit breakers into the line before the wires reach any tracks.

 

These two photos were taken to illustrate why I dislike reverse curves. The end throws on the coaches, especially longer ones, are shown up in the second pic, while the first shows how it should ideally look all the way through the crossover (in this case - reverse curves on plain track can also show exactly the same traits). The difference? A few inches of movement of the coaches through the crossover.

 

I now have a continuous double tracked circuit! It isn't runnable - several points to be rejigged for DCC and no wiring, yet. However, one train has run under its own power on DC with some jumper leads from my programming/test track; that's how I got the class 166 around to the back crossover to illustrate how I think a crossover should appear (as mentioned earlier, I really try to avoid reverse curves if at all possible).

Anyway, here are a few more photos of my progress, with the last couple showing that back crossover.

The engine shed has been posed in the later shots in approximately the position I can see it in in my mind's eye. This may well change!












While I was doing all this, my other half was busy sewing, with some "help" from Hattie. Hattie wants to come into the train room, and will shoot in at any opportunity - I left the door open very briefly while disposing of some of the rubbish and leftover bits, and she jumped straight off the table and through the door before I could get back.

 

I have cleared some of the 'junk' off the layout now, and have been experimenting with ideas for the shed area. I did try the turntable in a position next to the running lines, with the shed further back towards the back of the layout, but I didn't like that, so have tried the arrangement in the next two photos. The tracks are overlapped to suggest points, whether they exist or not at this stage. The two tracks to the right (in the 2nd photo) of the turntable could house a couple of short EMUs or DEMUs.






I also took a couple of late night photos from the other end of the layout to show an overall view (or as near as I can get to that).

 

And here's how it is all working so far. I am deliberately using short wheelbase locomotives to test the frog powering, and sound-fitted units to see if there are any interruptions or dead spots (sound is particularly sensitive to these hiccups).

In this short video, the Model Rail 0-6-0T USA Dock Tank can be seen using both crossovers as well as traversing the entire length of my electrified track on the upper level to date.

 

Thanks guys. Sorry about the shaky camera work - it was done on my mobile phone.

 

Work has continued every day of the long weekend here, and I finally completed the essential wiring yesterday evening. Even so, a quick test revealed that I had missed two feed wires, so I had to hastily reassemble the necessary tools to do that.

Further tests have now been carried out and trains have been able to run on every loop line and through every point on the main lines - the engine and carriage sheds will come much later!

To celebrate, I had a quick tidy up of all the tools and extraneous materials along the tracksides, and cleared some trains off the layout, and assembled some suitable sets for running on Saturday, then put the video camera onto the Hattons Warwell that I bought specifically for that purpose. I have run trains in both directions, edited the footage then uploaded it to YouTube. I have a high quality cut of the video too, but the YouTube one is still a rather large file size (a warning for anyone with limited bandwidth).

Please bear in mind that some of the trackwork is still not fully aligned (a few kinks in the loop lines are evident in the video) and the viaduct lines are able to move around a bit, pending completion of all the proper Vollmer arches.

Here is the link; [media]

 

I had a quick running session today, just for videoing purposes. There are six trains running at any one time, but, as usual, Murphy's Law kicked in: all ran perfectly for a while, but the moment I started the camera, the parcels train played up by derailing one of the coaches. I removed that one, then another derailed instead, then when I had replaced that with a different coach, the locomotive derailed at a different location. That train features in some of the footage, but after that I ran the Brighton Belle instead. What this means is that while there are six trains running, seven different trains may be seen in motion during the video - I have also mixed up the order a little, just for fun!

[media]

 

As a small diversion from layout building, I did a quick build of a Parkside LNER horse box kit. It is finished except for a few very minor paint touch-ups and the transfers, which are on the way from Cambridge Custom Transfers as I type this.



LNER Horse Box with BR Horse Boxes - 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr



LNER Horse Box with BR Horse Boxes - 1 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


Also visible in those photos is my first attempt at using some static grass.

This evening I set about levelling the track over the joint between the lifting section and the fixed level near the church hill. I then tested the DJM class 71 through the track where I knew it had derailed a couple of times before, and that worked nicely. I then tested the outer track with the consisted class 450 units, which had shown a tendency to derail occasionally exiting the loops and crossing that joint. That was tried slowly at first, watching every bogie as it travelled through the points and joints, then a few high-speed runs, culminating in a flat-out run, with no mishaps at all.

After that, I enhanced the class 33 and 4 TC set (416 in plain BR blue) by adding blue and grey set 404, then propelling that around at high-speed. Once again, all went well, so I am well-satisfied with my efforts.



Class 33-1 D6520 propelling 4TC Sets 404 and 416 After High-Speed Tests - 1 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

More horse boxes! The Parkside ex-LNER one again, with a few extra paint touches, together with an ancient Lima ex-GWR version that I have just tarted up a bit. The Lima model was in BR(S) green - a livery I'm not convinced it would have worn in real life - and has had its roof upgraded with new torpedo vents and new wire end handrails (mine was missing one anyway), plus better wheels and a complete repaint into BR maroon. The original model had some strange pointy conical roof vents arranged in rows of three across. A study of some images in Google showed a variety of vent and gas/oil lamp top combinations, so I just picked one such arrangement, although I believe mine should have an extra lamp top of some sort in the middle over the groom's compartment. However, the whole thing is really a compromise that I have tried to make a little more convincing, if not actually realistic.

The underframe is not 100% accurate either, but I haven't done anything about that at this stage, except to replace the horrible oversized Lima couplings with some Parkside NEM pocket holders and Bachmann NEM pockets and couplings, and the crappy buffers (one of which was missing) with some turned brass ones that looked right to me. Probably the source of greatest dissatisfaction now is the brake blocks being in line with the 'W' irons. They are in the 'too hard' basket for now.

Anyway, enough rambling: here are a couple of photos, showing the LNER and GWR boxes together, and in the 'race special' train with the Bachmann BR mark 1 horse boxes from TMC.

LNER and GWR Horse Boxes - 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

BR and LNER and GWR Horse Boxes - 1 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr